I was not born alone

EMILY DAVIDSON • JAMES PARKER FOLEY • MARIA STABIO • NATALE ADGNOT

OCT 5 – NOV 3, 2024 
OPENING RECEPTION SATURDAY, OCT 5, 5-8 PM

Transmitter is pleased to present I was not born alone, a group exhibition exploring the creative impulses of duplication, twinship and reflection. The artists highlighted in this show – Emily Davidson, James Parker Foley, Maria Stabio and Natale Adgnot – all share the motivation to intentionally make the same work twice, and through that gesture they explore the interplay between replication, nuance, variation and identity.

The twin-works on display operate as fully-fledged individual pieces; they are not diptychs. However, they are more closely related than artworks born out of a shared series or body of work. The intentional act of repeating a painting or sculpture reflects a clarified vision that explores deep-looking, perceptual refinement and some constraint. Yet, it also offers the liberty to try the fabrication process again using the same recipe; to dig into the creative kernel that prompted the “original” to begin with. The outcomes are engaging and poetic, and allow us to sit with how visual echoing can both reinforce and alter meaning. 

The incentive for each artist’s twin-making is, of course, unique to their interests. Maria Stabio has developed a particular lexicon of repeated marks and objects that offer a formation of identity via the language of symbolism. James Parker Foley’s drawings and paintings are set in an enduring coastal Maine landscape – where water and sky could be interchangeable – and the figures and objects are veiled in a narrative suggestive of constant unconscious ruminations. Natale Adgnot’s sculptures are grounded in a deep interest in faulty perception. The pieces exhibited are part of a project titled “Bird Brains” and operate as a visual glossary of logical fallacies that are so pervasive they have inspired sayings or metaphors: think “Ugly Ducklings,” “Crazy as a Loon,” and “Rise Like a Phoenix.” Emily Davidson’s paintings feel animated, as if they are constantly shifting their physical perspective in order to more closely understand their subject. As a mother of twins, she notes the simultaneous exuberance and exhaustion of constantly serving two. Davidson’s paintings offer a window into a space of play but also high attention – an area artists and mothers are particularly adept in operating. All of these artists and works elicit questions on the nature of originality, the animal instinct of repetition, and how slight deviations in repeated formats can evoke different perceptual (and even emotional) responses.