Seth Adelsberger: Iconographic Sampler
September 8 – October 22, 2005
Featuring energetic, vivid acrylic paintings and works on paper Iconographic Sampler marks painter Seth Adelsberger’s first DC solo show. Adelsberger, who is based in Baltimore, is the first exhibitor in the 2005-2006 season of the Flashpoint Gallery. Drawing influence from such varied sources as Dadaism and contemporary graffiti art, Adelsberger works primarily in acrylic but incorporates other media such as correction fluid, ballpoint ink, spray paint, marker, enamel and collaged ephemera. This complex accumulation of materials and influences creates a visual cacophony that reflects the sheer abundance of information in the modern world. According to Adelsberger, his paintings “start as a nervous tick: impulsive doodles and haphazard accumulations. From these emerge order and hierarchies and in the end the pieces serve as a way to mark time—or a time.”

MOTI/ON: Artists Exploring Interactive Media
November 3 – 30, 2005
features the work of a group of Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) students, led by professor and curator Mina Cheon. From screen-based work to sound, performance and installation pieces, the students present interactive work that is site-specific to Flashpoint. Originating with a special course at MICA taught by Cheon, the work is intended to specifically address issues inherent to interactive media such as virtuality, physicality, and the role of the viewer’s identity. The students are involved with every stage of the exhibition development, from the virtual programming to creating interfaces and feedback systems for their pieces, exploring how the interactive situation changes spatial perceptions and the viewer’s physical experience. Cheon has been teaching at MICA since 2000; she is currently working on a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Maryland and holds MFA degrees in Imaging & Digital Arts and Painting from UMD and MICA, respectively.

Christopher Williams: Legato
December 8, 2005 – January 14, 2006
In Legato, sculptor Christopher Williams responds to the physical space of the gallery, exploring its limits as they relate to form. Williams manipulates the gallery’s existing boundaries by building temporary walls in front of the true walls and making use of the conduit and ductwork of the gallery’s ceiling to install forms based on observational figure drawings. Some of these forms are cast in fiber glass and Hydrocal, while some are painted directly on the wall. These temporary materials allow Williams to create the appearance of a large-scale architectural intervention while preserving all aspects of the actual space. At the same time, the figurative allusion of the artist’s abstract forms lends an additional layer of visual and physical negotiation of the space, suggesting relationships between the body and its surrounding structural environment.

Jeffry Cudlin, Christopher Hoeting, Jefferson Pinder: Assimilation/Dissolution
January 19 – February 25, 2006
Assimilation/Dissolution follows a process of intensive creative dialogue between the artists Jeffry Cudlin, Christopher Hoeting and Jefferson Pinder. This project examines critical dialogue as a metaphor for the creation or preservation of a sense of community, place and identity. Each artist begins by creating one piece on urban decay and the shifting of boundaries in DC. Every 15 days thereafter, the artists swap the original pieces and create an additional work of their own in response, continuing to trade and reinterpret for six months as each piece is filtered through the creative lenses of the respective artists. After 10 of these cycles, each artist creates a final piece based on the preceding process of interruption and interference. The exhibition at Flashpoint showcases all of the pieces created throughout the project, encouraging meditation on the subject of identity—of a place or neighborhood, as well as that of the individual artist—particularly in the face of transition.

Nathan Manuel: Flocks & Flowers
March 3 – April 1, 2006
In Flocks & Flowers, artist Nathan Manuel uses drawing on paper, painting on panel and found text to examine the experience of Christians in a largely secular environment. Manuel begins with the traditional religious symbol of a flock of sheep to weave a visual narrative of the intersection of faith and contemporary culture. He juxtaposes this Christian imagery with graffiti-inspired painting and a mélange of found text of all kinds—from advertisements and advice columns to academic text and fictional prose. This site-specific installation is comprised of drawings and paintings on panel mounted above a continuous collage of drawings on found paper and text displayed in an asymmetrical horizontal strip along the gallery’s walls. With this convergence of disparate materials, Manuel seeks to illustrate and explore an intersection of faith, art and popular culture.

Micro-Monumental: An exhibition of matchbox size sculptures
April 6 – May 27, 2006
Curated by Kristen Hileman of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Micro-Monumental is an unusual collaborative exhibition unlike any other the Washington Sculptors Group has ever created. Each sculptural object in this exhibition measures 3.5” x 2.5”—approximately the size of a matchbox. The small scale of these pieces allows a large number of sculptors from Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia to participate, all of whom are free to work with their preferred materials and according to their own thematic interests. The Washington Sculptors Group is an artist-run organization dedicated to promoting awareness and understanding of sculpture and fostering the exchange of ideas between sculptors, collectors, and the public.

Ken Ashton: De Aqui al Paraiso
June 1 – July 1, 2006
Curated by Jayme McLellan, Co-Director of Transformer Gallery, De Aqui al Paraiso is photographer Ken Ashton’s first DC solo show in 10 years. This project, begun in 1995, features Ashton’s poetic and carefully observed imagery from many corners of the world, including Berlin, London, Cuba and Washington, DC. This exhibition features approximately 30 photographs, both in color and black and white, arranged in chapters showcasing Ashton’s idiosyncratic surveys of the conditions of the urban environment at home and abroad. Using visual markers such as graffiti, congested streetscapes and commercial signage, Ashton’s photographs capture the flotsam and jetsam that mark the complexity and vitality of city life.

Axelle Rioult: Non sans émoi (As I Lay Myself…)
July 7 – August 19, 2006
With Non sans émoi (As I Lay Myself…), French artist Axelle Rioult takes the investigation of self out of her personal experience as well as her experience with others, using technology and performance to create a "psychological self-portrait." This multi-faceted project is curated by Xavier Courouble.