A time of great uncertainty punctuated by more uncertainty.

Artists plunge into work with new questions, stirred by isolation, a confrontation of our humanness, foggy memories of what came before.

Coming into the second year of vast communal separation, we find subtle connections between a dispersed but synonymous experience.

May we look for any brightness peeking in, whether it a glimpse or a clear cascade.

Please email Gallery@makeshiftartspace.org for all sales inquires.

Lee Sawyer

Artist Statement/Bio:

My art is focused on the oft-contradictory feelings of being perceived by oneself and others.

A desire to be seen, loved, and supported. A fear of being inadequate, seen through, or misconstrued. Our masks, used to hide from perception obscure ourselves and sometimes they become so multi-layered that even self reflection feels like looking through clouded windows. Masks reveal just as much about ourselves and what we think our place in society should be.

My aim with these pieces is to examine a dichotomy of desiring and abhorring perception of the self. Whether it is an act of self reflection or opening oneself up to be viewed by others, there is a fear laced craving in being seen. That fear arises partially from a past year of physical and often emotional isolation from the pandemic. It also may seep from the dissonance experienced in the various layers of masks worn by ourselves to function in different versions of ourself online, at work, with our loved ones, and alone.

Lee is a Bellingham based artist and full time case manager for disabled adults facing housing instability/homelessness. She is a primarily self taught artist with an insatiable urge to draw the human form. Painting her loved ones and herself helps the artist to better comprehend her feelings surrounding them. Her most recent art pieces capture Lee's anxiety around isolation, self-sabotage, and death- with a disarrayed mixed media of glass, glue, and acrylic.

Lee Sawyer (she/her)
**“Her fear of death and higher powers”**
*Acrylic, glass, glitter, and glue on canvas*
15" by 29.5"
2021
$100
@lunar.lee.art & lunarlee.art

Lee Sawyer (she/her)
**“Her fear of death and higher powers”** (detail)
*Acrylic, glass, glitter, and glue on canvas*
15" by 29.5"
2021
$100
@lunar.lee.art & lunarlee.art

Sophia Lindstrom

Artist Bio/Statement:

I'm a female, Neurodivergent artist based in Bellingham, Washington. My work focuses on visual thoughts: that I have thought through-out the day. Thoughts I have from walking home after long days in the Western Washington University art studios too trying to fall asleep at night while my brain will not turn off. These thoughts include questions about human connection, society’s reactions to death, and the natural world we are connected to. I am traditionally more of a painter, thanks to my artistic grandmother who inspired me to paint. Currently, I have been painting and using mix media elements to create various narratives about my thoughts. I’m leaning into making more graphic details to depict my thoughts.

My current work explores ideas of changed memories, especially due to covid. In recent times, the way I have interacted with society during the pandemic has affected the way I have been looking at the past. Since covid has started, I have been looking into the recent past (1970-2000) a lot more than normal. Reflecting on my new worldview has been affecting my views of the past, where we did not social distance or wear masks. The ways we interact as society has totally shifted. Yet, I change them as I think about them over and over, changing the memory. The current work is based on found photos of families and people I do not know. I have drawn on top of photographs, to place my thoughts and my reaction to them in the past with the current world view. Then I take these changed imagines and paint them. I want to react to situations while keeping them anonymous. Looking at these images strikes me in the way life used to be, with having Christmas as family's or the type of gathering, with lack of face covering. To illustrate my thoughts and my reaction to them in the past with the current world view.

@sophial.lindstrom.art

**Sophia Lindstrom**
**“Recalling a memory more often makes that memory less accurate, and that every time you take a memory off the shelf in your brain, you put it back just a tiny bit different”**
*Acrylic paint, resin, posca pen*
16 x 24
2021
NFS

**Sophia Lindstrom**
**“False memory changes us”**
*Acrylic paint, resin, posca pen*
16 x 24
2021
NFS

Matthew James Manowski

Artist Statement:

What I’ve realized, in my concerns with art making, is the way spontaneity blooms or emerges when the ingredients and or/conditions are just so. The process never changes; I collect images or sounds and arrange them in a way without a single idea of the entirety or whole. Cameras are helpful, recording are devices essential. And, this method feels to me like the most authentic way to express a feeling or place a signpost along my path. Even in regards to changing mediums, I let the piece emerge from it’s origin, someplace, that we can never know. This last sentence is the most important for artists: a place we cannot know, though it exists.

About the works featured:

The videos are a culmination and group-led effort from the EchoFluxx Ensemble.

Three videos continuously looped:

1.) Resonate World Micro-Charting Tomorrow 6.0

2.) Version Chemistry 01001110

3.) Zu_Zebalon Remix Vol 3.

These pieces were recorded as the pandemic took hold in the early months of 2021 and into the subsequent summer. They feature: instrumentation, images, voice, and movement that was almost entirely executed without predetermination or arrangement. The post-editing was done by Matthew Manowski. The impetus behind these works was the untimely cancelation of the annual EchoFluxx Experimental Media Festival located in Prague, CZ. It was with due diligence and accord to continue the work that may have been featured if not for a global pandemic. Though the festival resumed in 2021. Given unique circumstances innovative and unique works were possible, using ingenuity and technology.

My thanks to: David Means, Mary Garvie, Michael Karman, Georgia Stephens, Jon Spayde, John Franzen, Gil Gragert, Oskar Kubica, Dan Senn and Tom Kanthak for their contributions. These pieces would not have been possible without them.

**Matthew James Manowski** (he/his)
**"Our Collective Energy Made Us Whole, Again. (Zu_Zebalon Remix Vol 3.)”** *(Video still)*
*Video, Camera(s), Trumpet, Birds, Synthesizer, Voice, Plants, Bells, Guitar, Wood Objects, Fresh Air*
Duration - 33m 12s
2020 & 2021
NFS

Bio:

Matthew James Manowski (b. Wisconsin, 1981) is currently a Seattle-based artist working with painting, video, photography, performance, sound and installation. Manowski’s work focuses in on a variety of topics ranging from ecology, to surrealism, history, memory, sociology and the abstract in forms that are just as varied. These forms may include but are not limited to: modular (remote) collaborations, public performances, painting and sound art experiments.

Manowski performed individually, presenting the piece “Object 2” at the 12th Century Castello de Evoramonte in Portugal in 2017. Manowski has also been exhibited internationally, performing the piece “Light Matter While I’m Here” (2019) at Kvaka 22 in Belgrade, Serbia. He has collaborated with the French print maker Gäelle Pellachaud for exhibition in Portugal for the piece “Áureas (Refleçcoes duma Segonha)” (2018). Manowski was also a contributing artist for the Strange Attractor’s Festival (founded by composer David Means) combining performance and installation for the piece “Medicine Plants/Medicine People” (2012) and “All Souls Day” (2012) with Johnny Rodruiguez. He is the founder of the national, Sources of Light Festival featuring experimental composers and has been exhibited in Seattle, Chicago and Denver. In addition, Manowski was a key contributor for the Mozawa piece (directed by Matthew Ozawa) “A Dream Play” (2017) after securing a High Concept Laboratories sponsorship. He was both a performing artist and the Sound Director for the piece.

Manowski currently works with the international EchoFluxx Ensemble as both the Technical Editor and musical collaborator. Recently he remixed both the video and audio for Georgia Stephen’s piece “Zu Zebalon” (2020-2021) with numerous variations. The work of the EchoFluxx Ensemble has been exhibited in Prague for the Echofluxx Festival and in 2019, the EchoFluxx Ensemble premiered the experimental opera, “Perfect”. The piece was directed and performed by David Means (and cohort), libretto written by Michael Karman. In 2021 Manowski will have two video pieces exhibited for the EchoFluxx festival, featuring works that span collaborative sound experiments and the narrative-driven piece(s) Zu_Zebalon 3.

Matthew Manowski earned his B.A. in Sociology and Intermedia Arts from Metropolitan State University (Saint Paul, MN) in 2010 and earned his MFA in Arts Leadership from Seattle University in 2015. He has since has worked in numerous cultural and art administrative positions including: Development Associate (2014) Henry Art Gallery, Director of Development (2015-2017) Mozawa, Director of Programs (2018) Zeppelin Station. He is the sole organizer behind the Sources of Light Festivals (2015-current), planning for the 4th installment in summer 2022. He has also held numerous art-residencies including: Chicago-based Comfort Station (2017) where he produced the month-long series Abstr/Action and Senses I-V, Belgrade, Serbia and Estremoz, Portugal.

Matthew Manowski has been a hospitality professional for numerous years, working in restaurants and bars across the U.S. serving the public and remaining connected to the food and beverage scene. He is currently the Bar Manager at Herb and Bitter on Capital Hill, Seattle.

Times of Uncertainty with Brightness Peeking In