Exhibition Runs: March 6 – April 13, 2023
Community Celebration: Saturday April 1st, 4:00pm – 8:00pm
Harwood Art Center and Escuela del Sol Montessori are pleased to present Encompass, a unique multi-generational art event that takes place annually. Featuring five invitational exhibitions, open studios, hands-on art making projects, live music, food trucks, and activities for all ages, Encompass is both a reflection of and an offering to our community; this year, we are focusing on “Remembrance & Renewal”.
Reception + Community Celebration
Encompass is Harwood’s capstone celebration for the year. We invite everyone to this free event as we come together in community! You are invited to the Exhibition Reception + Open Studios on Saturday, April 1st from 4:00-8:00pm at Harwood Art Center.
All five of the featured Encompass exhibitions will be displayed March 6 – April 13, 2023 at Harwood Art Center.
Public Gallery Hours
This exhibition is accessible to view by the public on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10am-3pm.
Grief Movement
breana connor, Matthan Cowart, Jordan Alvarenga, Sarah Hogland-Gurulé and Caroline Netschert offer movement, meditation, ritual, and physical objects as a template for being with and attending to grief. This work exists in four parts: movement practice conveyed through collaborative video, sculpture installation, guided meditation and altar.
Throughout the duration of the exhibition, all are invited to leave letters, images, or other temporary offerings to their grief. Grief Movement is a meditation on creating interdependence through healing ritual, shared grief, carework and artmaking:
After death, loss and ongoing change, how do we reconnect?
How do we process what we have lost?
/
mourning
turn to ash
place in the river
forget
remember
n forget again
About the Artists
Participating Artists: breana connor, Matthan Cowart, Jordan Alvarenga, Sarah Hogland-Gurulé , Caroline Netschert
Production Support: Rebeca Alderete Baca, Jaye Elizabeth Elijah, Ezra Cowart
breana connor is a bilingual interdisciplinary artist, facilitator and healer driven by collectivist care. They dream of a society that shares resources and functions based on ability and need. breana’s artmaking is expansive, marrying movement, poetry, community practice and resource redistribution. In 2022, breana offered two experiments in community practice Dancing with Trees and MURMURATION: Dancing with Trees, a monthly movement meditation for folks to gather – explored movement in natural space and collaborative artmaking; and MURMURATION I and II, in partnership with rebeca alderete baca and mallika singh – explored grief, movement, poetry, procession and foodsharing. breana facilitates spaces that encourage solidarity, pleasure and returning to the body after grief, change and transition.
Matthan Cowart is an interdisciplinary artist, theorist and object maker living and working in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Their work consists of painting, drawing, tattooing, looking and building. Matthan’s art making is rooted in the relationship between natural, structural, and metaphysical environments and the sensory and psychological experience generated therein. With their work, Matthan imagines a world that persists postcrisis where the materials and myths of history are reconfigured. Their art objects re-enchant decomposing images and artifacts in the spirit of a roadside shrine.
Jordan Alvarenga was born in Germany in 1993 and raised in New Mexico. Jordan uses their Curiosity about variety as a catalyst for their art. Jordan’s paintings, drawings, and jewelry are an extension of how they communicate with people. Non objective abstract design in their work allows people to insert themselves into the pieces. Each person brings a unique perspective to the chaotic and undefined. One technique that satisfies their creative nerve is using Acrylic paint on top of temporary mediums as a physical and metaphorical mask. Jordan is constantly exploring various mediums such as video editing, graphic design, music making and ceramics.
Caroline Netschert is a Buddhist minister, and a professionally trained, intercultural care provider. She works as a hospital chaplain and is a graduate student studying to be a mental health counselor. She aims to center community care, equity, and advocacy, and feels passionate about de-stigmatizing grief.
Sarah Hogland-Gurulé is a Xicana dancer, educator, choreographer and dreamer guided by the belief that dance is a form of embodied healing, ancestral remembrance and collective visioning. She currently performs with Dancing Earth and is exploring liberatory movement through freestyle, pole dance, popping, house and contemporary dance.
breana’s Artist Statement
as a young artist,
breana was trained to believe
that western concert dance
+ its cultural and aesthetic values
were the pinnacle of what art could be
with time,
they realized those traditions left them
isolated and marred
disconnected from their body
+ voice
this recognition resulted in
many years of hiatus from creative work
+ deep introspection focused on unlearning
now, their interdisciplinary practice centers revival
breana’s work explores
community interdependence + accountability
mindfulness
capitalism harm reduction
resource transparency
methods of collective healing
pleasure activism
+ pleasure as medicine
breana is invested in creating kind and sustainable rituals
for community re-connection
they are a leo sun, gemini rising + venus, + scorpio moon
they are not afraid of darkness or sharing their light //