When Conditions Are Right

Ruth Jeyaveeran - Simonette Quamina - Katie Ries -  Camilla Taylor

October 11 – November 9, 2025
Opening Reception: Oct 11, 6–8 PM

Felting workshop with Ruth Jeyaveeran: October 25, 3–5 PM (details below)

Transmitter is pleased to announce When Conditions Are Right, a group exhibition centered around the idea of a seed bank as a model for artistic resilience and renewal. The exhibition spotlights four artists – Ruth Jeyaveeran, Simonette Quamina, Katie Ries, and Camilla Taylor – whose artmaking approaches hold traces of what it means to navigate change, transform, and imagine otherwise across time.

Unlike a time capsule (fixed and sealed for posterity) a seed bank safeguards vitality, preserving it with the intention of eventual reactivation. In this spirit, the artists in When Conditions Are Right present works that harbor knowledge and models of possibility; resources for those who will inherit our present era.

Ruth Jeyaveeran draws on her South Asian diasporic experience using felted wool and textiles to explore migration, memory, and revival. Through layered sculptures and installations – where human, animal, and landscape intermingle – she interrogates ideas of belonging, rupture, repair and place. 

Simonette Quamina merges printmaking, drawing, and collage to create layered monochrome works on paper. Drawing on her Caribbean and diasporic experiences, she condenses memory, history, and small intimate moments into dense, textured narratives that preserve and re-present stories spanning temporal and spatial boundaries.

Camilla Taylor’s piece Change was made in response to the experience of losing their house, studio and neighborhood to the Altadena fires in early 2025. This work enlists the viewer to activate the piece and engage with ideas of physical as well as emotional imprinting and transference. 

Katie Ries’s work What You’ve Got invites visitors to exchange a small object on hand (from their pocket, backpack or otherwise) for a handmade seed ball arranged on a plinth. Containing wildflower seeds, these seed balls encourage participants to consider value, choice, and the future landscape as they decide where to release them.

Much like seeds themselves, the artworks on view function less as static records than as vessels for memory, labor, and potential. The works included foreground the artist’s hand, privileging process and materiality over polish, with some pieces asking the viewer to offer their own contribution. They invite attentiveness and participation, embodying an ethic of care and deliberation that mirrors the patient stewardship of a seed bank. 

Together, the practices of these artists feel at once urgent and anticipatory, extending beyond mere responsiveness to the present. They preserve fragments of lived experience as material portraits of endurance and imagination, waiting, like dormant seeds, for the right conditions to take root.

Transmitter will host a communal rock-felting workshop with artist Ruth Jeyaveeran
October 25, 3–5 PM
Join us for this community event, where making becomes both a gift and an exchange. Participants will contribute a felted rock to the exhibition and create one to take home. This participatory artwork honors slowness, touch and togetherness, highlighting the transformative qualities of wool. The workshop also draws on the long tradition of communal felting across cultures, reconnecting us through shared acts of craft and community.

ARTIST BIOS:

Simonette Quamina was born in Ontario Canada, and spent her early childhood living between South America, the Caribbean, and New York City. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from the City College of New York and a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is the recipient of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program in New York City, the recipient of the 2017-2018 Provincetown Fine Arts Works Center Residency and the 2017 Salem Art Works Fellowship as well as a Queen Sonja Print Award nominee. Her work has shown both nationally and internationally. It has been acquired for private and public collections. Recent group exhibitions include Embody at The Mandeville Gallery, Figuring the Floral at Wave Hill Glyndor Gallery, Artist I steal from at Gallerie Thaddaeus Ropac in London, Coded at the Boston Center of the Arts, Mills Gallery, and Bathing at Planthouse Gallery in New York City. She is an Assistant Professor of Printmaking at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Katie Ries lives and works in Johnson City, TN and teaches art, design, and printmaking at East Tennessee State University. She is a graduate of UT Knoxville (MFA). Katie Ries is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work uses drawing, ephemera, and humor to foster social and ecological connections. She has exhibited widely, including recent solo and collaborative shows such as KEEP IT TOGETHER at Bauer Gallery, St. Norbert College (2025), Rah! Rah! Nature! at Edwards Art Gallery, Bowdoin College (2024), and Grounded with John Schuerman at Inez Greenberg Gallery (2022). Ries has been awarded residencies at Arrowmont School of Crafts (Pentaculum, 2018) and Stay Home Gallery, Paris, TN (2021). Her work has been recognized with awards including Best in Show at Fables, Fairy Tales, Folktales, Legends, and Myths (2016) and the Bishop Robert F. Morneau Community Service Award from St. Norbert College (2019).

Camilla Taylor lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. They are known for monochromatic, introspective works on paper and in sculpture that merge figurative and architectural forms, reflecting both personal and collective experiences. Recent solo exhibitions include The Knot at The Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA (2024), Dry Tree at Track16 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2023) and Quiet Friend at Kanda and Oliveria Gallery in Tokyo, Japan (2022).  In addition to exhibiting in galleries, Taylor creates installations in intimate and unconventional settings, including swimming pools, desert gardens, and other site-specific locations. Raised in Provo, Utah, they earned a BFA from the University of Utah (2006) and an MFA from California State University, Long Beach (2011) and are currently a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles

Ruth Jeyaveeran lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her debut solo show was exhibited at Field Projects in 2023. Other notable exhibitions include Felt Experience at the Brattleboro Museum, Communion, a solo installation at Main Window Dumbo, and a public sculpture installed at the Queens Botanical Garden. Her work has been featured at Fridman Gallery, Smack Mellon, Allstreet Gallery, ABC No Rio, Westbeth Gallery, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, The Border Project, and Bronx Art Space, among others. She has been awarded residencies from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Ucross Foundation, Residency Unlimited, Lighthouse Works, Marble House Project, Jentel Foundation, Willapa Bay, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, La Napoule Art Foundation, and PADA Studios. She has taught courses in textiles and fibers at Parsons School of Design and frequently leads workshops on felting and the therapeutic benefits of craft. Jeyaveeran is an Associate Professor of Textile Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.