"Maps #1," acrylic on cardboard, 66’’ x 31’’, 2022
Sunny Allis works intuitively and with embodied physicality to create works that convey a heightened state of aliveness, spontaneity, and play. They explore transformation as a generative state of creation, and celebrate the queer/trans body as expansive, dynamic and limitless. Many of Sunny’s projects focus on community and connection through different mediums of storytelling. Sunny released a gender-inclusive, bilingual children’s book called Hooray, What A Day!/¡Viva, Qué Día! They are currently developing a multimedia, inclusive kids TV show called All Together Now!
Sunny (they/them) is a trans non-binary multidisciplinary artist. Sunny studied directing and design for theater at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and received their MFA from California Institute of the Arts in Integrated Media. At Occidental College, the City of Santa Monica, and Kidspace Children’s Museum, among other organizations, they have created several interactive public art installations that take people through imaginary worlds and immersive environments. Their animations have won awards internationally, including at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Madrid Experimental Film Festival, and the Linoleum Festival in Moscow. Sunny has worked for many years as an educator in schools and with communities of all backgrounds. They have taught classes in sculptural storytelling, world building, musical performance, recycled art assemblage, puppetry, and public art. Sunny is passionate about engaging people’s voices and visions, so they feel empowered as change-makers, transforming themselves and the world around them.
Bill Botzow - Joan Hanley - Melanie Mowinski - Malaika Ross - Greg Scheckler - Ashley Eliza Williams
Reflecting Ecologies: Artists in Nature explores the intersections of contemporary artists, nature, and ecological thinking. Ecology is the study of the relationships among organisms and their surroundings and each other, often describing how we affect and are affected by the natural world. The artists in this exhibit suggest connections with ecologies via personal narratives of private moments in nature, to philosophical or artistic concerns about their media and approaches to imagery. The artists and artworks in this show often overlap with science-oriented imagery or methods, and with that comes careful observations of the human condition in nature. Ashley Eliza Williams’ colorful paintings develop concepts of the possibility and impossibility of communicating with organisms found in nature. Malaika Ross’s abstract drawings of soil microbes encourage us to examine the microscopic shapes and patterns that exist around us, that are often overlooked. Melanie Mowinski’s intensive journeys to water became a daily practice of endurance, logged as an intimate artist’s book. Bill Botzow’s sculptures stem from wood often from invasive species crafted into new artistic forms borne of his backyard in Vermont. Gregory Scheckler’s delicate abstract silverpoints deal with relationships to time and patterns derived from close observation of nature. And Joan Hanley’s fine-tuned paintings detail commonplace conundrums of our place and influence on nature. The exhibit is hosted by MCLA Gallery 51 and runs from October 6th through November 17th, 2023.
