ENGAGE Projects is pleased to present Our Solo Show, a group exhibition featuring an eclectic array of artists confront- ing what it truly feels like to live and exist with art. This show will mark Sharon Louden’s first “solo” exhibition at ENGAGE Projects. Louden decided to share this opportunity to dialogue with her fellow artists: Hasan Elahi, Edgar Arceneaux, Jean Shin, Melissa Potter, Miguel Luciano, and Alpesh Kantilal Patel. Following her most recent exhibition at Signs and Symbols Gallery in New York, where she created an immersive and inclusive environment with artist and writer, Hrag Vartanian, here Louden is collaborating with her colleagues who wear multiple hats, always challenging and redefining the art world. With commitments spanning academia, foundations, nonprofit organizations, galleries, and other unique institutions, these luminaries and thought leaders will come together in a visual conversation with Sharon to create an inclusive “living room” populated with furniture where art lives naturally in an open, welcoming environment.

Inspired by Dayanita Singh’s exhibition at Callicoon Fine Arts in 2018 whose aim was to democratize the acts of collect- ing and curating by making objects affordable, this shared solo show will create a space that acts as a comfortable, joy- ous and welcoming community with works available at different price points, from paintings, sculptures and installations to drawings, wallpaper, stationary, and more. The intent of this exhibition is to engage artists, communities, and patrons new and experienced, striving to break down the exclusive aspects sometimes associated with commercial art galleries and museums. The goal and hope is that this shared exhibition space will begin to normalize this process of making contemporary art more readily accessible and less “mysterious” to the general public.

Sharon Louden is an American artist known for her whimsical use of the line. Her paintings, drawings, animations, sculpture and installations are often centered on lines or linear abstractions and their implied or actual movement. Edgar Arceneaux is an American artist whose practice includes drawing, sculpture, and performance, and whose works explore connections between historical events and present-day truths. Hasan Elahi is a Bangladeshi-born American inter- disciplinary media artist whose work has an emphasis on technology and media and their social implications. His work examines issues of surveillance, citizenship, migration, and the challenges of borders and frontiers. Miguel Luciano is a Puerto Rican born multimedia visual artist living in New York. His work explores themes of history, popular culture, social justice and migration, through sculpture, painting and socially engaged public art projects. Alpesh Kantilal Patel is as- sociate professor of contemporary art and visual culture at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, and a lead faculty member of Chautauqua School of Art’s summer residency program. His art historical scholarship, curation and criticism reflect his queer, anti-racist, and transnational approach to contemporary art. Melissa Hilliard Potter is a feminist interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator who lives in Chicago. Her interdisciplinary research and art practice considers women’s culture through their handicraft, social customs, and gender rituals. Jean Shin was born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the United States. She is nationally recognized for her monumental installations that transform everyday objects into elegant expressions of identity and community engagement. Distinguished by her labor-intensive process and her engagement of community, Shin’s installations reflect individuals’ personal lives as well as collective issues that we face as a society.

For further information, please contact info@engage-projects.com

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Tags: Alpesh Kantinal Patel, Aspect/Ratio/Projects, Chicag, Edgar Arceneaux, ENGAGE Projects, Hasan Elahi, Jean Shin, Melissa Potter, Our Solo Show, Sharon Louden, West Town