Agency II
Jordan Buschur Nikki Eggerstorfer Trisha Holt Natalie Lanese
Crystal Phelps Linsday Scypta Jessica Tenbusch
June 15 - July 20, 2019
Agency II brings together the work of artists, performers, activists and educators united in a desire for community and critical dialogue. This exhibition, the second to be held at River House Arts, is a physical expression of the variety of modes of making and thinking present in this extraordinary group of artists.
JORDAN BUSCHUR is an artist, educator, and curator currently working with the The Arts Commission, Toledo, and The Neon Heater Art Gallery, Findlay. She earned an M.F.A. from Brooklyn College, the City University of New York and has shown her work nationally and internationally. She has curated exhibitions at Cuchifritos Gallery and Spring/Break Art Show and is the former Director of the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln and the Prescott Gallery, Lincoln, NE.
NIKKI EGGERSTORFER is a visual artist living and working in Toledo. A graduate of University of Toledo, her work celebrates the body and the health and strength of women to promote cunt positive imagery + discussion.
TRISHA HOLT is interested in the physical properties of the photographic print and the possibilities of its reproduction as a means of addressing the power of images in contemporary culture. Holt has shown her work nationally in New York, Detroit, Seattle, and Arkansas among others. In 2012, she received her Masters of Fine Art, Photography at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work is represented by the David Klein Gallery in Detroit, MI.
NATALIE LANESE conducted post-graduate studies at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Art after earning her MFA from Pratt Institute in New York. Recognized for its punchy color palette and layered patterns, her work has been exhibited at the Akron Art Museum, the Scope International Art Fair in Basel, Switzerland, and in East Hampton, NY, the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA and at SPACE Gallery in Portland, ME. Permanent public work by Lanese can be seen in Cincinnati, Toledo, and in Cleveland.
CRYSTAL GALE PHELPS an artist, performer, curator, and arts administrator. She is a Master of Fine Arts recipient from Maine College of Art (Portland, ME). In the fall of 2016 she was awarded the Roderick Dew Travel Grant for a research trip in London, England to focus on performance studies. She explores concepts of identity, communication, and power through various approaches. Phelps currently plays, lives, and works in Toledo.
LINDSAY SCYPTA is an artist, potter and designer deeply interested in textile pattern, Victorian etiquette, architectural tracery, and the history of the table. After completing a BFA in Art & Design from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University she earned her MFA at The Ohio State University, following her thesis research to England to study works at the Wedgwood Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Brighton Palace. She is currently an adjunct ceramics professor at Owens Community College.
JESSICA TENBUSCH lives and works in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Growing up in Metro-Detroit, she shared her home with a multitude of other animals and hundreds of houseplants. Outside was always inside. She works with a variety of natural found materials and metal. Her work focuses on cycles and reverence of life and death and how all species interrelate to each other. In 2014, she received her Masters of Fine Arts from Eastern Michigan University concentrating in metalsmithing.
Performance: 7 pm, June 15, 2019
Sawing a Woman in Half | Crystal Phelps
Four women use hand saws to disarm and cut a chair in half. This gesture is a metaphorical response to the violent rhetoric and action against female identified bodies. By reclaiming violent histories and challenging power structures a social commentary emerges.