Open Source Group Exhibition

OPEN SOURCE, group exhibition

Artists: Freddie Bell, Sterling Bowen, Natalia Torres del Valle, Jason Lord, Peter Marin, Jean Gray Mohs, Cindy Morefield, Carson Whitmore

Open source, in the world of software code (the hidden structure of much of the world as we view it), is source material that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Open source is a decentralized software development model that encourages open collaboration. 

At our current point in the history of making Art, there is also a decentralized framework within which abstract artwork can be and is made. No single artist or group owns the source of meaning for this modality, and a wide range of collaborations with and utilizations of the elements developed out of the historical canon is possible, as well as the incorporation of content and materials from outside that world.

In the space needed for and occupied by abstraction, an openness is required, for creator and audience. The artist must be open to the ways in which the source materials of the work, including subjective content, inform decisions about everything from composition to titles. And the audience must be open as well since abstraction’s signifiers (color, shape, surface) are non-literal.

Perhaps most importantly though, the title of this show brings our awareness and acknowledgment to and celebrates the open-ness of source material possible in our time of art making. Artists Freddie Bell, Sterling Bowen, Natalia Torres del Valle, Jason Lord, Peter Marin, Jean Gray Mohs, Cindy Morefield and Carson Whitmore all approach non-figurative artwork from different vantages, personal and conceptual. The exhibit will be hosted in 2023 at Lump Project Space and Sertoma Art Center in Raleigh, and in 2024 at Wilma Daniels gallery at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington.