First Thursday Opening Reception: April 3, 5-8pm
Artists' Talks with Philip Stork, Hannah Theiss and Noah Alexander Isaac Stein: Sunday, April 13, 2:00 pm
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April Reading and Reception: April 10th, 7:00 pm at the Gallery.
Blackfish and Black Ocean present The Naomi Poems, an evening of sketching to poetry.
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Collage night: An art making event for all presented by Hannah Theiss, April 20, 6:00 pm.
APRIL 2-27 — MAIN GALLERY
Connections
— Philip Stork —
The works exhibited in Connections by Philip Stork delve into the unseen worlds that bind us together. Using monochromatic pastels and pencils, Stork captures the essence of cellular networks and the intricate beauty of interconnection. His large black-and-white pieces offer striking contrasts, while softer palettes create a seamless visual harmony.
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These pieces challenge viewers to reconsider the spaces within and around us, evoking both the microscopic and the universal. With their careful interplay of line and tone, the works invite us to explore the connections that underpin existence—both in nature and in ourselves. This exhibition reflects a bold new direction for the artist, who continues to reimagine his artistic practice through the lens of discovery and transformation.
Origin — Philip Stork, 2024, pastel on paper, 27" x 18"
Qualia
— Hannah Theiss —
Hannah Theiss pieces together fragments of memory in her exhibition, Qualia, weaving a tapestry of haunting emptiness and faint familiarity. Memory is far more imperfect than we often acknowledge—especially for those who have experienced ongoing trauma, where recollections remain compromised, unhealed, and unprocessed. Through her use of non-traditional materials, Theiss explores the void that memory presents in the search for answers. Her work teeters on the edge of eerie non-recognition, where transparency and absence evoke the instability of recall. Amidst these echoes, washes of color emerge—offering a release of long-suppressed emotion and forming a fragile, fleeting connection to the past self.
Qualia I — Hannah Theiss, 2025, Mixed Media, 24 x 18
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GALLERY 2
Luminous Fire from a Broken Machine
— Noah Alexander Isacc Stein —
Birth of the Universe — Noah Alexander Isaac Stein, oil and wax on panel
This new body of work by Noah Alexander Isaac Stein explores dualities of interconnection and numinous experience through process-based paintings. With fire as a metaphor for the transformative act that simultaneously consumes and creates, A Luminous Fire from a Broken Machine approaches the potential for transcendent experience as a resolution to suffering.
Focused on expressive painting where interactions of working mediums of oil and cold wax are used as a catalyst for spiritual epiphany, Noah’s art seeks to provide universal connection point between the artist and audience.
As a component of the exhibition, Noah’s art will be accompanied by written works that combine expressive and conceptual approaches to ineffability.
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JAMES HIBBARD GALLERY
Under the Covers
— Blackfish Artists Group Show —
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In partnership with the 2025 Ekphrastival, Blackfish artists will create imaginative new covers to existing books.
Ekphrasis is defined as visual art as literary device, and book covers exemplify this connection through design, symbolism, and text. Exploring this interplay between visual extrapolation and the written word, Blackfish artists will incorporate the two with new works on paper.
From Faber’s Ted Hughes nature poems to Dover Thrift Shakespeare, to pulp-fiction Signet Faulkner and fanfic fueled high school trapper keepers everywhere, books come first to us as art objects. Sometimes you really can tell a book by its cover.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — Merridawn Duckler,
2025, Photophraphy and mixed media, 15" x 10"