SPLAY
“verb: splay (splei); 3rd person present: splays; past tense: splayed; past participle: splayed; gerund or present participle: splaying
thrust or spread (things, especially limbs or fingers) out and apart.
"her hands were splayed across his broad shoulders"
(especially of limbs or fingers) be thrust or spread out and apart.
"their legs splayed out in front of them"(of a thing) diverge in shape or position; become wider or more separated.
"the river splayed out, deepening to become an estuary"construct (a window, doorway, or other aperture) so that it diverges or is wider at one side of the wall than the other.
"the walls are pierced by splayed window openings"
SPLAY TRANSITIVE VERB:
To cause to spread outward
To make oblique: BEVEL
SPLAY INTRANSITIVE VERB:
To extend apart or outward especially in an awkward manner
Origin: Middle English, short for displayen-- MORE AT DISPLAY”
Splay is…
Everything and is nothing, tangled, intertwined, rewoven, spread out in non-conforming ways. It’s exhausting to be twisted, turned, ravaged, and spit out by the institutions, expected norms, and the social constructs that bind us. Within this exhibition, artists take what has been splayed, stripped, and extracted to mend and reconstruct a new vision of themselves and each other. We disassemble the harsh, psychological landscape to envision fresh possibilities for a new way of being, reformed in collaborative spirit and solidarity.
In the year of 2020, we experienced the continuity of harsh psychological realisms play over and over in empty studios. We’ve perceived elation as the ultimate form of exhaustion, but we ask: How do we obtain a balance between euphoria and depletion?
SPLAY includes artists whose work we knew deeply because it comes from the same axis and base. The work inclines to meet you, whether oblique or straightforward, and always slightly devious, fun and underhanded. We will not use your right angles, rather we will meet your gaze knowing that to SPLAY is to be more at display, extra, and fully inserted in this world.
- Kelly McConnell and Ashley Page
Photo credits to Golaleh Yazdani
SPLAY Curatorial Talk with Ashley Page and Kelly McConnell
A special thank you to:
Participating Artists:
Hannah Adams
Greta Bank
Sascha Braunig
Anoushe Shojae-Chaghorvand
Annika Earley
Elizabeth Jabar
Colleen Kinsella
Athena Lynch
Kelly McConnell
Ashley Page
Danielle Scott
Joey Tatlock
Able Baker Contemporary
Annika Earley
Tessa Green O’Brian
Irina Skornyakova
Golaleh Yazdani
And everyone who visited, resonated, talked, and helped us bring our most authentic selves to this show. Thank you.