Portraits // 6pm - 10pm

Friday, September 9th, 6pm-10pm Sip Studios

A picture of the artist surrounded by her artworks. She is wearing a green dress and has purple hair. from left to right her artwork represents the Jungle, Orchids and, an indigenous character

Sip Studios presents, Portraits- A group art exhibition exploring who we are through different mediums. There will be: photography, sculpture, drawings, and mixed media art exploring themes of portrayal and the self portrait.

There will be spoken word performances (SPECIAL GUESTS TBA) from 7:30-8:30pm

Participating Visual Artists:

Charles Rich Jr. In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be. -Mary Oliver, Upstream (2016) I don’t know exactly why I began to obsessively photograph everything around me. I used my camera to record everything that interested me-what exactly that was, I always struggled a bit to answer. I think I felt a need to somehow understand the subject and their very act of existing. With a camera I made an attempt at getting closer to others, needing to stand with the the people and things around me. Possibly, to feel less alone. Ultimately, I believe my work is a study of myself, my condition in life. I was born in Fayetteville, NC and raised and educated in Jersey City, NJ where I currently reside.

Ollie Sian Ollie Sían (FKA Alyia Sian Nathan) is a non-binary (they/he) Filipino and British poet and multidisciplinary artist. Through different mediums such as prose, ceramics, collage, fiber, and painting, they dissect memory and trauma. Symbols, color, and imagery are used to share their experiences with identity, intimacy, and the often difficult practice of vulnerability. A lack of stability, home, familial love and tenderness is often evident in Ollie’s work, as well as a tension between two separate halves and cultures that don’t ever converge but only coexist. Both their written work and artwork are windows into their point of view - how Alyia Sian Nathan became Ollie Sían; a reclamation of autonomy; a study on childhood, nostalgia, the uncertainty of human connection, and those caught in the crossfire of gendered societal norms regarding emotion, connection, love and yearning, and loss.

Slavko Juric (b.1979, Yugoslavia) is a multidisciplinary artist trained in printmaking under the mentorship of prof. Zoran Marjanovic at the University of Art in Pristina, Serbia. His practice spans from drawing and photography to artist books and site specific installations. In recent work he explores the interchangeable and fluctuating structures of artist books. Their immersive and sculptural nature emphasizes a participatory character to connect and to bond with the audience.

Rachel Therres Rachel Therres is an artist educator, living and creating in Jersey City. She can often be found filling her sketchbooks with watercolors everywhere she goes. She works primarily in mixed media, using texture and imagery to explore themes of growth, loss, childhood, and gender. Through the process of layering, she is reverse excavating meaning and texture. Her work has been featured in both galleries and print publications, such as BSB Gallery, Barrow Mansion, Merseles Gallery, and the cover of NYSAI magazine. She spent many years as an active part of the spoken word poetry scene, competing on three National slam teams in addition to working as an organizer and grant writer in both New York City and Rockland County. Rachel will forever be a Baltimore girl. She believes in art, poetry, and community.

Regina Ruff Her work rearranges the order of things by juxtaposing familiar earthy imagery such as: color gradients formed by a sunset, aerial views of the earth, and pooling bodies of water with formal concepts. Within her paintings, the abstract geometric fields serve to disrupt the illusionistic backgrounds. Her work is meant to hover between the familiar and unfamiliar; they suggest unstable and curious spaces where the distinction between atmospheric depths, architecture, the sky, and everyday materials have dissolved.

Participating Poets:

*Spoken word- 7:30-8:30pm*

Eric Alter Rachel Therres Kimberly Foytlin Regina Ruff Special Guests TBA

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