Best Practices: Vox’s New Member Exhibition
Featuring James Britt, Maia Chao, Chelsey Luster, KT Pe Benito and Emmanuela Soria Ruiz
Friday, June 3, 2022 – Sunday, July 10, 2022
Opening: Friday, June 3rd from 6-9pm
Presented in Gallery 1 & 2 and Black Box
Vox Populi is open Friday-Sunday, Noon-6pm (or by reservation: vox@voxpopuligallery.org)
Best Practices is a group exhibition of artwork by new Vox Populi members James Britt, Maia Chao, Chelsey Luster, KT Pe Benito, and Emmanuela Soria Ruiz.
Just Announced! Join Vox Members James Britt, Maia Chao, and KT Pe Benito for a Gallery Talk and Tour on Saturday, July 9th, from 12:30-1:30pm, moderated by Lane Speidel. Learn More!
About the Artwork
James Britt, Blue Light Special, 2022, Installation
Presented in Black Box
The shadow is the dark side of human nature ruled by our primitive, instinctual desires. It resides within the unconscious register of our psyche, surfacing as a projection to assert one’s dominance upon others, primarily as a means to protect an individual from resolving their own inadequacies and further blurring the lines between what is real and our inflated perceptions of self. To truly know one’s self, one must embrace the beast that lurks within. – Carl Jung
More Info: Vox Artist Profile / semajlrae.com
Maia Chao, A Picture of Health, 2022, Installation
Presented in Gallery 1
For years, I have been curious about the artwork found in the offices of my doctors and therapists. When I was on Medicaid, following referral after referral for chronic pain, I remember one particularly excruciating three-hour wait, staring at a landscape painting. It was arguably one of the longest times I’ve contemplated a single work of art. Who made it and how was it chosen? What is the role of art while you wait or receive treatment? And what would happen if this artwork returned to—or made its way for the first time to—an art gallery? A Picture of Health presents artwork borrowed from the offices of thirty healthcare providers in Philadelphia. This project stems from an ongoing interest in conceptions of art and its value in non-art settings.
More Info: Vox Artist Profile / maiachao.com / @maia.pologies
Chelsey Luster, Finding Home, 2022, Painting
Presented in Gallery 1
Chelsey Luster’s work focuses on intimacy, safety, and vulnerability through depictions of invented and physical domestic spaces. In Finding Home, Luster examines her models’ safe and vulnerable spaces from memory and imagination. Luster pulls from imagery of their loved ones’ studios, bedrooms, altars, memories, and where they find comfort mentally to create sacred environments for them to exist in. In these works, Luster shares their perspective on the importance of protecting internal and external safe havens and sanctuaries.
More Info: Vox Artist Profile / chelseyluster.com / @ChelseyLusterArt
KT Pe Benito, Song of Sinigang, 2022, Video
Presented in Gallery 2
Looking for direction in a world on fire, a diasporic, dysphoric chef simmers their reflection in Sinigang, a pre colonial Filipino stew. KT Pe Benito (they/them/siya) is an arts worker, caregiver, and organizer navigating access and dismantling dominator culture. KT continues their practice in a new video collage, Song of Sinigang, serving Philippine history revisionism, the spirit of transnational solidarity, and their reasons for living.
More Info: Vox Artist Profile / ktpebenito.com / @playpinay / @anakbayanphilly
Emmanuela Soria Ruiz
En estas cuatro huellas no caben mis zapatos, 2022, Vinyl Print, 30 x 50 in
Score for transformation minuet, 2022, Vinyl Print, 6 x 8 ft
This project is part of an ongoing examination of certain myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which nymphs transform into objects or elements of the landscape to escape sexual assault, proposing a feminist and posthumanist reading of them. This installation focuses on the mytho of Io, who is raped and transformed into a heifer, and invokes Baroque dance notation to propose a choreography for this change of form.
More Info: Vox Artist Profile / emmanuelasoriaruiz.com