Umbral Liminal

Manifesto presents the group exhibition Umbral Liminal.

Similar to black hole singularities, conventional notions of time, space, and reality fade as you enter "Umbral Liminal", an artistic nod to potential alternative realities, past, present, and future. The artworks' varied aesthetics and discourses form a complex elliptical system with overlapping borders, like those observed in a Venn diagram. Upon entering this constellation of interstitial creations, visitors will find themselves immersed in a landscape of possibilities, where time twists and new realities unfold. Here, each artist contributes to the resulting terrain of colors, forms, and emotions of a place or time that is traditionally thought to be transitory.

Beyond the impact of technology on the forms of creation, sharing, and consumption of fine art, our contemporary society's evolving preferences give birth to new standards of esthetic perceptions. Influenced by our current physical materiality sharing center stage with our digital existence, this collective body of work reflects the dynamic intersections of genres and themes such as backrooms, pool moods, weird core, retrofuturism, surrealism, fantasy via masterful paintings and installations. The evolution and coalescence of these elements results in art that thrives between disciplines and mediums as each artwork becomes a portal to an unexplored reality that exists between places or actions. Through this lens, we are able to revisit the vestiges of a past that has never passed and a future that may never come.

By bringing together a group of artists whose works converge in the exploration of existing in a space between spaces, we allow for unknown aspects to emerge as what we know becomes blurred. Like futurists or surrealists of the past, these artists take bold and visionary perspectives that explore the tensions of liminality, of that which exists between reality and fantasy, between the tangible and the ephemeral. "Liminal Spaces" is an open-door invitation to question our traditional perceptions and to explore the threshold between one state of being and another. While some people may find them eerie, others will undoubtedly see beauty or potential in the uncertainty they represent. In each stroke of the artist’s brush, the fusion of reality and illusion invites you to pause and ponder the thresholds of your thoughts.

— Sway Consuelo Gaytan, Collections director and associate curator, Manifesto