In her artistic practice Rachel Mica Weiss moves between, often operating in the interstices of, the realms of architecture, installation, sculpture, and weaving. Weiss delves into properties of tension, density, weight, and ephemerality, which are very much evident in her thread-based works. These seem at first glance to be panels or canvases, but as becomes clear in close proximity, there is no actual pigment or support, only colored string contained within a frame.

Small Hours Sequence is comprised of crisscrossing thread within four outsized maple frames that resemble woven screens mounted to the wall. Weiss does not employ traditional weaving techniques, but rather uses spools of embroidery thread that she strings back and forth between eye hooks fitted within the wooden casing. Belying the immense tension and scale used in their creation, they seem to gracefully hover in the space. Her masterful technique of overlapping strands results in elegant and shifting gradations of color that evoke post-war color field painting.

Iranian-born artist Abdolreza Aminlari’s works on paper speak to themes of displacement and repetition. Known for his small, threaded geometric designs and use of negative space, Aminlari creates inventive, intricate compositions that seem to be part of a larger whole. The embroidered aspect of his work harkens back to his maternal relatives, who he remembers gaining meditative solace from cross-stitching Persian rugs and miniatures. The geometric patterns are often references to sacred designs from Iranian mosques, but they are made contemporary during his process of stitching. Says Aminlari, “I try to allow room for the shapes to exist. The negative space becomes a sort of breathing room, a space for contemplation.”

Miya Ando is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice reflects a nuanced exploration of impermanence, interdependence, and cultural duality. Raised between a Buddhist temple in Japan and the redwood forests of Northern California, her work draws on a bicultural heritage to navigate the space between East and West, organic and industrial, and material and immaterial. The artist’s cloud series is rooted in the Japanese concept mono no aware, which loosely translates as “an acute awareness of the transience of things,” a sentiment often linked to nature and the passage of time. For Ando, who was raised between two vastly different worlds – the cyclical nature of clouds and other elements in the natural world serve as a metaphor for impermanence of interdependence. As Ando states, “The natural world is a part of my vocabulary because it is a universal way of discussing the human condition.”