In the exhibition Diane A., Arcadia Missa will be presenting new and specially selected works by artists Bettina, Olga Balema, Hannah Black, Maja Čule, Dachi Cole, Caleb Considine, Jeffrey Joyal, Valerie Keane, Brad Kronz, Marc Kokopeli, Willa Nasatir, Tam Ochiai, Cameron Rowland, Coumba Samba, John Sandroni and Stewart Uoo. The title of the exhibition is taken from an artwork included by Tam Ochiai, selected from a body of painted “skeletal biographies*” containing the names of both the birth and death cities of their subjects, some of whom are well known persons. New York, New York (Diane A.) by Tam Ochiai, 2025 formally resembles a word scramble that likely spells out “New York City” twice. While the city might be a reference for the exhibition, it rarely occurs as a motif— a fact in the background of various productions.
In other works, both Stewart Uoo’s semi-photographic East River I & East River II as well as Olga Balema’s Loop sculptures are made of transparent material, one containing reflections captured in still images and the other holding reflections of the gallery space. Bettina and Valerie Keane’s works form a similar aspect of the reflective, but instead opaque and metallic. Included from several artists are faithful depictions rendered both from life and from photo, respectively. Less faithful depictions appear from others. Some artworks describe or exist at an imaginary boundary of the state.
There is no single uniting methodology or theme to the works selected for the show that would hold up to any scrutiny. Instead this exhibition intends to offer examples of varied ways of working that can be sustained in terms of duration as well as materials and occupations that emerge from the common and the available.
*Excerpted from the exhibition text for Everyone Has Two Places, Tam Ochiai (Team Gallery Inc., 2015)