the mark
the mark
FEBRUARY 17TH - APRIL 5, 2025
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Thousands of years ago, human beings went deep into a cave in Indonesia. Using earthy red pigments, they made expressive marks on the walls of the cave, carefully depicting three human-bird type characters surrounding a large pig. Using simple colors and marks that now seem distant, these humans told a story, recording something important. A phenomenon not isolated to a singular Indonesian cave, this kind of mark-making appears in ancient spaces all over the world. In southern France a stampede of animals dance across rock walls. In Egypt, figures swim through some prehistoric lake, now only desert.
Indonesia Cave Painting, Associated Press
We see realistically rendered buffalo in Spain, abstracted cattle in Somaliland, a multicolored rave in northern Australia. In Argentina a throng of stenciled human hands reaches out across 9,825 years; in those marks we see our own humanity, not so distant. This desire to mark continues; artists still use simple lines, complex shapes, textured movement to create marks that draw our attention, marks that memorialize, marks that can connect us.
The six artists featured in this show mark with the strokes of a brush, rubbings of a crayon, moulding out of clay, and imprints from press and plate. These artists craft a kind of visceral vocabulary that helps them communicate ideas in new ways. Interpreting these marks tells us something about what each artist sees, what they care about.
Cueva Manos, Mariano Santa Cruz
CURATORIAL COMMENTARY:
In fluid and frenetic brush-work, LINNEA RYSHKE draws us into the souls of birds tagged to trace their movements. Her marks whisk through the sky, alighting our imaginations with both whimsy and wonder, recounting patterns of the natural movement of freedom. In contrast, the constricted, conflicted marks of the captive bird in a scientist’s hand asks us to observe our practices of research and relation to wildlife.
Barn Owl (detail) , Linnea Ryshke
Using crayon rubbings, ANNA SCHENKER captures various tree likenesses, making intricate details into monumental landscapes and small elegies. With color and texture, she draws our eyes to see things we might ignore ordinarily. Rendered with a technique learned in childhood, (one you perhaps have tried your own hand at long ago), these innocent marks on simple cotton sheets allow the artist to make friends with these long term inhabitants, these flora neighbors dwelling around the places she now works and lives.
St. Louis, 12.7.24 - 12.8.24, Anna Schenker
Intuitively carved on site, like a plein air painting, CARMEN
RIBAUDO’S clay remembrances catalog the current landscape where brick claywork mines once stood. Gestural marks document the details both universal and utterly specific that can make a place home. These terracotta vignettes invite us to consider the movement of time, the evolution of place, how we memorialize and how we forget.
Shiner and Sailor (detail) , Carmen Ribaudo
ALLISON LUCE’S monoprints wind and twist with vaguely animal and vaguely plantlike imagery, using abstractions and bold color to explore conversations about humanity, falleness, and redemption. Reflecting on the creation story centered in a garden that turns in on itself after temptation and human failure, the marks in these images perhaps feel strained or uneasy. In some prints the ordered marks repeat, maze-like and spiraling into folds of unknown proportions with disquieting spiny protrusions. In others, the slippery forms smudge and smear, ready to slide right off the page onto the floor. Like a microscopic slide, all of the compositions seem an image inpart, without clean ending or beginning, a musing on the narrow lens through which we see only our slice of the vast narrative of space and time.
Untitled (detail) , Allison Luce
SUMMER ZAH marks the history and resilience of Native people with brilliant color and movement. Referencing traditional basketry, Zah imprints woven textures that tightly cohere in some moments, while unraveling in others. The compositions carry a weight of loss and disorientation, but also energy and reinvention. The interlaced patterns undergird and stabilize, like an orienting heritage, an identity imprinted and preserved, ordering layers of complex history.
Towards Futurity (detail) , Summer Zah
THINGS TO PONDER WHILE YOU
LOOK:
As you investigate and contemplate the works in this show, notice the types of marks. What marks move quickly and which ones linger? What marks make bold statements, and what marks whisper? What marks capture your attention, and which ones do you almost miss? How do you translate the marks you see? What could these various marks mean? What might they teach you about the world around you, and how might they help you become more deeply connected?
Untitled 11 (detail) , Allison Luce
Carmen Ribaudo
ARTIST STATEMENT:
This series of bricks -- shown on their ”shiner” and “sailor” sides -- was carved from observation at the sites of nine former clay mines and brick manufacturers in St. Louis.
Locations spanned from a hilly Dogtown neighborhood, to freight train tracks beside a probation facility overlooking the city skyline, to a garden maintained by Jehovah’s Witnesses. The locations were found thanks to a Missouri Department of Natural Resources map in the National Building Arts Center archives.
Gilker Fire Clay Mine was active in 1896, and had 15 foot pillars, a 7 foot wide entry way, and a 140 foot depth. A century of transformation unfolds, and the location now hosts an antique store. A grumpy man isn’t happy I’m there. Like the imaginative leaps one must take to see a now-commercial road as a dark tunnel where men dug clay, the carvings become new, shifting spaces into which one is invited to crouch down and enter, as if peering into a dollhouse.
Shiner and Sailor, Carmen Ribaudo
Shiner and Sailor, Carmen Ribaudo
Allison Luce
ARTIST STATEMENT:
The Serpent Tree
The Serpent Tree explores fragility and femininity and its relation to the concept of eternity through ceramics, connecting my artwork made in a post-modern context to the rich and ancient history of clay. The idea for this body of work comes from the story of the Garden of Eden and investigates the frailty of the body and the fallibility of man. Referencing nature as well as the body, these sculptures are about birth, growth and temptation. At first glance, the forms seem to be living and innocent, but upon closer inspection they can appear slightly sinister and suggestive. It is this play between innocence and experience that forms the basis of my work.
Monoprints
This collection of linocuts and monoprints compliment The Serpent Tree series of sculptures.
Untitled 1
Untitled 5
Untitled 8,
9
Linnea Ryshke
ARTIST STATEMENT:
The paintings shown in “The Mark” are part of Linnea’s multimedia project, Afield, which derives from artistic research that she conducted in 2022 at four sites of human-animal interaction in Sweden. At each of the sites, Linnea witnessed and took part in certain practices in which non-human animals were the subjects. These paintings were made in response to her experience volunteering at a migratory bird conservation station. She took part in trapping and “ringing” migratory birds, which is a practice also known as “banding:” a metal ring is attached around their ankles; their bodies are measured and recorded; and their photos are taken. While this practice of “ringing” is ubiquitous across ornithology, and is done with the intention of monitoring species for conservation purposes, Linnea experienced the act as one of force and domination. The individual birds were seen as specimens, not as individuals clearly communicating their fear and lack of consent. The small paintings that depict Linnea’s hands holding the birds are juxtaposed by the larger paintings of birds in flight. These paintings are of house martins, a species of swallow, who flew with strength and surrender in the fierce wind. Made not from photographs of the house martins, but from drawings and memory, the paintings
evoke the feeling of their appearance and disappearance from a field of vision. The paintings are an expression of love, not an infatuated, objectifying love, but a love that will humble us, a love that regards the beloved as someone of her own will, as someone utterly, and wonderfully, of mystery.
Barn owl held / to photograph, after being ringed,
Wren held / to be ringed
Robin / being ringed
House Martin held / to be ringed
Behold / belove / be let go
Your name is a shawl / intentionally woven with holes
Your name is a verb / mistaken for a noun
Because your beauty / will always run / through my fingers / like water
Because beauty cannot be held
Andy Warhol
CURATORIAL NOTE:
Can mark making draw us into curiosity? Can marks reframe how we see the world, especially those things that make us afraid, disgusted, or arrogant towards others?
Long, delicate lines and confidently rounded marks form the bodies of Andy Warhol’s insects in his print, Happy Bug Day . Long before he silk-screened Marilyn Monroe or Campbell’s soup cans, Warhol made this piece featuring a variety of insects while working as a commercial illustrator. Using a blotted line technique he translated from pen to lithograph, Warhol’s creatures command our attention away from common revulsion toward appreciation. One could read these as specimens in a box, but Warhol’s animated and simple marks seem to give them life, movement. Warhol draws with curiosity, perhaps even care, and invites us to reframe “creepy-crawlies” into characters of wonder. Through a similar reframing, Anna Schneker’s piece Wing Studies memorializes fallen cicada wings. These relics of a short life that emerge after long cycles of slumber suddenly flutter
into our view; rendered tiny, fragile, even beautiful through the process of rubbing. These marks reveal the intricate, stain-glass like pattern of the wing, noting how it begins to disintegrate under the consistent crayon marks.
Scheneker’s work tugs gently at our emotions to care for something small that may ordinarily repulse, or incite us to kill, and instead look closely and be filled of wonder.
Happy Bug Day
Anna Schenker
ARTIST STATEMENT:
I create paintings, sculptures, and rubbings to pay tribute to the earthly beings found within my immediate surroundings. I use indexical processes that stain, trace, and record to preserve a moment in time. The process of rubbing is a tactile and meticulous activity of excavation. It is an imprint of what was once there, a mapping of attentive contact. The works are dependent upon the physicality of the host as I engage directly with the plants, seeds, weather, and trees that surround me. The rubbing’s flatness actively constructs a new reality; a liminal space hovers between the impression and the real world, creating a sense of something both absent and present.
My work results from an accumulation of physical actions and systems for making. I emphasize touch as a physical tool to slow down our initial visual perception and understanding. It is through the making process that I begin to understand my sentiment for my environments and their complexity. Rather than stepping back to take in monumental vistas, close investigation of our world may give us new insights into understanding nature and our role within it.
Wing Studies
St. Louis, 12.7.24 - 12.8.24
Summer Zah
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Zah studies and references various motifs found in Indigenous textiles and baskets to communicate resilience, survivance, and/or continuation of her cultural identity in midst a field full of political tensions. She views this body of work as a return; a return to spiritual faith, understanding traditional teachings, and, most of all, inhabiting the love of her ancestors so that it may continue forward.
A large portion of these realizations derive from meditation about the land of the four corners area (Arizona/Utah/ New Mexico/Colorado). The dessert and mountains contain ancient stories orally told amongst community members. The arid landscape is also home to various cultural ceremonies. These moments are captured through the symbols pictured in Zah’s work to embody ancestral knowledge and its healing power.
Basketry Study
His Other Half
Luce, Allison
Untitled 1 : $600 | 2008 | 22 x 30 inches | Monoprint
Untitled 2 : $600 | 2008 | 30 x 22 inches | Monoprint
Untitled 3 : $600 | 2008 | 22 x 30 inches | Monoprint
Untitled 4 : $600 | 2008 | 22 x 30 inches | Monoprint
Untitled 5 : $600 | 2008 | 22 x 30 inches | Monoprint
Untitled 6 : $600 | 2008 | 22 x 30 inches | Monoprint
Untitled 7 : $600 | 2008 | 22 x 30 inches | Monoprint
Untitled 8 : $600 | 2008 | 22 x 30 inches | Monoprint
Untitled 9 : $600 | 2008 | 30 x 22 inches | Monoprint
Untitled 10 : $600 | 2008 | 22 x 30 inches | Monoprint
Untitled 11 : $600 | 2008 | 22 x 30 inches | Monoprint
Allison Luce explores the ephemeral nature of existence and the mystery of eternity through her ceramic sculptures and monoprints. Luce graduated with dual BFA degrees in Painting and Art History from Ohio University and her MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York. She currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina where she is a studio artist and a Realtor. She has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally and her work is included in private and corporate collections.
She has been a Resident Artist at the International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark, the Zentrum für Keramik-Berlin in Germany, and the Medalta International Artists in Residence in Canada. She has been an Affiliate Artist at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation and a Visiting Artist at Baltimore Clayworks.
In 2014, she was a Resident Artist at The Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences where she was awarded The Antinori Fellowship for Ceramic Artists. She was a Resident Artist at the GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art and the Noble and Greenough School in Massachusetts in 2015.
She served as Guest Faculty for Gordon College’s study abroad program in Orvieto, Italy in 2016 and 2017. Her artwork was on display on a billboard on 1-77 North in Charlotte as part of the Art Pop 2016 program. She has participated in the American Craft Council shows in Atlanta, Georgia and served on the Board of Directors of Christians in the Visual Arts. She completed a fifty-sculpture commission for the Arts & Science Council of Charlotte as a participant in their Community Supported Art program. She also received two Regional Artist Project Grants from the ASC to purchase a kiln and a slab roller for her home studio.
Facebook @Allison Luce | Instagram @AllisonLuce
Ribaudo, Carmen
Shiner & Sailor : For pricing, contact the artist | 2023
61 x 96 inch installation | Terracotta clay, pine shelves
Carmen Ribaudo (b. 1994, St. Louis) is a second year MFA-VA candidate at Washington University. She was Project Coordinator for Counterpublic 2023. Carmen co-organizes and co-curates Reverb, a curatorial project within a WWII-era concrete bunker at Tyson Research Center in Eureka, MO. She has been a resident artist Ellis-Beauregard in Rockland, Maine, a Creative Fellow at the Providence Public Library, a member-artist at Queer.Archive.Work in Providence, Rhode Island,
and a participant of Trojan Horse Summer School in Finland. work has been shown in St. Louis, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine. She organizes a monthly life drawing group – ask her about it, and she will invite you to the next one!
Website : www.CarmenRibaudo.com | Instagram @CarmRoses
Ryshke, Linnea
Your name is a verb / mistaken for a noun : NFS | 2022-2024
68 x 48 inches | Oil on fabric
Behold / belove / be let go : NFS | 2022-2024 | 48 x 66 inches
Oil on fabric
Your name is a shawl / intentionally woven with holes : NFS
2022-2024 | 62 x 48 inches | Oil on fabric
Because your beauty / will always run / through my fingers / like water : NFS | 2022-2024 | 48 x 90 inches | Oil on fabric
House Martin held / to be ringed : NFS | 2022-2024 | 12 x 13 inches
Oil on fabric
Robin / being ringed : NFS | 2022-2024 | 12 x 13 inches | Oil on panel
Barn owl held / to photograph, after being ringed : NFS
2022-2024 | 13 x 11 inches | Oil on panel
Because beauty cannot be held : NFS | 2022-2024 | 9:00 | Video
Linnea Ryshke is a visual artist and educator whose practice seeks to restore the value of nonhuman animals as kindred beings worthy of our adoration, respect and empathy. She has exhibited her work nationally and published her first book
of poetry and image, Kindling with Lantern Publishing and Media in 2021. Her second book, Afield, which derives from her most recent project, will be published in spring 2026. She is the founder of the artist collective, “More than Human,” and is currently based in Southern Louisiana, where she is an Assistant Professor at Nicholls State University.
Website : www.ReembodimentProject.com | Instagram @Linnea_Ryshke
Schenker, Anna
Wing Studies : For pricing, contact the artist | 2025
4 feet x 5 x 5 inches | Crayon, paper, wood
St. Louis, 12.7.24 - 12.8.24 : For pricing, contact the artist 2024 | 20 x 8 feet installation | Lumber crayon, muslin, wood
Anna Schenker makes rubbings, paintings, and sculptures that record direct interaction with her immediate surroundings. Through physical actions and systems for making, she uses touch as a tool to gain understanding and preserve a moment in time. These close investigations seek to slow down our initial perception of environments and create space for wonder and play. Anna received her BS in Art and Psychology from Skidmore College and an MFA in Visual Art from Washington University in St. Louis. She is based in St. Louis, MO.
Website : AnnaLSchenker.com | Instagram @AnnaSchenkerArt
Zah, Summer
Towards Futurity : NFS | 2023 | 30 x 22 inches | Monotype
His Other Half : NFS | 2023 | 40 x 30 inches | Monotype and woven paper
Revitalization 01 : NFS | 2023 | 30 x 22 inches | Monotype and woven paper
Basketry Study : NFS | 2023 | 22 x 30 inches | Woodcut relief
Summer Zah graduated from the University of Oklahoma with her Master’s Degree in Printmaking. She is highly influenced by her tribal backgrounds when creating work, which leans towards either sharing a memory, political intrigue, or celebrating what is culturally hers. Zah looks towards all other art forms to understand adjacency and works towards creating pieces free from victimization in order to sustain pride in knowing who she is.
Instagram @Remmus_Haz
Warhol, Andy
Happy Bug Day : NFS | 1954 | 14 x 9 inches | Offset lithograph on paper
Andy Warhol (born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987)
was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered one the most important artists of the second half of the 20th century.
Bernhardt, Sarah : CURATOR
Website : SrBernhardt.Art | Instagram @SrBernhardt
Kenyon, Megan : CURATOR
Instagram @ServantsCryStudios
With public support from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency
This book was loving handbound, for you, by local artist : ___________________________________
02.17 - 4.05.25