Art Enables opens new summer exhibition

“In Search of Solid Ground,” a new exhibition from Art Enables resident artist Toni Lane and visiting artist Alanna Reeves opens Saturday, July 10.

An art gallery and vocational arts program, Art Enables is dedicated to creating opportunities for artists with disabilities to make, market, and earn income from their original and compelling artwork. This summer-long exhibit features more than two dozen pieces exploring themes of displacement, vulnerability, identity, and the effects of identity discontinuity on mental health and well being.

Stylized human figures are central, and arms and hands are expressive and urgent messengers. in Lane’s drawings. They prod, embrace and make desperate requests for help. Some of Lane’s subjects are at risk of drowning – in churning waters, unwelcome attention, or under the emotional weight of circumstance. In all of her works, she renders potent human desires, needs, and struggles with immediacy, sensitive to the ebb and flow of traversing one’s own emotional and psychological terrain.

In Reeves’ paintings and prints, the landscape is more literal but no more certain. Monochromatic trees and plants call on a specific place – the partly unknown homeland of the artist’s ancestors. Mixed with accumulated grids and book pages, this imagery references guides from which the artist has learned and deviated. The components are shuffled, dreamlike and liquid in their mingling.

“In Search of Solid Ground” is open for in-person viewing on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursdays 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. until the end of August. An opening reception is being held on Thursday, July 15 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The public is also invited to view and purchase pieces from the exhibition as well as other current and past shows online.