Exhibition | Portland Show

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11th Biennial Portland Show
Greenhut Galleries
April 7 – May 28, 2022

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 9 from 1-3 pm (EST)

Participating artists: Chris Beneman, Matt Blackwell, Mary Bourke, Gary Buch, Brian Chu, Thomas Connolly, Sandi Donnelly, Tom Flanagan, Linden Frederick, Philip Frey, Kathleen Galligan, Tom Glover, Alison Goodwin, Abe Goodale, Roy Germon, Frank Gregory, Tom Hall, Lindsay Hancock, Celeste Henriquez, Maret Hensick,Thomas Higgins, Lissa Hunter, Tina Ingraham, Hilary Irons, William Irvine, Penelope Jones, Sarah Knock, Margaret Lawrence, C Michael Lewis, Don Matson, Dean McCrillis, Erin McGee Ferrell, Nancy Morgan Barnes, Colin Page, Tom Paiement, Liz Prescott, Shannon Rankin, Alison Rector, Alec Richardson, Kathleen Robbins, Jenny Scheu, Kathi Smith, Alice Spencer, Sean Ware, Holden Willard, Richard Wilson

For more information
Greenhut Galleries
146 Middle St, Portland, ME 04101
(207) 772-2693

Image: Circumvent, 2022, handcut, layered printed maps on paper, 9 x 6 1/2 inches
PRIVATE COLLECTION

Commission | Flowers of Life

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‘Flowers of Life’ | Participating Artists: Loutje Hoekstra, Philippe Stella, Angu Walters, Polly Verity, Alice Walton, Sam Chirnside, Tatianna Filidonos, Michael Hutter, Director Jacq, Shannon Rankin, Wang Ge, Marisa Papen + Michael Chichi

Earth Family commissioned a group of 13 international artists to produce a collection of interpretations. “By gathering these different visions and distinct lenses we aspire to push this vital cultural conversation forward & transform our beliefs around the vagina.” - Marisa Papen and Michael Chichi

Learn More

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‘Flowers of Life’ is available for sale as a limited edition set of 13 art prints/calendar and a book/manifesto.

Prints / Moon Calendar
The calendar is based on the 13 Moon Calendar, which we see as a beautiful and natural re-framing of time. We also included the bridge to the Gregorian calendar, so it can still be used in the practical sense. However conceptually it’s designed to amplify the cyclical theme of life.

Book
This thoughtfully designed manifesto contains all 13 art prints from the series, artist statements, philosophical musings, scientific studies, poems, essays, illustrations, photography & more.

With writing by :
Daniel Coffeen, Marisa Papen, Loutje Hoekstra, The Law of Time, Dr. Subba Roa and more.

Visit the Earth Family Shop

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I chose to participate in this important project because it is time to move beyond the limiting beliefs surrounding the feminine. Over the years, I have connected to the ‘Flower of Life’ symbolism in various ways including creating a large-scale map installation, composed of sacred geometry using the Vesica Piscis - the intersection of two circles refers to the pairing of two worlds; the sacred and earthly.

For this project, I created four ‘Flower of Life’ interpretations using layers of hand-cut and stippled vellum. These works evolved out of my Simpling Series.

These explorations refer to seeds, flowers and fruit; and have an emotional undertone and an indication of sexuality. They capture the essence of fertilization and reproduction; and celebrate the wonders of nature and the female body. The sacred symbolism of the ‘Flower of Life’ in all forms represents pure potential, rebirth, growth and emergence.

Exhibition | Counter Mapping

516 ARTS | Counter Mapping
October 16, 2021 – January 22, 2022

516 ARTS presents Counter Mapping, a group exhibition and series of public programs focusing on map-related artworks by 14 local, national, and international artists and art collectives. Co-curated by Viola Arduini and Jim Enote (Zuni Pueblo), the exhibition engages with geography, identity, politics, and the environment through painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation. “Counter mapping” is a practice of mapping against dominant power structures to reclaim stories and memories of place.

This exhibition is inspired in part by Jim Enote’s work on a counter mapping project he led for the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center at Zuni Pueblo, where he invited several Zuni artists to create maps of the region from a Zuni perspective. He says “It has been said by many that more lands have been lost to Native people through mapping than through physical conflicts.” 

Counter Mapping springs from a time when maps have acquired a central presence in our lives. From election maps, to color-coded data collection on the Covid-19 pandemic, maps have become a familiar and often contested visual language. The exhibition challenges the common idea of maps as objective and universal tools for geographical knowledge. Conventional Western mapping has been historically used to track, register, and achieve land exploitation. Today, with processes such as gerrymandering, mapping performs an important role in political, social, and cultural systems. This exhibition investigates how different ways of tracking and mapping affect the meanings and perceptions of places, and reflect upon the power structures that define those views. 

The co-curators of Counter Mapping examine diverging approaches to mapping from their own experiences – Jim Enote as an Indigenous leader, activist and farmer, and Viola Arduini as an immigrant and educator. 

They have included work by artists Val Britton (Portland, OR), Felipe Castelblanco (Colombia/Switzerland), Cortney Metzger (Osage - Albuquerque, NM), Shannon Rankin (Roswell, NM), Jamie Robertson (Huston, TX), Ana Serrano (Portland, OR), UglyJerry, Steven Yazzie Navajo - Denver, CO), Mallery Quetawki (Zuni Pueblo - Albuquerque, NM), Drew Trujillo(Albuquerque, NM), Minnoosh Zomorodinia (San Pablo, CA), and collectives Basement Films (Albuquerque, NM), Cog*nate Collective (San Diego, CA), and Friends of the Orphan Signs (Albuquerque, NM).

These artists question what constitutes a map, what aspects of the land are mapped and for what reason. For example, Val Britton examines the marks and symbols that compose maps, creating immersive and site-specific installations for the public to explore. Jamie Robertson creates counter narratives that delve into the artist’s African American heritage. The Albuquerque collective Friends of the Orphan Signs offer a communal and public archive that expands outside the gallery space and invites the audience to participate.

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Counter Mapping
ON VIEW | October 16, 2021 – January 22, 2022
View Fall/Winter Program Calendar
View Counter Mapping Brochure with the curators’ essays

Exhibition | Tactile Sublime

DODOMU
Tactile Sublime
June 3 - 29, 2021

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

dodomu is a contemporary online gallery with a team based in Brooklyn, NY. We focus on showcasing emerging artists through online group exhibitions and represent a variety of media such as painting, photography, sculpture, digital and mixed media with emphasis on abstraction. While currently all of our operations are virtual, our longterm goal is to open a physical space in the future as we continue to grow.

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Exhibition | Postcards of Positivity

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Postcards of Positivity
Artrinity
Dallas, TX

June 15 - July 31, 2020

I donated three pieces to Postcards of Positivity, during the Pandemic, benefiting artists and Artist Relief organized by Artrinity and The Goss-Michael Foundation

For more information visit Artrinity

Images: Untitled l, ll, lll, ink, pigmented graphite, rust, wax on topographic maps, mounted to paper, 6" x 4", 2020.

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Collaboration | Joshua Hagler

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Postcards of Positivity
Artrinity
Dallas, TX

June 15 - July 31, 2020

I collaborated on this piece with Joshua Hagler and we donated it to Postcards of Positivity, during the Pandemic, benefiting artists and Artist Relief organized by Artrinity and The Goss-Michael Foundation

For more information visit Artrinity

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Image: Untitled, 2020, ink oil and wax on collaged topographic map, 6 x 4 inches

A collaboration between Shannon Rankin & Joshua Hagler
Copyright The Artists

Exhibition | Simulacrush

[ON]now | Simulacrush
CMCA's first virtual exhibition
curated by SISTERED
Dec 14, 2019 - Apr 5, 2020

Simulacrush features eighteen artists meditating on states of reality across media. This timely group of work wrestles with systems of difference, communicating and distorting truth in a hyperreal fashion—simulacra. In a moment where information is manifested, digested, and regurgitated with extreme speed, presenting this work in a virtual environment becomes necessary to understanding the states in which we find ourselves and the ways we manipulate it. Here there is an incredible amount of fact, so much that it becomes fiction, or does it? This group of work offers a glimpse at the creation of truth from a distorted copy of reality. This is liquid, urgent, thrashing, seductive.

Artists included:
Ben DeHaan, Zoe Fox, Elizabeth Hoy, Nate Luce, Heather Lyon, Mugwort (Jeonguk Choi + Soomin Kim), Oliver, Shannon Rankin, Joshua Reiman, Bob Richardson, Justin Richel, Tollef Runquist, Will Sears, Matt Shaw, Anoushe Shojae-Chaghorvand, Irina Skornyakova, Riley Watts, Robert Younger

VIEW EXHIBITION

Exhibition | Water is Everything

Water is Everything
Drive-by Projects
Watertown, MA

November 18, 2017 - January 16, 2018  
Opening reception: Saturday, November 18, 3-5pm  
Hours: Thursday 12 - 4 pm or by appointment 617.835.8255

Drive-by Projects

Water is Everything, an exhibition of paintings by Judith Belzer and Cheryl Molnar, and works on paper by Joseph Smolinski and Shannon Rankin.

Review by Mallory A. Ruymann for The Rib.

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WATER IS EVERYTHING

DRIVE-BY PROJECTS

NOVEMBER 18, 2017 - JANUARY 16, 2018

JUDITH BELZER
CHERYL MOLNAR
SHANNON RANKIN
JOSEPH SMOLINSKI

BY MALLORY A. RUYMANN
REACTION > WATERTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS
JANUARY 25, 2018

Water is Everything unpacks the physical, historical, and socio-political shape of water with paintings by Judith Belzer and Cheryl Molnar, and works on paper by Joseph Smolinski and Shannon Rankin.

Molnar's contribution, Cliffside, depicts a house balancing on the edge of a cliff, a structure which Molnar delicately incised into the painting’s wood support. Though not explicitly rendered, erosion and other landscape elements (represented by dense clusters of painted paper) associated with our rapidly changing coastlines hint at the presence of water. Belzer’s small untitled oil-on-canvases (from the Half Empty Half Full series) portray the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams. The breakdown of the renewable water cycle means that these dams will soon become obsolete, though their physical forms will persist. Belzer paints the dams in an abstract style that de-emphasizes their present function in favor of their form, presaging their unproductive--but stylized--future role as monuments. The future also concerns Smolinski, whose phosphorescent-like Open Water drawings capture the uncertainty of what climate change may do to bodies of water. Rankin’s Earth Embroideriespreserve satellite images of arctic landscapes in the medium of thread on paper, counteracting the ongoing transformation wrought on those landscapes by slowly melting glaciers.

A cluster of branded water bottles stands on a plinth at the front window of the exhibition. Not credited to any particular artist, the cooperative sourcing of these vessels offers a potential salve to water’s precarious state. By working collectively around shared goals, we can perhaps determine the destiny of water.  

Drive-By Projects
Located at 81 Spring Street in Watertown, MA, Drive-By is a small, innovative space committed to exhibiting provocative work in its storefront windows and small gallery.

Founded by Beth Kantrowitz (Allston Skirt Gallery) and Kathleen O'Hara (OHT Gallery), Drive-By is open Thursdays 12-4 and by appointment, though you can always drive by our windows to view the current exhibition.
drive-byprojects.com

Mallory A. Ruymann is an educator, curator, and art historian based in Boston.

Background image:
Shannon Rankin, Earth Emroidery (Glacial Furrows), 2016, hand stitched thread on paper, 7 x 7"

Exhibition | Materiality

Materiality: The Matter of Matter
Center for Maine Contemporary Art
November 11, 2017 - February 11, 2018

You begin with the possibilities of the material. –Robert Rauschenberg

The question of how and why an artist uses materials has long been a topic of consideration in art history. Today, many artists are looking to this question and seeking to find a balance between what they use to make work and the concepts behind them. Providing agency to the materials themselves, artists are looking at materials as a means of communication, whether they are expanding on traditional media and narratives or utilizing everyday objects to construct new forms. Exploring these concerns in their work, the artists included in the exhibition, all with ties to Maine, are also considering why they choose to work with certain matter in our current material culture and social climate, and the role that these materials play within it.