I continue to be interested in artists who push the boundaries of materials in their practice of contemporary art and how they reflect contemporary society and science of the known world. It is particularly exciting, however, when artists develop their own vocabulary both cognizant of and extending beyond traditional divisions of painting and sculpture. Mason Dowling, Tisha Benson and Jon Paul Villegas fit into this special company, absorbing contemporary environments and challenging perception and convention, ever experimenting and developing their craft.

Mason Dowling

I am interested in traces and accumulation. In the integrity of natural objects and processes. In erosion, water, evaporation, desertification. I try to get better at being inexperienced, to always be learning something new. To this end, I employ a non-verbal philosophy of intuition and memory; a complex and pointed aimlessness. A piece is finished when it invites involvement, imagination, and unexpected visual phenomena.

Mason Dowling (1993) was born in 1993 in Santa Fe, NM. He received a BFA in 2015 from the San Francisco Art Institute. He currently lives and works in Bellingham, WA.

Tisha Benson

My work considers the ways in which objects bear witness to their treatment and applies an associative logic to the process of habilitating discarded materials. Products of their handling, works are imbued with a subtle awareness and characterized by the effects of attention and thoughtfulness. With particular consideration of forms of protection, vulnerability and interdependence, I respond to cues and interact with materials outside of their intended context, as autonomous entities.

Tisha Benson (1992) was born in Tacoma, Washington and received a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2015. She currently lives and works in Bellingham, Washington.

Jon-Paul Villegas

Jon-Paul Villegas creates sculptures and environments that are meant to explore the possibilities and limits of our contemporary notion of objecthood, culture, space and place. In addition to traditional three- dimensional sculptural materials, Villegas frequently uses supporting materials such as text, photography, video and digital software to poke restlessly at the structural and epistemological underpinnings upon which we organize our notions of thingness, identity and categorical propriety.

Jon-Paul Villegas (1972) was born in Long Beach, California. He received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University in American Studies and holds an MFA in sculpture from California College of the Arts, San Francisco. Villegas has exhibited widely at galleries and museums in the U.S. and abroad and has placed work in a variety of private collections internationally including Dakis Jouannou’s Deste Foundation in Athens, Greece. He currently lives in Los Angeles.