Everything Real recognizes overlooked, complicated, in-between experiences. The exhibit celebrates multiplicity of identity and the ambiguity of everyday life through the structure of the show as well as the work included. Throughout the exhibition new work will gradually replace earlier work by the same artist, creating a shifting experience and concluding in an entirely different exhibition. The closing reception on November 10, 2016 will observe the transformation of Everything Real and the release of a publication documenting it.

Everything Real amplifies moments of nuance and embraces the complications of who we are and this world in which we exist. Featured artists blur time and space, materials and symbols, technology and nature, or minds and bodies. Ezra Tessler’s work forgoes the limitations of both painting and sculpture. Haynes Riley explores how objects change a space through arrangement and installation. John Zane Zappas makes sculptures that meld functionality and form. Anthony Cudahy’s paintings freeze subtle emotions. Azikiwe Mohommed recognizes the internet as a complex contributor to black identity. Heidi Norton’s work visually gathers all parts into a shared space with moments of emergence occurring randomly. Greg Hayes’ longexposure photographs are collections of time and experience. Kayla Mattes connects the dots between the ancient pixel of woven fabric and the contemporary pixel of the computer, binding human production into a single field. Eric Wiley uses highly textured paint to depict dream-like scenes, encompassing as much material and psychological terrain as possible.

Anthony Cudahy is a Brooklyn-based painter and BFA graduate of Pratt Institute (2011). He co-curates the publishing project Slow Youth.  His work has been reviewed in Mossless, The Paris Review, Hello Mr., Marco Polo Quarterly, and Cakeboy. Cudahy has shown across the U.S. and U.K., most recently at EatF_3 at Mumbo’s Outfit (Manhattan), Farwell Books (Austin), and Dawn Hunter Gallery (Brooklyn). His group shows include ATHICA, Nancy Margolis Gallery, Vox Populi, Perfect Nothing Catalog, and Knockdown Center. Cudahy is a former resident of the Artha Project.

Greg Hayes is a Portland-based artist who incorporates drawing, writing, video, and sculpture into his photographic practice. Following an undergraduate degree from Northeastern University, and a year at the School of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Hayes earned an MFA from CalArts. He has exhibited and published his work, and participated in symposiums and residencies, in the U.S. and abroad. Hayes has taught at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, SMFA, and Marlboro College. He currently teaches photography at Lewis & Clark College, and coordinates Exposures, a cross-cultural youth arts program.

Kayla Mattes is a Portland-based artist working in multiple disciplines including weaving, sculpture, and installation. Her work is informed by the interaction between internet languages, pattern, and memory. Mattes’ exhibitions include FISK Gallery (Portland), Disjecta (Portland), and LVL3 (Chicago) with an upcoming two-person exhibition at Front/Space in Kansas City. In 2011, she received a BFA in Textiles at RISD; in 2016, she received a Regional Arts & Culture Council Project Grant and Working Artist Org Grant.

Azikiwe Mohammed is an NYC-based artist and graduate of Bard College (2005), where he studied photography and fine arts. He has shown nationally and internationally, including Spring Break Art Fair in New York City and Material Arts Fair in Mexico City. He has held residencies at Mana Fine Arts in Jersey City, as part of the ESKFF program, and at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Mohammed recently received an Art Matters Grant and a residency with Mana BSMT.

Heidi Norton is an NYC-based artist whose 1970s New Age upbringing informs a strong connection to land, plant life, and nature.  Norton has had solo shows at Monique Meloche Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art, and group shows at Chicago Cultural Center, Gallery 400, The Box, The Contemporary (Baltimore), and the National School of Fine Arts (Paris). She is featured in ART21, BOMB, Journal for Artistic Research, and Grafts by Michael Marder. Norton received a BFA from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently an adjunct professor at Parsons.

Haynes Riley is an artist, curator, and designer with an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He is founder and director at Good Weather in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He has had recent solo exhibitions at TOPS (Memphis), The Hills Esthetic Center (Chicago), Hammock Gallery (Los Angeles), and Outer Space (Facebook). His work has been in exhibitions at Threewalls (Chicago), Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills), The Bedfellow’s Club (Minneapolis), and EMBASSY (Los Angeles), among others. He is Design Director at Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla). Riley lives and works in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas.

Ezra Tessler is a New York-based artist and MFA painting graduate of Bard College, whose previous degrees are from Harvard and Columbia University. His recent exhibitions include Ezra Tessler and Barb Smith for Páramo at ZsONA MACO (Mexico City), and PaintersNYC for Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños (Oaxaca) – as well as Broadcast from Cedarburg, NJ at Bannerette, and Rafters at Culture Room, in Brooklyn. Tessler has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, Jacob Javits Fellowship, and Pforzheimer Foundation Fellowship. In spring 2017, he will be an Artist-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Eric Wiley, born in Fort Collins and raised in the suburbs of Boise, has been Brooklyn-based since 2006; he graduated from Pratt Institute in 2010. His fondest memories are of Payette National Forest in Western Idaho, where he spent time deep in the mountains digging trails and fighting forest fires. He wonders if mountain-yogi Shangri-Las actually exist – if isolated enlightenment truly holds water? Together with friends, family members, and coworkers, Wiley awaits first contact with extraterrestrials, artificial intelligence, interstellar transportation and, finally, entrance into the forthcoming virtual oblivion.

John Zane Zappas lives and works in Los Angeles. Zappas received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2012 and has attended residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. His work has been exhibited at Interface (Oakland), hotel-art.us, Vacancy (Los Angeles), Arturo Bandini (Los Angeles), Bb (Baltimore), Grin (Providence), City Limits (Oakland), Primetime (Brooklyn), and Good Weather (Little Rock).

About the Curators

Chase Westfall (Charles A. Westfall) is a visual artist, writer, and curator. Currently, he is the Director of Gallery Protocol in Gainesville, Florida, where he lives with his wife and children. He is represented by 101/exhibit Gallery, Los Angeles.

Iris Williamson is a Portland-based curator at Hap Gallery. She co-founded enter:gallery (NYC) and Dugg Dugg Gallery (Charlotte). Williamson curated exhibitions for the city of Charlotte during the 2012 Democratic National Convention, and co-founded Charlotte’s citywide arts event Southern Holiday. She received her MA in Critical Theory + Creative Research from Pacific Northwest College of Art, and her BFA in Studio Art and Art History from the University of Florida, Gainesville.