GALLERY SHOWS — TOSHA STIMAGE

Tikkun: For the Cosmos, the Community, and Ourselves presents works by thirty Bay Area–based contemporary artists reflecting on the Jewish concept of tikkun (Hebrew for “to repair”). In a moment of collective challenges and uncertainty, this exhibition re-examines the term tikkun as a phenomenon of care and interconnectedness that is grounded in personal action, environmental responsibility, and community, unfixed from its evolving meanings throughout history. Taken together, the works in this exhibition consider how the concept of tikkun can help us look critically both inward and outward, guide us through change, and build resilience for the ongoing work of repair.

Tikkun: For the Cosmos, the Community, and Ourselves is the twelfth iteration of The Dorothy Saxe Invitational, The Contemporary Jewish Museum’s longest-running exhibition commitment, endowed in Dorothy’s name by her late husband George Saxe z”l. Historically, The Dorothy Saxe Invitational has invited contemporary artists to contribute original works that respond to a specific Jewish ritual object. In recent years, it has broadened to explore themes related to Jewish ideas and cultural practices.

INSTALLATION VIEW

Death Valley COVERED IN FLOWERS

June 4- July 9 2017

Death Valley covered in flowers is a solo exhibition by artist Tosha Stimage which recontextualizes objects and images – i.e., a basketball, a flag, a target – to create conversations around meaning, disambiguation and racial ideologies.

Like any spoken language, a code in semiotics is the framework used to communicate meaning; the convention of linking signs to interpretations. Stimage’s work employs coded messages to investigate the societal constructs of race and violence. Her methods range from the obvious and explicit to more subtle and slowly revealing works. A floral collage of a silhouetted person mimics a chalk outline at a crime scene. A wall mural replicating the artist’s own shooting range target alludes to various associations of gun violence, as well as her own fear of police violence and death. Other works feature labyrinthine patterns – such as hedge mazes or hair braids – as a kind of metaphor for her practice and the circuitous thought process needed to decode them. The processes of weaving and collaging, a means of juxtaposition crucial to Stimage’s practice, allow for new contexts as well as unmask the complicity by which meaning is constructed.

Stimage’s recent work has focused on disambiguations of the word orange as a parable for the word “black” and all of its connotations, as well as investigations into the tropes of exoticism. Her new work expands on those concepts by focusing on our own biases, innocuous or dangerous, in written and visual language.

INSTALLATION VIEW — INSTALLATION VIEW

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Color Factory

August 2017-April 2018

Color Factory is a collaborative interactive exhibit that debuted in San Francisco in August 2017. The Installation “Oranges: various matter with perceptual properties Between 590-620nm” is a larger public iteration of Stimage’s 2016 MFA Thesis.

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INSTALLATION SHOT — INSTALLATION SHOT

A & OP position to Nation

June 09, 2018 — July 07, 2018

I am fascinated by the negotiation of historical and present black existence and it’s mediation thru symbols. Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, describes blackness as ‘irresolvable abjection’, and suggests that we navigate this space of blackness and death not by trying to define them but rather to live being cognizant. This show grapples with themes of death, violence, color, nation, and citizenship in a suggestive manner. These objects give voice to a collective social reality, question the shared relationship to space, and reveal the problematic breakdown in their attempts to coexist.

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APPLIED COLOR THEORY TO AN ALREADY COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP

INSTALLATION VIEW

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INSTALLATION DETAIL — INSTALLATION DETAIL

INSTALLATION DETAIL — INSTALLATION DETAIL

50 WAYS TO MAKE ORANGE is a collection of photo weavings that utilize the figure of O.J. Simpson and orange(s) as a conceptual framework for exploring the possibilities and limitations found in visual language. The act of weaving allows information in the previous images to be concealed and revealed in their interactions. The newly mutated images challenge the notion that meaning can be understood and interpreted thru mere observation. Identities can not be seen as singular or detached, but vacillating because they are contextual.

50 - 11" X 17" WOVEN PAPER -2016

Images courtesy of the artist.

Oranges: Objects with visual properties between 590-620nm (respectively)

2016