IN CONVERSATION: Austin Ballard + Nadia Haji Omar

20 January – 28 April 2023

This series of exhibitions is about starting a conversation – between two artists, and with the viewer. We invited an artist partner to ask another artist that inspires them to exhibit their work together. In Conversation captures the exchange between two practicing artists that illuminates the parallels they recognize in their work and beyond.

Austin Ballard, a Charlotte-born and New York-based sculptor, works with woven cane and extruded epoxy clay to craft objects with spontaneous structures, meandering shapes, and camouflaging shells.

Nadia Haji Omar, an artist of Syrian, Indian, and Sri Lankan descent based in Rhode Island, creates works on paper and paintings that are meditative and improvisational accumulations of small gestures built upon each other.

While both artists’ work differs in their mark-making and materiality, Austin and Nadia’s lyrical approach to imagery, with no clear beginning or end, allows the eye to abandon outcome.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE:  IN CONVERSATION: AUSTIN BALLARD + NADIA HAJI OMAR

IN CONVERSATION: Leigh Suggs + Asa Jackson

15 September – 17 December 2022

This series of exhibitions is about starting a conversation – between two artists, and with the viewer. We invited an artist partner to ask another artist that inspires them to exhibit their work together. In Conversation captures the exchange between two practicing artists that illuminates the parallels they recognize in their work and beyond.

As artists working with paper and fiber, respectively, Leigh Suggs and Asa Jackson share a kinship in process and labor, as well as endurance and commitment. Their deliberate use of the line and distortion of the grid creates tactile works that feel grounded and familiar. 

Leigh and Asa created work for this show that focuses on the cycle of loss and birth. While each artist is on the opposite side of this cycle in their personal lives, they find common ground in discussing and exploring spirituality and all the ways one finds balance in this life. Akin to their interlaced approach to material and composition, all stories are connected; new ones woven from the threads of old.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE:  IN CONVERSATION: LEIGH SUGGS + ASA JACKSON

IN CONVERSATION: Ashlynn Browning + Katy Mixon

1 April – 30 June 2022

This series of exhibitions is about starting a conversation – between two artists, and with the viewer. We invited an artist partner to ask another artist that inspires them to exhibit their work together. In Conversation captures the exchange between two practicing artists that illuminates the parallels they recognize in their work and beyond.

ASHLYNN BROWNING: Your work came to mind as an interesting counterpoint to mine as far as material, but with some strong process oriented connections. At first glance, there is our mutual use of organic geometry. Even more than that, I think our process is quite similar… we layer, erode, dig, and excavate repeatedly to get to our final images.

KATY MIXON: Part of it, for me, is this back and forth with the surface and the texture of trial and error. I see this in your work, too – the way certain forms repeat so that each painting is a kind of stage on which various relationships play out. I’m interested to learn how you think about these interactions. Do you plan them out? Or, do you find them in the process of making and unmaking?

ASHLYNN BROWNING: I don’t plan the work ahead but rather enjoy the stumbling and ups and downs inherent to following where each piece wants to go. And each feeds the next. We share that cyclical process.

IN PROCESS: Matthew Steele

1 October – 17 December 2021

Hodges Taylor is pleased to present a solo exhibition featuring new sculptures and works on paper by Charlotte-based artist, MATTHEW STEELE. Matthew’s practice hinges on the inherent connection between humanity and the infrastructures we inhabit. The work created for his first exhibition with the gallery stems from processing the recent loss of his father. The artist’s vernacular of pieced walnut sculptures is complemented by a new series of flattened mechanical drawings of three-dimensional objects in space using hundreds of feet of graphite line on paper. Continuing Matthew’s use of found objects, a discarded and reworked chandelier becomes both ceremonious and celebratory. In reckoning with a new absence, the resulting dimensionality in this exhibition becomes an homage to omnipresence

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE: IN PROCESS: MATTHEW STEELE

IN PROCESS: Eleanor Annand

7 May – July 23 2021

Hodges Taylor is pleased to present a solo exhibition featuring new work by Asheville-based artist, Eleanor Annand. Using paper, felt, and steel, she defies and defines the grid, evidences her intuition with design, and negotiates materials with an open mind. In her first exhibition with the gallery, Eleanor’s energetic and gestural approach to sculpture rests upon an exploration of touch and movement through the composition of individual cast, folded, and fabricated elements.

IN PROCESS: Andrew Hayes

5 March – April 30 2021

Hodges Taylor is pleased to present a solo exhibition featuring new sculptures by Asheville-based artist, Andrew Hayes. Andrew gracefully marries the subtlety of found book pages with an architectural approach to steel. In his first exhibition with the gallery, he gives us a glimpse into his process, the tools at his ready, and a sightline into essential moments of making.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE: IN PROCESS: Andrew Hayes

#stillcontemporary
A group exhibition celebrating 40 years

23 September – 18 December 2020

We celebrated 40 years in business and honored our co-founders, Dot Hodges + Christie Taylor, with the opening of a new gallery space in South End’s RailYard building. Our inaugural exhibition, #stillcontemporary, featured all 27 artist partners and highlights a selection of paintings, sculptures, photographs, and objects that capture the essence of each artist’s craft.

We would like to extend a sincere thank you to the team of design and industry professionals who helped realize the gallery’s vision: Gresham Smith, commercial architect; Ruard Veltman Architecture, architectural and interior design consultants; Marand Builders, general contractor; Park Commercial Real Estate, broker; Beacon Partners; Basic Cable, visual storytellers; Batch Craft, web design and branding; Pitch and Burl, custom woodwork; Andrew Hayes, custom metalwork; Ellie Richards, custom furniture; Reaching Quiet, concrete vanity; Modern Lighting Design, lighting consultant; Eleanor Annand, graphic design and printing; Powder Studio, custom serveware; Thomas Schmidt, integrated mirror and tile installation; Lydia Bittner-Baird, photography; Chris Clamp, installation; and all 27 artist partners. Images by Lydia Bittner-Baird.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE: #STILLCONTEMPORARY

LEAH ROSENBERG: To Open Eyes

13 December 2019 – 14 February 2020

Hodges Taylor is pleased to present, To Open Eyes, a solo exhibition by San Francisco-based artist Leah Rosenberg, who returns to Charlotte after her recent McColl Center for Art + Innovation residency (2017). A survey of drawings, sculptures, and prints made while in residence in Italy over the summer offers a refreshing commentary on recording through color and repetitive mark-making. A devoted “color collector”, Rosenberg’s use of the medium creates a dialogue between viewer and artist, time and place. While many of Rosenberg’s prior projects involve public engagement or site-specific installation, the work presented in this exhibition stems from the artist’s instinct to return to a solitary studio practice, influenced by color theorist, teacher, and artist, Josef Albers (1888-1976). The exhibition title references Albers’ fundamental lesson: to teach his students to see beyond; to see what is overlooked; and to open their eyes in order to see the things we encounter in our everyday environment with new significance. Through a residency this past summer in Tuscany, Rosenberg set out to create a practice predicated on ritual and discipline. Rosenberg, like the ever-influential Albers, encourages us to slow down, unplug, open up, and trust the process more than the end result. Images by Lydia Bittner-Baird.

Exhibition catalogue:  Leah Rosenberg: To Open Eyes

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: cuerpo exquisito

13 September – 22 November 2019

Hodges Taylor is pleased to present CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: cuerpo exquisito, a solo exhibition featuring new large-scale installations and figural sculptures by the Puerto Rican ceramic artist living and working in Penland, North Carolina. Córdova studied engineering before quickly shifting her focus to clay – a medium that allowed her to display her technical skill coupled with an impulse to create. Trained as a dancer and raised in the Catholic Church, her staging of the body is referential of both classical gestures of ballet and the theatrics of reverence. Córdova’s work is intimate, both through portraiture of her daughters, and the conveyance of her Puerto Rican culture through object and aesthetic. The sculptures in cuerpo exquisito approach the artist’s recurring subject matter of the body as layered and reactionary – to environment, heritage, culture, and politics. In this exhibition, large-scale ceramic and collaged photographic installations create two distinct dialogues through diorama, anchored by her daughter’s body as both model and memento. The artist’s new wall-based sculptures navigate what she calls “that little line between what I need to say for myself and how to communicate with the community-at-large experiencing my work.” Through meticulously hand-built clay, Córdova gestures us to reconsider the preconscious power of the body as truly exquisite. Images by Lydia Bittner-Baird.

Exhibition catalogue:  CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: cuerpo exquisito 

MARTHA CLIPPINGER: off-kilter

17 May – 26 July 2019

Hodges Taylor is pleased to present MARTHA CLIPPINGER: off-kilter, a solo exhibition featuring a selection of woven works, wooden constructions, ceramic reliefs, and works on paper by the Durham, North Carolina based artist. This is Martha Clippinger’s first exhibition with Hodges Taylor. Clippinger’s colorful work engenders a space where art, design, functionalism, and formalism meet a bit off the beaten path. Undefined by the arguably arbitrary fine art versus craft divide, and unrestricted to a singular medium, the artist’s brightly hued works let us loosen up. From Clippinger’s childhood in Georgia to a longtime adoration of Bauhaus fiber artist Anni Albers to a pivotal collaboration with weavers in Oaxaca, Mexico to a recent residency in ceramics at Kohler, she creates a conversation of culture through the universal dialogue of color and form. Improvisation guides all of the work in which repeated elements flip, turn, and shuffle in their rhythmic compositions. For Clippinger, a little off-kilter is just right. Images by Michael Blevins.

REPLY: Amy Herman + Micah Cash

1 March – 10 May 2019

Hodges Taylor is pleased to present REPLY, an exhibition pairing Charlotte-based artists, Amy Herman and Micah Cash. On every Friday for twenty-four weeks Amy Herman and Micah Cash sent each other a photograph in response to an earlier exchanged image. REPLY presents the photographs that resulted in a non-linear visual narrative. As a photographic conversation, each image has two authors and could not exist without those made before. As a response to the immediacy and fleeting quality of today’s visual culture, the artists allowed each image to ruminate until they formed a reply. This exhibition presents the first collaborative project between the two artists and the artists’ first exhibition with Hodges Taylor. Images by Michael Blevins.

TOM STANLEY: en route to here

7 December 2018 – 22 February 2019

TOM STANLEY: en route to here, a solo exhibition featuring a selection of paintings and works on paper from the past two decades by the Rock Hill, SC based artist. en route to here is Stanley’s second solo exhibition with Hodges Taylor, the prior in 2003. Stanley’s work, layered and elusive, is more self-portraiture than abstraction. His skilled sgraffito, a scratching technique, use of flattened perspective, repeated motifs, and humility with regard to color constructs a narrative that is both personal to the artist and familiar to its audience. Stanley reveals richness out of the ordinary. He builds humanity out of the manmade. You could find every man and any man’s story on his canvases. A man of purposeful words and a believer in the community that art coalesces, Stanley recites the underlying message behind his drive to create: “We all have the ability to think with our hands and our eyes. We have to continue to find ways to utilize that and it might be in new ways we haven’t thought of before…it’s what humanizes us.” Images by Michael Blevins.

MAKE/SHIFT: Rachel Meginnes + Thomas Schmidt

21 September – 30 November 2018

While Rachel Meginnes collaborates with found material, making her mark through a series of reactions to the underlying object, Thomas Schmidt communicates through the manipulation of material by technology, shifting the idea of the object itself. Meginnes creates mixed media paintings from found and forgotten textiles. By shifting the material’s narrative, Meginnes’ paintings reference their humble beginnings and breathe new life into post-functional heirlooms. From digitally modeled vases to crumpled porcelain tile, Schmidt draws upon the tension between digital fabrication and the hand, through mold making, casting, and photography. Schmidt’s sculptures, cleverly engineered simulacra, interrupt the conversation between referent and replica. Images by Michael Blevins.

KATIE WALKER: aerial view

3 August – 14 September 2018

KATIE WALKER: aerial view presents a selection of recent paintings and works on paper by the Greenville, South Carolina based artist. Walker’s work, as she coins “expressionistic map-making”, employs plotted points in her memories of particular places and colorful people she’s encountered. She paints on the floor, able to walk around the raw canvas and survey its landscape. In what may seem a chaotic maze of paint, brushes, collaged elements, and canvases, is a series of the artist’s calculated moves until she feels the opposing forces in an image are complete. An unexpected mix of abstract expression, geometry, and calligraphic line form a topography of both seemingly natural and (wo)manmade elements, ready for the viewer to navigate. Images by Michael Blevins.

AT PLAY: Ellie Richards + David Halliday

4 May – 27 July 2018

AT PLAY pairs New York-based photographer, David Halliday, with Penland-based sculptor, Ellie Richards. Ellie and David reorganize and repurpose the ordinary in ways that are more satirical than serious. Their work appears both familiar and foreign through manipulation of the everyday object and the traditional notion of built environments. Both artists construct sites where play is as much a place as work is a state of mind. In Ellie’s words, they “want to help people arrive at a playful space in their lives.” Images by Michael Blevins.

KEVIN KENNEDY: Experience + Education

2 February – 27 April 2018

KEVIN KENNEDY: Experience + Education is a solo exhibition of recent work by Kevin Kennedy, based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Kevin’s sculptures mirror his own history. His works often employ utilitarian forms and appear as if they once served some purpose, thus blurring the distinction between functional form and fine art object. Using everyday materials, such as wood, paper, and linen string, he treats the sculpture’s surface to create pieces that seem like relics from the past. Kevin narrates his story through three-dimensional dialogue that is personal and universal. Images by Michael Blevins.