Featuring artists:
Rebecca Marimutu, Ada Pinkston, Noel Puello
January 29 – March 5, 2021
Opening Reception: January 29 6-9pm
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday 1-6pm by appointment

Waller Gallery is excited to reopen their doors to the community in January for its first exhibition of the year, “​Contextual Exposure​.” The exhibition features national multimedia artist Ada Pinkston, Baltimore based multimedia artist​ ​Rebecca Marimutu, and Philadelphia-based fashion designer Noel Puello. Each artist, through their work, incorporates different levels of repurposing and vulnerability in the context of their art practices and personal experiences. The artists visualize their stories and craft yet each artist has, and continues, to provide context to how they expose the elements and materials of their work. ​All the artists in “Contextual Exposure” unveil a process, a feeling, and identities with varied perspectives and messages.

Marimutu’s large kraft paper sculptures are often repaired, refined, and cared for over their lifespan. In contrast, her small prints are a sizable shift that are a response to the early Covid-19 pandemic environment of the artist and her larger work. Pinkston’s art works are a manifestation of her experiences navigating space as a human and an artist with emotional silhouettes. Puello’s reimagining of wearable forms showcase her skill and mission to include all bodies and agitate voluminous shapes. An additional layer to her work is the necessary exposure of the process of making garments and the perils of fast fashion.

Biographies

Rebecca Marimutu (she/her) (@rebeccamarimutu) ​is an interdisciplinary artist working to reimagine the practice of portraiture. Her work explores themes of self, identity and material tactility through paper sculpture, collage and audio-visual abstraction. Her work draws on her experience as an Indo-Guyanese African American woman born and raised in New York City. Informed by her research into race theory, as

well as contemporary discussions around the dimensionality of the photograph, she works by concealing, obscuring and protecting that which lies within the frame. Marimutu is currently based in Baltimore, MD, where she is adjunct faculty at Towson University. She received her MFA degree in Photographic and Electronic Media at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2020, and her BSc in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Albany with a minor in Studio Art. Her work has been shown in various venues around Maryland & New York.

Ada Pinkston (she/her) (@apinkstone) ​is a multimedia artist, educator, and cultural organizer. Her art explores the intersection of imagined histories and sociopolitical realities on our bodies, using monoprint, performance, video, and collage. Over the years, her work has been featured at a variety of spaces, including The Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Walters Art Museum, The Peale Museum, Transmodern Performance Festival, P.S.1, The New Museum, Light City Baltimore, and the streets of Berlin.

Noél Puéllo (she/her) (@noel_puello) ​is an artist focusing on making clothing out of upcycled materials to create a gender neutral body of work. Raised in Providence, Rhode Island, Noel Puello received a B.F.A. degree in 3d Fibers Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design . She went to Philadelphia ,PA to study at the Tyler School of Art where she received an M.F.A. degree in Fiber and Materials Studies in 2019. Noel has been focusing on figuring out her practice and developing a small black owned business.

Waller Gallery​ (@wallergallery) is a black woman owned gallery in Baltimore, MD. Conceived in 2017, by curator and scholar Joy Davis (she/her), Waller Gallery has a vision to support artists in Baltimore and beyond through collecting, exhibitions, programming, and collaborative projects. The gallery considers all forms of art including design, social practice, craft, and digital art. We are passionate about engaging with artists at any stage of their practice. We continue the tradition of black owned businesses in Baltimore. To help the art collecting community at large we offer dynamic art advisory services.Waller Gallery sits on Piscataway Land and has a mission to amplify indigenous art, voices, and craft.

Learn More
Add to Calendar 20210129 America/New_York 2420 North Calvert Street Baltimore MD 21218 Contextual Exposure