What is Inbetweeness, and what does it look like? Six San Antonio artists have attempted to answer that question to the best of their abilities and with a wide variety of mediums and introspection. However complex the subject, curator Marisa Sage found a connection between the six artists chosen for this exhibition, and states: “In some way, the artists spoke about the fascinations of the in-between: between worlds, places, spaces, and mediums; what lies just behind, outside, beyond. The ways translation alters meaning, the space between two countries, the experience of living between cultures, the transition between genders, the process of becoming a mother — these fluid, slippery, and compelling moments became the connective thread of the show.” Through their artistic practice each artist makes sense of, and finds authenticity in their inbetweeness, and where they situate themselves in the context of place, culture, identity, and belonging. The six artists, Josie Norris, Brittany Ham, Huakai Chen, Jorge Villarreal, Bella Martinez, and Gabi Magaly interrogate inbetweeness head-on, capturing multiple interwoven complexities of a moment, of years, and of longing, relationships, feeling, and a place where time has no footing. In Sage’s words, these artists are “Mediaries, Mediums, Translators, and Transformers.”
The gallery is divided into two spaces. The larger space encompasses the work of artists Josie Norris, Brittany Ham, Gabi Magaly, and Bella Martinez, and work by the final two artists, Jorge Villarreal and Huakai Chen, is in a more narrow, adjacent gallery space. The overall dark and dim atmosphere of the UTSA gallery spaces allows for the art to really shine. Visitors are drawn in, can get really close to the installations and examine the meticulous details of each piece. This physical movement between the viewer and the work implies another layer of “inbetweenness” which is dependent on the space between the viewer and the work on the walls. Each artist has a dedicated corner or wall that allows the viewer to step in and be immersed in the work, or step back and take in a wider view of various installations at once. Looking from one installation to the next, there are ideas of movements, dimensions of visibility, as well as stillness.
Josie Norris, “The Sun & The Rain & The Appleseed,” 2023-2025
On one side of the first gallery space is a corner filled with photographs of various sizes, some framed with colorful knitted and crocheted designs, and an elaborately painted hanging sculpture that resembles a wind chime. This immersive installation titled The Sun & The Rain & The Appleseed, 2023-2025, by multidisciplinary artist Josie Norris, shows the intricacies of family dynamics, capturing very mundane objects that signify familiarity like magnets on a refrigerator, to intimate moments of family in prayer around a dinner table captured in hundreds of disposable photographs. The viewer becomes privy to the intimate spaces and details of life. The larger photographs are self-portraits of the artist themself and stand out not only for the subject matter, but because they are framed by the crochet and knitted designs. These juxtapose large family gatherings versus solitary moments with just the artist. In one portrait, the viewer can see Norris looking into a mirror and raising a hand to their lips, while the overwhelming amount of images surrounding this portrait are of family excursions, places, and moments shared between family members, all of whom resemble the artist. As a whole, the installation is a comment on the difficult and isolating dynamics within heteronormative family experiences.
Detail of an installation by Brittany Ham
Brittany Ham’s framed paintings and wall painting capture mundane moments and more surrealistic concepts. The lone wall painting of a seemingly dark landscape with deep, diluted greens and blues is the largest in Ham’s installation. A simple piece of crumpled three-hole punched graph paper is taped to the top of the landscape painting with the words “It is not an ambitious time” handwritten across the page. Ham’s framed paintings are paired with multiple torn pages from the artist’s sketchbook, which are tacked to the wall haphazardly between each painting with blue tape, and on closer examination, we can see each page has studies, sketches, and notes for the finished paintings hanging on the wall. Ham’s purposeful documentation allows the viewer to see all the moments of “in between” in all the work, from initial sketches to the finished piece. While the work itself is simple, the notes and sketches activate the work, potentially hitting a tender spot with the audience. It is at once simple yet profound, and encourages deeper thought.
Gabi Magaly, detail from the series “Dear Frank, I wish…Love, Gabi”
Photographs ranging from the size of a disposable camera to full body scale are arranged randomly from the bottom of the wall to the top, and across a wide expanse of wall. The installation by Gabi Magaly requires a full range of looking, from craning your neck to see and read the photos on top, to crouching down to the floor and walking from side to side. Additionally there is a wooden desk, a chair, and a notebook with a note that reads, “Write a last letter to your ex”. The series “Dear Frank, I wish…Love, Gabi” shows the moment of vulnerability in the aftermath of a close romantic relationship. Magaly’s photographs make light of what appears to be a heartbreaking, albeit familiar, situation of attempting to reclaim the self through loss and instability. The internal interrogation process is on full display in the diary-like installation of photographs, some of which are accompanied by hand-written notes offering some sort of narration, memory, or even affirmation, all offering glimpses into the struggle of a breakup and even betrayal.
Bella Martinez plays with a sense of “inbetweenness” through the use of materials like paper pulp and drywall, transforming them to create works that are simultaneously playful and bright in color but meticulously difficult to construct. Some have visible patterns, some do not, and they are layered to imply incompleteness, which makes the entire installation much more compelling and draws viewers into the patterns and maze-like features within the work. In one piece, I Couldn’t Afford the Helmet, Martinez employs cut carpet backing to create colorful layers amongst abstract charcoal drawings and drywall. In Creepy In August, Martinez plays with paper pulp, making unique sculptural shapes that convey movement on top of handmade paper. Both these pieces are small but mighty in their interpretation of being in between.
Huakai Chen, “Window VI”
In the smaller, adjacent space, the viewer is met with small-scale oil paintings on panel by Huakai Chen, whose works play with ambiguity and degrees of visibility. In their Window oil painting series, Chen presents abstract sights outside a window, encouraging the viewer to search for things recognizable. In Window VI, the viewer can make out the cracks of the paint, a bright golden shape in the center of the piece, and translucent transparent Mandarin text that spirals around the painting and surrounds and interacts with the golden shape. The texts are a tool for the artist to communicate where they were at one point in life, and where they are currently, and use phrases translated from the Mandarin such as “Then the Golden Temple appeared before me”, “buried the world that surrounded me and filled me”, and “and stood between me and the life at which I was.” Chen’s work symbolizes the ambiguity and power of our memories of places and where our physicality and proximity to those spaces intersect.
Detail of a work by Jorge Villarreal
On the opposite side of the gallery space, Jorge Villarreal immerses the viewers with bright, torso-sized detail photographs of the U.S./Mexico border wall. Behind each photograph, is a different color block that serves as a backdrop, and the overall effect emits the creation of a wall that has Villarreal’s own identity as a person with dual citizenship, within the U.S. or within Mexico. Bringing the border to the gallery space amongst the vastness of complex political history, Villarreal allows the viewer an opportunity to see themselves within their own physical, historical, political, and psychological borders. Borders are fixed, but Villarreal’s lens has captured a border of depth, revealing their many layers of colored paint and decay. The photographs all capture some distinct color instead of the clichéd images of a metal fence topped with barbed wire. Villarreal’s border has life, and in one photograph, they capture Se Vende Carbon written on a wall, and in another photograph, handprints and other letters are visible, capturing the clear human interaction with this fixed structure.
Six very different perspectives are on display, and the viewer can locate a feeling within each interpretation. Each perspective is an accessible entrance for the viewer to find themselves in this concept — in the depth, the details, and execution. The artists in this exhibition render visible the difficult and complex themes of inbetweenness.
Brianna Glass is the fourth recipient of the Contemporary Art Month Writer’s Fellowship
The Inbetweeness is on view at the Russell Hill Rogers Gallery at the University of Texas, San Antonio, through April 12.
