CURRENT EXHIBITION

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Building Houses in Our Homes 
An Exhibition of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) Alumni, produced by Sophie Brenneman and curated by Kate McCammon 

Steve Basel 
Sophie Brenneman 
Emily Elliott 
Kate McCammon
Seth Madden 
Dave Pettengill 

On view June 13th - July 6th 2019
Opening Reception: June 13th, 6-9pm

PAFA Alum Sophie Brenneman wrote a poem entitled Static, which acts as a catalyst for uniting the various investigations of space and structure in this diverse exhibition Building Houses in Our Homes.  This body of work reconsiders the familiar, even comfortable, notions of house and home.  The works included in this show allude to isolation, whether by referencing the inaccessibility of human-to-human interaction as a result of the virtual houses we build and inhabit, or by imaging the body-as-house and the psychological impacts contained therein.  Is our impulse to build a structure within an existing one an exercise in closing ourselves in; an act of voluntary isolation for self-preservation?  Do we build to evoke the illusion of control, or are these our attempts to curate a semblance of what home once was?

Static
There are no
channels on
TV screens anymore,
we’re just watching
sad commercials loop
and holding
our own hands.

We know nothing
is free of meaning
anymore, meaning
we’re just withering
and withouting,
building houses
in our homes.

There are no
outsides in
our daytimes anymore,
we’re just crying
into alphabet soup,
listing regrets in noodle letters.