Small Talk Collective, We’re Always Touching By Underground Wires

OPEN/CLOSE: April 6 – May 28, 2018.
Opening reception on April 6th from 6-8pm for First Friday in conjunction with Portland Photo Month.

PUSHDOT STUDIO
2505 SE 11th Avenue, Suite 104 – in the Ford Building, enter on Division Street
Portland, OR 97202
503.224.5925
www.pushdotstudio.com
Gallery Hours: Mon-Fri. 8:30am to 5:00pm, free admission

Pushdot is proud to host Small Talk Collective for their first joint exhibition and book release! In this redefining point of history for the Portland photography community, these seven women are showing the importance of supporting and empowering one another as artists, entrepreneurs, and experts in their field.  They invite you into a conversation – both visual and societal – around the strength of joining individual visions in order to speak to broader human desires and themes, including empathy, belonging, memory, and transformation.

The exhibition, book release, and the later community conversation in May, are supported by a generous Project Grant from the Regional Arts and Culture.

About Small Talk Collective
Small Talk is a photography collective comprised of seven women artists. It was formed in Portland, Oregon in 2015.

As a group, Small Talk explores the nature of what it means to be visual storytellers. They pool resources, provide support, and exchange ideas – engaging in the best kind of small talk, that which binds them together, fostering stronger work and facilitating collaboration. smalltalkcollective.com

About the Work
Change is incremental, barely noticed, until it’s sudden and irrevocable. A house slowly ages and wears, until abruptly, it’s demolished and gone. Inside our own homes, we find imperfections and repairs, evidence of former occupants and our former selves. We feel these transitions and make new connections: between a bird discovered in a field and one dismembered by a cat, between the furrows on a face and those on the landscape, impressions left on skin and in memory. We look for change and find its mark. We look at what is, attempting to find the shape of what was.

About the Artists

Audra Osborne is a photographer and crafter whose work stems from the often debilitating emotions she (and many people) feel on a daily basis. These ideas typically center around anxiety, depression, and loss. Her photographs act as a visual diary and study of these emotions, as well as a remedy. By creating these images she has created a space for herself and others to discuss these “taboo” topics on an open platform. This self-enforced openness has allowed her to become more in control of her anxiety, beyond systems and treatments. Audra-osborne.com

Briana Cerezo utilizes photography as a process of discovery. Making photographs offers opportunities to deeply study those things in life that she finds most perplexing — namely people, the nature of relationships, creative process, spirituality, philosophy, and the inner workings of the self. Photography allows her the opportunity to reflect and organize fragments of her experiences in order to make sense of the world and her role in it.
Briana’s editorial and documentary photographs have been featured in newspapers and magazines such as Portland Monthly, Willamette Week, Portland Mercury, Fraction, Ain’t-Bad and The New Asterisk, and her artwork has been exhibited in galleries throughout the Pacific Northwest. In 2017 she was awarded an artist residency with Oregon Historical Society to interview and photograph members of diverse and underrepresented populations throughout Oregon. Brianacerezo.com

Jennifer Timmer Trail, originally from Northern Michigan, spent over a decade in New York, and some time in Copenhagen and Victoria, BC, before settling in Portland, Oregon. Life circumstances have kept her far from the idyllic small town she still calls home, and this has played a crucial role in the development of her work. Her photographs explore the longings that exist within relationships, things we wish we could hold on to but can’t, and the nostalgia that accompanies the process of aging. She is most interested exploring and pushing the boundaries of what a photograph can communicate on an emotional and psychological level.
Jennifer received her MFA in Photography from Hartford Art School and her BA in Art History / Studio Art / Natural Science from Michigan State University. She is currently an instructor of photography, design, and publication production, and her work has been written about and exhibited internationally. Jennifertrail.com

Kelli Pennington often plays a role for the camera, which allows her to feel outside of herself, or forces her to feel her skin tautly strung over her bones. She sees herself in her mind’s eye and feels fragile and human. That vulnerability is as thrilling as it is terrifying. Kelli is an educator at Portland Community College and an avid traveller.  Kellipennington.com

Kristina Hruska has worked as the Education Director for Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, OR, Photo Workshops Director at Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Missoula, MT, and as an Editor for Diffusion: Unconventional Photography Magazine. She currently holds the position of Gallery Director at Pushdot Gallery in Portland. She is the Founder of Small Talk Collective.
Kristina’s photographic work explores the themes of mystery and resilience and often speaks to the intersection between the ordinary and the extraordinary. Her photography has been shown in galleries across the U.S. and is held in private collections across the globe.  kristinahruska.com

Leslie Hickey holds BA degrees in Studio Art and English from Whitman College. She recently worked as a teaching assistant in the media department at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy, and was a fellow through the Civita Institute in the tiny village of Civita di Bagnoregio. In addition to her photography, she runs a quarterly letterpress subscription service through her imprint, Hoarfrost Press. Leslie is also a founding member of an international photographic group entitled Scaleno. Lesliehickey.com

Marico Fayre is a photographic artist whose work explores vulnerability, aloneness, mental illness, LGBTQ identity, the search for belonging, and the dialogue that occurs between making and experiencing art. Her work has been described as visual poetry and her drive to create both encompasses and challenges notions of beauty.
Marico often collaborates with performance artists and writers, weaving together the two voices in order to create projects of depth and strength. She teaches workshops and mentors MFA students, incorporating her background in branding, project management, and creative direction, to support and teach the business side of being an artist. Her combination of determination, efficiency, and calm lead one client to describe her style as, “doing wild things very quietly.”
A gypsy at heart, she travels as often as possible in order to continue challenging how she sees the world and what she is able to discover with her camera. Maricofayrephotography.com