Four Significant Landscapes

Devin Balara
Justine Orrall
Michael Vallera
Jasmine Baetz & Christian Vistan

July 2015

Four Significant Landscapes consists of a group of artists whose works reflect the intersection of the natural world and domestic interiors. These are the two spheres which humans reside in, move through, and define.

I

Uncanny forms,

covert and

everyday.

II

Textural void,

eerily empty of human trace.

III

Transient being,

a tracing through in-between spaces.

IV

Infinite flat-land,

a two-dimensional

pattern-grid-world.  

Devin Balara (b. 1988) hails proudly from the aggressively pastel suburbs of Tampa, FL. She received a BFA in sculpture from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL and an MFA in sculpture from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. She is a recipient of the 2014 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center residency program, a residency at 8550 Ohio, and a curatorial assistantship with the Building department at Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro, NC. National solo and group exhibitions include Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, FL, Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, OH, Project Space One in Iowa City and the Indianapolis Art Center in Indiana. 

Justine Orrall is a painter and illustrator currently living in Nashville, TN.  She graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013.  She has shown locally in shows such as Flag Show at Club Roar and at Infinity Cat.  

Michael Vallera is a visual artist and musician currently based out of Chicago, Illinois. He has shown and performed internationally, and in the spring of 2014 exhibited his first solo body of photography at RAID Projects in Los Angeles, California. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010, and saw the release of his debut monograph of photography in the winter of 2014 entitled Perfect Fatigue, via Mexico-City publisher Umor Rex.  Both his visual and sound-based works explore the intersection of personal narrative and abstraction within physical landscape. 

Jasmine Baetz is a ceramic artist from Dundas, Ontario. She holds a BA in religious studies from University of Toronto, and is pursuing a BFA at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her education in religious studies informs her exploration of ceramics through recreation of objects, reenactment of ceremonies, and retracing of routes. 

Christian Vistan (b. 1994) is a Filipino artist living and working in Vancouver. Originally from Bataan, a peninsular province in the Philippines, his work (writings, paintings and erformances) addresses the space he occupies in between—a space surrounded by water, floating, disoriented and liminal.