Make.shift's virtual gallery is proud to present "RECKLESS ABANDON", a collection of artists whose work visually indulges us in movement and full-swing, free rein paintings.
Join us in viewing work from:
Kyle Confehr: Kyle is an ambidextrous artist, designer and friend based in Philadelphia, PA. He grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and spent most of his childhood on a skateboard, playing video games or drawing. As a product of the 90’s, Kyle creates work that blurs the lines between graffiti and doodles, weaving nostalgia and satire together.
Estelle Kael: I am a disabled agender artist and musician, currently living in auburn, WA. I front a noise pop band called BLOOM, and play my own songs under HARMONY CHLORINE, and I live and breathe art. it is all I am here for, and I would like to share it with the world and encourage every single person to create with a reckless abandon, to look at the world with a child's eyes, and to believe that anything is possible, no matter the barriers, no matter the boundaries, no matter who you are. Art makes the world go round, and I'm just trying to make a living with it.
Athena Rigas: Athena is a painter and mixed media artist born and raised in New York City. A synesthetic, the artist’s senses overlap and even the most mundane of activities can become a sensory overload. She is obsessed with patterns and is drawn to the same folk patterns on textiles and objects that she absorbed in domestic spaces growing up first-generation Greek American. Painting and drawing are very physical and bodily processes for the artist. Athena translates the different colors, sounds, energies, and patterns she has visions of: from her head to her hands, and from her hands to her work. Different energies have different effects even on the ways on which the artist's application of paint to the surface, some make her hands start to tremble.
Garric Simonsen: Simonsen’s artwork captures situations both strange and poetic. Content serves a semiotic function and is obtained through actual events or scouring a large collection of turn-of-the-century Pacific Northwest photography left by his Swedish maternal grandparents.
Garric’s artistic research is rooted in Pacific Northwest history, yet it pulls away from realism, using abstraction to focus on artifact and the qualities of object and image.
Emily Somoskey: My work gives form to the complexity, instability, and enigmatic nature of our lived experiences. Through these mixed media paintings, I explore the simultaneity between the actual and the psychological, the material and the immaterial, the visible and that which lies beyond sight. These works take a look at the connections between play and risk, joy and anxiety, and how we navigate the familiar, respond to the unknown, as well as how these feelings speak more broadly about the complexity of what it means to be human.
Garric Simonsen
“Clothes Line”
Oil based media on wood panel
24”x24”
2017
NFS
Emily Somoskey (she/her)
“Fortify”
Mixed media on canvas
42” x 42”
NFS
2020
Garric Simonsen
“The Wind Storm”
Acrylic on wood panel
30”x32”
2020
NFS
Emily Somoskey (she/her)
“Out of Reach”
Graphite, acrylic, oil and collaged digital prints on paper
30” x 22”
NFS
2021
Garric Simonsen
“Snoglobe”
Oil based media and wax on wood panel
4’x4’
2019
$2500 (Contact: Gallery@Makeshiftproject.com)
Kyle Confehr (He/Him)
“Pineapple Face”
Mixed media, spray paint, and, paint markers on Bristol.
9” x 12"
$200 (Contact: Gallery@Makeshiftproject.com)
2021
Athena Rigas
"Burning Down The House"
18 in x 24 in
Acrylic on paper
2021
$400 (Contact: Gallery@Makeshiftproject.com)
Athena Rigas
“Two And A Half Men"
Markers on paper
12 in x 18 in
$400 (Contact: Gallery@Makeshiftproject.com)
2020
Emily Somoskey (she/her)
“Separation”
Graphite, acrylic, oil and collaged digital prints on paper,
30” x 22”
NFS
2021
Emily Somoskey (she/her)
“Plunge”
Mixed media on canvas
42” x 42”
$600 (Contact: Gallery@Makeshiftproject.com)
2020
Kyle Confehr (He/Him)
“Rainbow Tongue”
Mixed media, spray paint, and, paint markers on Bristol.
9” x 12"
$200 (Contact: Gallery@Makeshiftproject.com)
2021
Emily Somoskey (she/her)
“Balancing Act”
Mixed media on canvas
24” x 24”
2020
NFS
Kyle Confehr (He/Him)
“Sword Mouth”
Mixed media, spray paint, and, paint markers on Bristol.
9” x 12"
$200 (Contact: Gallery@Makeshiftproject.com)
2021
-CONTENT WARNING: THE IMAGE BELOW CONTAINS AND CONFRONTS HOMOPHOBIC SLURS.
Estelle Kael (They/them)
"Untitled work #1: whats on tv tonight?"
Acrylic/spraypaint/squeezer
3ft x 2ft aluminum sheeting. (has holes for easy mounting, no frame)
$350 (Contact: Gallery@Makeshiftproject.com)
2020-2021 1:1, however, first in a series.
Emily Somoskey (she/her)
“Chrysalis”
Mixed media on canvas
24” x 36”
NFS
2020
Garric Simonsen
“Rainbows Last Forever”
Oil and wax with Copic marker on wood panel
28’x34’
Year 2020
NFS
Athena Rigas
“One Big Room Full Of Bad Itches"
Oil on canvas
60 in x 48 in total (60 in x 24 in each half)
2021
$5,000 (Contact: Gallery@Makeshiftproject.com)
Garric Simonsen
“Darlin’”
Oil based media and wax on wood panel
40”X30”
2019
NFS
Athena Rigas
“Why Is It So Hard To Accept the Pool Party is Over?"
Oil on canvas
16 in x 20 in
2021
NFS
ARTIST BIOS and STATEMENTS
Emily Somoskey is a 2-D mixed media artist and painter from Northeast Ohio. She pursued a BA in Art Education/Painting at The University of Akron in Akron, OH (2013) and her MFA at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, MI (2020). Emily is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in Painting at Whitman College, in Walla Walla, WA.
Emily’s mixed-media paintings use representational and abstract methods to explore the ways we simultaneously experience physical and mental space. On a material level, her work is largely built through layering paint and various forms of photographic imagery. These disparate mediums collectively create a complex and nuanced language that weave together moments of clarity and ambiguity. Through her work she references the shifting and overlapping nature of our experience with the sensate and psychological realms; giving form to the complexity, instability, and enigmatic nature of our lived experiences.
Artist Statement: At its core, my work examines liminality and periods of transition: physical or metaphorical spaces that don’t quite feel settled. Through the use of recognizable structures and symbols, my work offers the illusion of security, using playfulness, novelty and imagination to subvert, or even generate, feelings of tension. Recognizable subject matter surfaces amidst an expanse of abstraction, alluding to both the banality and mystery of the day-to-day. These works take a look at how we navigate the familiar, respond to the unknown, as well as how these feelings speak more broadly about the complexity of what it means to be human.
Social Media:
www.emilysomoskey.com
IG: @emsomoskey
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Kyle Confehr is a multi-disciplinary artist and designer based in Philadelphia, PA. Kyle’s work blends illustration and graffiti into images evoking positivity, nostalgia and spontaneity.
Kyle primarily works with high saturating inks and aerosols to create incredibly dense compositions made from iconography that’s been absorbed over Kyle’s time in the creative industry.
Kyle’s work has been all over the US in various forms; exhibitions, designs and public installations.
He lives with his boston terrier Oswald and his partner Meaghan in a small apartment in West Philadelphia where he creates the majority of his
Artist Statement: Kyle is an ambidextrous artist, designer and friend based out of Philadelphia, PA. His work blurs the lines between art and graffiti by weaving nostalgia, humor, and personal experience into densely ornate pieces. Kyle’s work can be seen around Philadelphia at the Philadelphia International Airport, Neighborhood Ramen, The Fillmore and HoneyGrow to name a few.
Growing up in Northeast Philadelphia, Kyle spent most of his days on a skateboard, in art classes or playing video games.
Social Media:
IG: @kyle_confehr
Twitter: @kconfehr
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Athena Rigas is a maker born and raised in New York City. A synesthetic, the artist’s senses overlap and even the most mundane of activities can become a rich sensory overload. The artist is obsessed with patterns, and is drawn to the same folk patterns, textiles, and objects that she absorbed in domestic spaces growing up first-generation American in a family of Greek immigrants. By bringing together so many different cultural signifiers, Athena Rigas's vision digests the spectator into domestic chaos. This notion of “in-between” manifests into the artist's use of objectification and how a painting can be both human and object.
Artist Statement: A synesthetic, Athena Rigas taps into the rich world of the vernacular and turns it into a bodily regurgitation of domestic expectations and rituals. When painting people, the artist channels all of her senses; what the person tastes, feels, sounds, or smells like, instead of relying solely on sight. Where there are no patterns she seeks them out and manifests them. Patterns repeat themselves. The artist uses patterns to illustrate the repetitive nature of both domestic settings and the behaviors of her subjects. Patterns in behavior within domestic settings are formed around our rituals with objects in domestic spaces. The artist works with found objects to create both paintings of people on, and also paints directly on domestic objects to create a sense of home wherever she is.
Social Media:
IG @THATSSORIGAS
https://www.ATHENARIGAS.com
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Estelle Kael : I am a disabled agender artist and musician, currently living in auburn, WA. I front a noise pop band called BLOOM, and play my own songs under HARMONY CHLORINE, and I live breathe art. it is all I am here for, and I would like to share it with the world and encourage every single person to create with a reckless abandon, to look at the world with a child's eyes, and to believe that anything is possible, no matter the barriers, no matter the boundaries, no matter who you are. Art makes the world go round, and I'm just trying to make a living with it.
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Garric Simonsen (b. 1975, Spokane, WA) has shown at Bellevue Arts Museum, Jundt Art Museum, Boston Center for the Arts, Platform Gallery, Seattle University, Eastern Washington University, University of Wisconsin Madison and the 2010 Brucennial (NY, NY).
Other achievements include 2012 and 2014 nominations for Portland Art Museum’s Contemporary Northwest Art Awards.
Reviews and publications of Simonsen’s work are included in; The New Yorker, The Stranger, Seattle Weekly and Art Collector Magazine. Simonsen has also guest written for Hyperallergic art blog in Brooklyn, NY. Projects have been funded and awarded grants from the Vermont Studio Center and The James and Janie Washington Foundation.
Garric has two child age girls. He is tenured art faculty at Spokane Falls Community College teaching drawing, painting and art history. In addition, he and his partner manage rehabilitation projects at the family's properties in Spokane's historic South Hill neighborhoods.