Permutations

works by Daniel Hojnacki & Jess Merritt

August 15 – September 28

Free & open to the public

GALLERY HOURS

The Encore Gallery is open during events and by appointments.

ABOUT THE SHOW

Permutations features deeply personal work that explores the intersection of self, identity, landscape, and time through alternative processes in photography, painting, and sculptural installation.

ARTIST STATEMENTS & BIOS

Daniel Hojnacki

Statement

“Using a 19th century photographic printing technique called “cliché-verre”, I apply smoke soot from an oil lamp flame and frost to sheets of glass that are then drawn upon using my body and found elements within the natural world. These records become my negatives which are then contact printed onto photosensitized paper. Brief and transitory passages of time are able to be stilled and captured, offering an invitation to slow down and speculate on the quietness of the fleeting natural landscape and body.

Delicate, volatile touches which at first look like charcoal drawings or frottage, are actually photographic impressions of the wind, rain and my breath. Questioning how photography can be less a direct mechanical record, but one that is generated through feeling and poetic sensory experience. I then wipe away the soot and ink of the negative plate used in the process, layer upon it, and re-expose it multiple times. Creating momentary acts of suspension and vessels for keeping time. They are a proof of life in constant motion, momentarily paused.” http://danielhojnacki.com/

Bio

Daniel Hojnacki (b.1989) received his MFA from the University of New Mexico in 2022 and a BA from Columbia College Chicago 2011. He is a recipient of the Penumbra Foundation Workspace Artist-In-Residence, The Patrick Nagatani Photography Scholarship, The Phyllis Muth Arts Award, among other honors. He has exhibited work at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, University of New Mexico Art Museum, and the Chicago Cultural Center.  His work has been featured in Aint-Bad, Pamplemousse Magazine and Southwest Contemporary Magazine. He is represented by 203 Fine Art in Taos, NM, and he currently lives and works in Chicago, IL.

Featured work:

Daniel Hojnacki

“A Time Piece”

Unique silver gelatin print

16 x 20in

2022

Jess Merritt

Statement

My work explores the interconnectedness of how the landscape one inhabits influences trauma processing and identity formation, while also exploring the “Querencia” of New Mexico’s landscapes. For those unfamiliar with the term, “Querencia” is the place where one feels most secure, gains the strength of their character, and feels at home. Through my work I use the beauty of New Mexico’s land and cityscapes, and the strength that I draw from them, as metaphors for mapping the narrative of my personal journey to process and overcome trauma. I have Complex PTSD and use a combination of landscape imagery and abstractions to represent the challenges, successes, and sometimes disorienting views of the world associated with the condition. Each paper sculpture is a facet of an actual location in the NM landscape, but also a small facet of the state’s identity and an influence on mine.

I form personal bonds with the land that I inhabit. Those landscapes become active participants in the pivotal moments of my life… they become the foundations on which me and my loved ones have gathered, they are a companion through stressful times, they provide a source of healing, they offer lessons on resilience through the passage of time, and the concept of the beauty found through changes in physical state. Alternatively, some landscapes become the embodiment of challenges and stressful states that I have yet to overcome and others, unfortunately, actively validate past traumas.” www.jessmerritt.com

Bio

Jess Merritt (b. 1980) is a multidisciplinary artist, who originally received a degree in fine art photography in the 1990s, and now has expanded to utilize a multimedia approach with which to explore and engage with the world around her.  She focuses on exploring and mapping the narrative of how identity changes as it passes through contemporary southwestern landscapes and liminal spaces, balancing the juxtaposition between landscapes/cityscapes, dream states/physical locations, and hope/loss.

Her media of choice are pinhole photography, watercolor paintings, and 3-dimensional paper forms and installations created using both mediums. She combines her love of pinhole photography with urban exploration and backcountry solo hiking, transporting her handmade cardboard camera with her as she explores badlands, canyons, and man-made concrete labyrinths. The sights documented on her wanderings frequently reoccur as elements of her paintings, mobiles, dioramas and paper sculptures, all of which meet at the intersection between abstraction and surrealism. Jess’ works have been exhibited nationally.

Featured work:

Partial “Identity Facet” Installation

Mixed media installation

4 x 6ft

2024