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Beginnings

Beginnings. Often begin with an ending first. Sometimes a discovery. A new perspective. A fresh awakening. This exhibition examines how artists address beginnings and the transformations that occur not only in their work but also within the artist or viewer. Perhaps for both.

Ivan Bridges begins with appropriated images, not for reproduction but to transform them while inviting the viewer to imagine the possibilities. Robert Hightower provides us with the poetic beauty within the duality of grieving and waiting for new beginnings. Derrick Schmidt’s work gives a second life to broken and discarded elements, integrating them into layered compositions. Past memories and broken mirrors invite the viewer to see oneself in the work, allowing for the beginning of reflection, awareness, and transformation.

Artwork from our permanent collection by Michelle Doll, Rafa Esparza, Clifford Prince King, Magdalena Wosinska, and Lyne Lapointe is included in the exhibition.

curated by Tamara White

Robert Hightower

The weight of waiting

There's a seat here that used to know your weight.
I don't forget shapes like that, even after they stop coming back.

For a while I just held the space where you were.
Didn't move, didn't ask for anything,
just kept the shape of you a little longer than I should have.

Then the flowers came in anyway.
Nobody asked them to.
They just grew right up against me
like they didn't know grief was supposed to keep its distance.

I used to think if I stayed still enough, you'd find your way back to me.
Now I think staying still was never the same as waiting.

Somebody new will sit here eventually.
They won't know what I used to hold,
they'll just feel the sun and the color coming up around them,
and that'll be enough.

I'm learning that new beginnings don't erase what came before.
They just grow right up next to it, uninvited, persistent, alive.

I'm not empty.
I'm becoming something that can hold two things at once.

Ivan Bridges

Beginnings is an apt title for this body of work by Ivan Bridges, as these paintings are concerned with something just emerging. They begin with appropriated source images, but their aim is not reproduction. Through the act of painting, each image is transformed into something new.

This transformation takes place in the application of paint itself. With deliberate restraint, Bridges leaves “just enough” on the surface for the image to remain unresolved rather than fully described. The viewer is invited to complete what is only partially revealed, participating in the image’s emergence. In this sense, the act of looking becomes inseparable from the work’s beginning.

Heat, 2026 Watercolor and Acrylic on Paper 10 x 7 inches (25 x 18 cm)

Blush, 2026 Watercolor on Yupo
12 x 9 inches (30 x 23 cm)

Contact Ivan for availability and pricing.

She Lives, 2025 Watercolor on Paper Stretched over Panel 55 x 55 inches (140 x 140 cm)

Feather, 2026 Watercolor and Acrylic on Paper 10 x 7 inches,(25 x 18 cm)

Lush, 2026 Watercolor on Yupo 12 x 9 inches
(30 x 23 cm)

People, 2026 Watercolor and Acrylic on Paper 10 x 7 inches (25 x 18 cm)

Derrick Schmidt

Infant Self

Ideas emerge from the materials for artist Derrick Schmidt. Using layered surfaces and inviting past events, Schmidt utilizes broken mirrors and fragmented images to create moments of self-confrontation. Seeing oneself in the work elicits a beginning of possibilities. An act of reflection, awareness, and transformation. For the artist, the art is about freedom, freeing ourselves from our own barriers while looking at our life through mirror shards and memories.