Tender
Distortions
September 2 – September 20
Artists:
In Tender Distortions, the familiar begins to blur. This exhibition gathers artists who linger in the moments where softness bends into strangeness, where what is known becomes uncertain, and where identity itself begins to shift. It is an exploration of transformation not through spectacle, but through nuance, subtlety, and emotional resonance.
Rather than defining a single style, the works on view embrace complexity. Some arrive as whispers, others as quiet intensities, and still others as layered contradictions. Together they create a space where the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, memory and forgetting, clarity and ambiguity are gently unsettled.
The visual language of the show leans reflective and textural, often muted, sometimes offbeat or surreal. Yet within this quietude are bold interruptions moments that startle the eye or catch the viewer in an unexpected turn. These are not distortions meant to sever, but to invite closer looking, to encourage sitting with the unfamiliar until it begins to speak.
Each work embodies a form of emotional honesty, whether polished or raw, literal or symbolic. The exhibition is less about answers than it is about holding space for ambiguity: the tender strangeness of what it means to be shifting, fluid, and human.
Explore the Collection
CJ Cowden
Serena Giamè
Cary Macey
Molly Mackaman
Ralph Pàquin
Sudie Rakusin
Iris Sageder
Fabian Stetie
Chip Calvin
More About the Works
Whispers of a Light that Blooms
by CJ Cowden
Petals remembering the fields they once loved.
Veiled Garden I & II
by CJ Cowden
Nature reveals itself through layers of mist, memory, and mystery. These circular forms pulse with organic energy roots, vines, and bloom-like gestures rise and fall through a shroud of color and shadow. The garden is not seen directly, but sensed, as though glimpsed through fog or recalled in a dream.
This diptych invites reflection on how perception is often filtered by mood, by time, by what we hope or fear to find. In this softened vision of the natural world, the familiar becomes strange, and the act of seeing becomes a quiet search.
Head in the Clouds
by Cary Macey
Head in the clouds is a current reflection of my process where I break down basic human objects, then reassemble utilizing geometric shapes and angles to create multiple human behaviors and perspectives. This is all set within a single structure to witness interaction.
Hentai
by Fabian Stetie
Inspired in song Hentai of Rosalia in Motomami world tour show.
Every Woman is a Floating Ark
by Iris Sageder
This work envisions women as floating arks – carriers of codes, memories, and transitions. In my work, I seek to create portals of perception – spaces where weaving and fluidising foci may allow one to enter momentums of further dimensions. My sculptures and paintings are built through layers and intersections, offering the eyes kind of orientation – and, more importantly, of irritation – until seeing collapses into what shamans call the “newborn state,” or to explore the world through “naked eyes.” Each shift in focus opens its own experience, as if the very act of perception were a wormhole through timelessness, unfolding holograms of other realms.
To bridge ancient knowledge and future science - I definitely count on art. Art is a spaceship. Like memory fields from the future. I weave and hybridise bodies, nature, and universal patterns into fluid symbols.
Ideally, my work is not fixed but a shifting space – a living field where inner and outer worlds continuously overlap. I take my steps there like a sleepwalker, in a constant process of unwrapping my eyes.
Boundary Waters
by Sudie Rakusin
‘There was hardly any other sound. No birds. No wind. Only the susurrus of the
water as the canoe glided through and the scrape of the bow against the shore.’ -William Kent Krueger
Nebulous
by Ralph Pàquin
Nebulous is part of a newer group of sculptures that is part of the “Ethereal Origins” series. It attempts to sculpturally and conceptually connect biomorphic primordial forms to those that are more celestial in nature.
Leaving
by Molly Mackaman
What is it like to leave all you know and embark on an uncertain future? I began painting “Leaving” when the Russia/Ukraine war was constantly in the news. My heart was broken for all the victims, on both sides of the war. One image that moved me most during that time was a photo of a long line of people waiting to board a train to escape the war zone in Kyiv. Standing in the line was a woman and a little boy, from whose figures I adapted for this painting. The woman, lost in her own thoughts and concerns, grips the hand of the little boy, who looks out towards the viewer, beckoning us to feel his bewilderment and uncertainty.
The Decision
by Molly Mackaman
These two figures exist in an ambiguous space. They stand next to each other, though apart, their facelessness and posture a symbol of the sometimes ambivalent nature of relationships. Are they in love? Probably. Do they believe in love? Maybe. Should they continue together? Time, and a decision, will tell.
More About Our Artists
CJ Cowden
Artist Statment and Bio
As a mixed media artist, CJ explores the boundaries of form, texture, and color through abstract compositions. CJ’s work is a dialogue between spontaneity and intention, where different materials and techniques come together to create layered, dynamic pieces. CJ aims to evoke emotion and provoke thought, encouraging viewers to find their own connections and interpretations within the abstract forms. Through this process, CJ seeks to capture the essence of creativity—unpredictable, complex, and endlessly evolving.
CJ’s artistic journey is a testament to the transformative power of creativity in the face of adversity. Born into the whirlwind world of a traveling evangelist, she spent her formative years on the road, bearing witness to the fervor and devotion of her parents’ mission.
After her parents passing at age 10, CJ navigated her new life in foster care with art as it allowed her to express her depth of emotions. Today, CJ stands as a testament to resilience and the enduring human spirit. She has transcended her humble beginnings to become a gallery owner, a curator of dreams, and an artist of international acclaim. CJ’s journey from troubling childhood to a globally recognized artist and gallery owner reminds us that even in the darkest of circumstances, creativity has the power to heal and transform lives.
Artist Bio
Artist Statement
I was born and live in Naples, a city in southern Italy.
I’m an illustrator who graduated from the Scuola Italiana di Comix in Naples; I specialize in digital illustrations.
I experimented a lot after school, starting with conceptual illustrations and portraits. After a few years, I tried collage and fell in love with it; I think I’d finally found my calling. I’ve published in various Italian and French magazines. I’ve created album covers, and in 2023, I had my first exhibition in Pama, Italy and then in Paris.
For me, making art is a true meditation. Only in those moments I can completely detach myself from reality. There’s only me and my collage to create, nothing else exists. I’d say it’s very therapeutic.
Most of the time, I tackle topics like the human psyche because they fascinate me. It’s also a way to free myself from my worries. Above all, through sharing on social media, I’ve realized that many people face the same disorder or problem, so sharing art is also a way to feel less alone.
Serena Giamè
Cary Macey
Artist Statement and Bio
Born in Dallas Tx, Cary Macey is a contemporary artist whose artwork evolves around his past and present experiences centered around art history and music.
Paying tribute to the Modern Art Movement highlighting cubism and its emergence with Picasso, Braque and other such notable artists, Cary looks to modernize artistic traditions with his process while exploring different themes of human behavior through shapes
and abstraction that fits into a fictional setting creating multiple viewpoints and perspectives often combining fragmented faces and color for expression, setting the stage for multiple human interaction within the same structure.
The mediums he works in are acrylic, pigment sticks, oil & wax pastels and pencils. Cary’s creative process is ever evolving with glimpses into his emotions and personality.
Molly Mackaman
Artist Statement
Artist Biography
Conveying the inner states of solitude and introspection is an important aspect of my work, and to that end I most often use a muted palette, with colors closely related in value. One or two figures generally populate my work, and I often gravitate towards painting women and children, catching them in unguarded moments. My process generally involves an underpainting of large, abstract marks. At this stage, form, line and color are fluid and open to change, but at some point what emerges on the canvas begins to dictate the narrative. A figure or figures begin to show up and the story then begins to unfold. I often like to keep parts of the underpainting visible in the finished work. The history of the painting through its layers acts as a symbol of the history of a person through the many iterations of a life.
I make these paintings to remind people that the inner life is the life that really defines who we are, not the life depicted on social media or even the life we present to the world as we go about our day. Moments of quiet reflection help bring us back to ourselves and help us navigate a chaotic outer world, and by painting these figures I hope to elevate these unspoken and unseen moments. With these imagined people— guard down, unposed — I strive to elicit a moment of self-recognition and compassion in the viewer.
Molly Mackaman is a painter based in New York’s Hudson Valley. She received a BFA in painting and drawing from the University of Iowa in the mid-eighties. Subsequent to that, she lived and worked in New York City for over 30 years and held a variety of non-art related jobs. These included raising two children, working as an administrative assistant at the United Nations, writing press releases for a PR firm specializing in high-end design, and teaching elementary school at public schools in Brooklyn, where she enjoyed sneaking art projects into the curriculum. Throughout this time, Molly kept her art practice alive by painting in the wee hours before work.
In 2020 Molly retired from teaching, and in doing so was able to focus on her painting practice. Her current work focuses on the figure and the psychological dimensions that it can reveal.
Ralph Pàquin
Artist Statment and Bio
From an early age, I was captivated by the intricacies of human biology and genetics—an initial curiosity that evolved into a broader investigation of human origin and consciousness. This exploration has expanded to include cosmology, archeology, mysticism, and belief systems. These fields, combined with lived experience, form a kind of visual encyclopedia that fuels my creative output.
My work draws from observation, imagination, and experimentation. Mysticism and natural phenomena influence my abstracted forms, while humor often shapes layered metaphors. Whether rooted in complex concepts or intuitive impulses, my approach is intentional, dimensional, and rigorously crafted.
I work with a wide range of materials and techniques, from spontaneous “free form” sculpting to intricate, multi-step cold casting. Each sculpture is fabricated using traditional and contemporary methods, with materials selected for their durability, flexibility, and expressive potential.
My artworks serve as philosophical vessels—bridging the tangible and the cosmic, the seen and the unseen. They invite viewers to reflect on the mysteries of existence, the intersections of art and science, and the invisible structures that shape our reality.
Sudie Rakusin
Artist Statement and Bio
I am a visual artist, sculptor, author, illustrator and publisher. I was born and raised in Washington, DC, and I currently reside in Hillsborough, NC. I received my BFA in painting from Boston University and my MFA in Painting from the University of Arizona.
Being an animal activist and feminist, my artwork flows from what moves me and from where I find beauty: women, animals, the earth, color, pattern, and light. My art represents the deep connection I feel with these elements. Through my artwork I create a world as I would like it to be, where harmony exists between animal and human, and where nature thrives. Art is where I go for refuge, replenishing, and how I pay homage to what sustains me.
In my cold wax paintings, the properties of this medium fascinate me and keep me curious; how the underlying layers inform and alter the layers applied over them, how incising and scraping and glazing make more changes. I know I am wielding the palette knife and mixing the colors, but what happens on the panel is beyond my control. I’m learning how to be fine with the state of ‘not knowing’.
Iris Sageder
Artist Statement and Bio
Iris Sageder’s sculptures, reliefs, and impasto oil paintings create a magical universe that places the human trials and tribulations associated with evolutionary processes at the centre of her artistic practice.
The artist references ritual practices and uses mystical content to express the hybridization of humans and animals in representations of a pre-human as primate, human potential as embryo, and non-human as alien. Her subjects emerge from the tension between the loss of innocence and the cognitive capacity of human consciousness. We proudly claim to have eaten from the tree of knowledge alone. This is our essential criterion of differentiation from the animal. Part of this idea is that humans are at the very front in an evolutionary race. In my work, I try to explore the quality of this lead and to question it again and again,” says Iris Sageder.
The sculptures of the German artist are often life-size at eye level with human and humanoid modes of existence. Multi-layered colouration and positive, and negative processes, as well as the emphasis on contour through an ondulating geometric line management, lend additional depth to the organic-looking forms made of plaster, bronze and aluminum. Sageder’s creative process, from the idea to the image to the realization of the object in three-dimensional space, evolves through a shamanic act of energy work as a gradual leap in dimensions in accordance with the motto: Form-Finding follows Form-Leaving. The idiosyncratic figures of the artist unfold a great suggestive power and timelessness when viewed. The formal language with partly cubistic lines and elements that seem to be borrowed from the aesthetics of comics penetrates the abstraction of a figurative symbolism with intense physical presence and great immediacy.
Iris Sageder was born in Schotten in 1968 and studied art science, psychology, and communication science at the University of Essen. She has been working as a professional artist since 2002 and frequently works together with other artists from Europe and overseas: From 2003 to 2006, she developed light sculptures in private and public spaces with Linda Bilda-Czapka. From 2004 to 2016 she worked with sculptural and installation media and techniques as well as the spatial expansion of the 2-dimensional- painting in the 3- dimensional space, especially in the sculpture classes of Prof. Michael Nogin in Vienna/AT and Beth Cavener Stitcher in Montana/USA.
Artist Statement and Bio
Born in Buenos Aires in 1963, in permanent contact with painting since he was 16 years old. Self-taught in his beginnings to later formalize his studies passing through the workshops of different art masters in Buenos Aires.
During the 90’s he showed his paintings in several occasions, to return to solo exhibitions during the 2023 in Buenos Aires, during 2024 in Berlin installing his second atelier there, and during 2025 showing in Berlin, Buenos Aires and New York.