1200 West 35th St. 4th floor Bridgeport Art Center
“Bouncy House” is a visual conversation, an unpredictable experiment, and, most of all - a party. In this exhibition, the visual languages of Sheila Smith (b.1968) and Noon (b.1994) come into joyful contact. Noon gravitates towards cellular forms: irregular shapes imbued with life. They’re packed with vivid splatters and labyrinths of lines. For Smith, it’s the humble dot that provides the center to her painterly vocabulary. Dots are repeated, layered, and arranged in dazzling waves, swirls, and networks. They exist in landscapes composed of splashes, smears, miasmas, and drips.
For this exhibition, the gallery will be filled with dozens of canvases of different sizes and shapes. Over a concentrated two weeks, the artists will engage in creative dialogue, letting their shapes and colors weave, clash, and harmonize. The pieces pass back and forth between the two artists over several rounds, each of them adding more and more layers to the ensemble.
Smith and Noon come from quite disparate backgrounds, even beyond the generation-and-a-half divide. But the differences between a devout Christian Black woman from Arkansas and a nonbinary Chicagoland-born Assyrian seem rather insignificant when collaborating. According to Noon, “When I get a Sheila piece, I feel like I need to marry our work. I need to put myself in her shoes - what was she thinking when she put down certain marks?” For both artists, paint creates a world beyond words, a “Bouncy House” for play - and connection.
Opening September 15, closing November 11.
Friday & Saturday: 11-5
Sunday: closed
