"The Body's Guest" at Studio 9D

James Parker Foley (b. 1993) grew up in New Hampshire, playing in the woods, scrambling on rocks, and falling into frog ponds. He earned his BA in Environmental Humanities at Sterling College in Vermont (2015) and his MFA from Maine College of Art (2020). His large, colorful paintings of purse-ladies have been recently exhibited at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, New System Exhibitions, Katzman Contemporary Projects, and Northern Daughters. James has taught art and ecology to students of all ages and abilities, and maintains an active studio practice in Portland, ME. He is represented in New England by Sarah Bouchard Gallery.

Carol Radsprecher is a Brooklyn-based painter and digital printmaker. She earned her MFA in painting from Hunter College, CUNY, in 1988. Her work has appeared in several solo shows and numerous group shows and has been published in many publications. Distortion of the human figure is a key element in her work. These distorted representations of the figure interact with abstract areas in a confined space. Most of her figures are representations of the female figure — one of the first landscapes we see as we enter the world.

Farwah Rizvi uses her imagination to experiment with a wide array of mediums and a rich milieu of expressions; her practice includes water-based art on the one hand and oil paintings on the other. Based heavily on the story telling mode, Rizvi's paintings surface on wood, paper, linen and cotton canvas, silk, glass etc. Rizvi sees her work as a collaboration between herself and the miniature artists of the Mughal era. Her work, which draws inspiration from Persian,Indian and Mughal miniatures, predominantly revolves around the notion of demons and what they represent to each one of us, therefore creating an experience that is interpreted at the viewers' own level of reality. Rizvi plays with the visual tradition's scale, imagery, medium, and context to create a transformative sense of cohesion through juxtaposition. In almost all her artwork, her husband is shown as her “Muse." This is perhaps a way to express her deepest darkest desires which she might not be able to address openly or it is also likely that she sometimes uses the image of her husband to simply draw wit and humor in her works. However, the prominence of Rizvi's work is shown in the way she manages to achieve confluence between two completely different and unique cultures by taking elements from the two and placing them together in a single frame.

Alexandra Rutsch Brock is an artist, independent curator and educator. Her current series of ceramic work combines all of her past practices of painting, drawing, etching and sculpture. Her recent curation was titled “Dear March” at Birdhouse Brooklyn. She has been teaching at New Rochelle High School since 1991.

Nikki Schiro is a native New York Artist with an MFA from Hunter college. She has exhibited extensively in galleries, museums, non-profit and alternative spaces, both home and abroad. She has been extraordinarily interested in the ‘human condition’ since her earliest memories. Her art is, on some level, a visual diary of her exploration of that subject. Schiro's newest body of work is sparked by the yearning for reconnection. It consists of paintings and sculpture and seems to reflect and transcend a spiritual journey. She often works around a central figure called la Matta, who is attempting to ‘let go’ of a manufactured version of reality and perceive true form and self. These imaginative, whimsical artworks reintroduce ancient, mystical and alchemical principles that, as symbols, slip past cognitive dissonance, liberating the viewer’s experience.

Carter Shocket (he/him) is a trans and queer fiber and textile artist from North Carolina living and working in Brooklyn, New York. His work investigates trans time, memory, and healing. He uses recycled and found materials, collected natural dyes, and objects with personal histories. Through weaving, quilting, and sewing materials together, he composts stories and old utility to create new meaning and artistic experiences. In addition to his practice he also manages and curates with Eleventh Hour Art, a new gallery and working studio space in Brooklyn, New York.

Remy Sosa learned to observe; looking farther than appearances and into behavior that people hide from the world. She looks at making work like a puzzle with no rules, like breaking things apart and putting them back together the wrong way. Sosa's work is a sum of the words that she doesn't speak.

Oakley Tapola is a painting-based, multimedia artist working at the intersection of portraiture and sculpture. Her work comes out of the interweaving and exploration of three primary focuses: her personal experiences / dream analysis, ecological observations and science fiction narratives that reflect and analyze our present reality. The motifs and sculptural forms that she employs in her practice are equally inspired by these themes. She take photographs of the people in her life and physical surroundings and integrates those images as source material into her paintings. Tapola lives and works in Queens, NY.

Carrie Wilmarth makes work about the concept of the self and how we construct, impose and experience its boundaries. Through painting and drawing Wilmarth explores the material and psychological nature of these edges. Often depicting moments of coming together, or dreaming alone, they are interested in the ways our understanding of the self defines our relationships and how a world built on the fallacy of its stability has generated modes of desire that are often fleeting and unsatisfactory. Carrie Wilmarth is an artist from Virginia who currently lives and works in Irvine, California. They hold a degree in Philosophy from Mount Holyoke College and studied painting and printmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They have exhibited work at The Java Project in New York, the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative in Chicago, and the Goodwin Galleries in Virginia. Most recently they have been included in group shows with Tussle Projects and Manifold Global.

John Wright ii is an artist based in Crete, Illinois. Within experiencing himself, his own thoughts, and the experiences and thoughts around him, self home parallel to environment, he’s taken the time to sit back and try to live calmly or openly while still trying to adapt or be present to what is presented at any and every moment. He affirms that Art is life and everything is a reflection from different time stamps of cognitive attributes and anxiety from past events, and fixation of future events, rather than being present. He’s taken the time to realize this is how most of any and every problem has and continues to arise within the concept of transformative love and loving. Within his work in the past and as of now, he loves capturing moments or concepts from ideas, voices and family. He embodies the understanding of what these moments feel like within being present, or being present knowing there's an outside existing space of non-presence or anxiety, in order to still be open minded and love through progression and thought.