Nostalgia is a profound filter on our memories and images of the past. It is a manipulation of history, and a distillation of our emotional responses to a wide range of events, people, and contexts. Our works explore different American nostalgic threads and intersect at a critical inquiry into the generative potential of nostalgia. Through rigorous material translations, we build, dismantle, and distort nostalgic imagery, often finding ways to abstract a familiar image through its own structure. As the material itself becomes the armature for abstraction, we aim to twist wistfulness and melancholy into something that can be turned on its head

Katey Crews‘ work explores the relationship between nostalgia and propaganda, drawing on the manipulative nature of historic imagery. She aims to harness the pleasures of nostalgia to pull viewers into tactile assemblages that echo her thoughts on American politics and culture. By brushing, unraveling, and cutting through layers of fabric, she makes a pointed visual argument to articulate her sense of political frustration.

Kate Nartker confronts nostalgia by investigating our attachment to remnants from the past. Drawing on a collection of videos shot by her dad, she reclaims this documentation to create fragmented, animated fictions. She dismantles footage, renders out frozen stills, and weaves the images on a Jacquard loom. Her laborious process carries an eerie sense of obsessive preservation, as if these little animations were the only remnants of an otherwise vanished past.

When the work comes together, a sense of personal and patriotic nostalgia intertwine. Collective memories of Americana surface, and a new overarching narrative emerges. Through broken threads and animated cloth, the notion of the mediated image is brought to the forefront. We aim to broaden our material strategies to create a new body of work that builds on and emphasizes these connections.

Opening Friday, August 8
Artist Talk: 6 pm
Reception: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Zombie Bob’s Pizza will be on site, and we’ll be serving beer inside, special thanks to Holy City Brewing and Charleston Beer Exchange!

Cavalcade of Color will open concurrently with Tease It Out, on view in the Conolly Gallery. Local muralist and street artist Patch Whisky and newcomer Justin Runfola will take over the Conolly Gallery in this first invitational exhibition.