Join us for the our opening reception on Friday, August 11th from 6pm-8pm.

Get a chance to see all the amazing work and meet the artists. Drinks and light fare provided.
The Summer Artist-In-Residence Program at GoggleWorks Center for the Arts was created to infuse new, creative energy with an emphasis on facilitating cross-disciplinary experimentation. This year, we welcomed artists Colin Pezzano, Kaitlin West, and Cooper Siegel to the studios and campus. Over the course of 10 weeks, the program provided each resident with studio space, local housing, access to GoggleWorks’ seven communal studios, and a stipend to complete a project or body of work.

We are excited to celebrate the culmination of their residency by showcasing their works in the Cohen East Gallery from August 11 – October 8, 2023.

——————-
Colin Pezzano – Philadelphia, PA
“My practice is defined by my history and the history of my craft. I find inspiration in the significance of objects we surround ourselves with and the spaces they occupy. I build objects based on the narrative of memory, focused on the introspective. The objects accumulate and become spaces and sets. These scenes communicate between the past, present, and future. They are influenced by the structure of graphic novels. Specifically “blood in the gutter”, or the connections between the panels that enable the viewer to participate in the story and dictate the pacing of events.
I find the process of creation to be like a meditation – as in becoming immersed in the experience and resolving what each work communicates. I think of material as memory and process as the passage of time. By repeating the processes, we continue a dialogue our ancestors have started. By relying on woodworking processes, l connect my actions and memories to the traditions of my predecessors.
Craft is ritual and material is memory.”
——————-
Kaitlin West – Birmingham, AL
“I create life-size forms that blur the line between photography and sculpture while being both stable and on the verge of collapse. My sculptures are a physical manifestation of my struggle with anxiety and depression. Using materials like concrete, rebar, bricks, and other elements of building structures that are so common they often go unnoticed, I reference the components of my own internal psychic framework. My challenge with my mental health remains unseen on the surface, even when in disarray, whereas my sculptures of concrete columns and slabs display visible signs of stress. On the surface of these forms, I transfer photographic images that depict environments that are both comforting and haunting because these are the places where I have processed and experienced my struggles with mental health.”
——————-
Cooper Siegel – Kansas City, MO
“I’m interested in the life span of an object. I’m thinking about the materials that make up that object, and the cycles they live through. My practice struggles to think of ceramic processes in this way. Through small batch collections of found, industrial, or recycled
materials and I’m passing through cycles that build on themselves. On a small scale, the material collections are transformed over and over again to create new unforeseen objects.
Zooming out, we can consider the finite amount of material on the planet, the creation of new objects will soon become dependent on the cannibalization and valorization of old objects. In both timescales, infinite combinations and outcomes exceed a single object. This relationship is reflexive. An object comes apart and reforms, but always with the potential for more change. The object is representative of the Earth’s cycles. It’s endlessness. I’m asking what can be further transformed.”