curator interview

Suzanne Kachmar: Tell us about yourself? School, work, play?

Natasha Kuranko: I’m a tender-hearted 27-year-old adult who refuses to stop dressing like a child. Currently, I am unemployed though I’ve made a small gig for myself selling thrifted clothes online. I’m a full-time student at Norwalk Community College working towards my associates degree. My free time is best spent riding my bike, reading a book, visiting museums, or catching up with a friend. It makes me chuckle a bit thinking about how eccentric my taste and appearance can be, but overall I prefer to lead a relatively simple existence.

SK: You worked as the gallery manager at Franklin Street Works. How long did you work there, what was your job like? What did you do?

NK: I worked at Franklin Street Works for just under 4 years. It was an incredibly nurturing environment. The artwork I was exposed to there provided me with the motivation and tools I needed to become a better person. Whether an artwork was intimately revealing a struggle unfamiliar to me or pulling back the curtain on oppressive structures I too was inflicted by, my critical thinking skills and will to be compassionate (for both myself and others) was constantly being asked to grow. The executive and creative directors of FSW at the time I was hired, put a lot of intention into creating a work environment that functioned on open communication, care, respect, and mutualism. They trusted me with responsibilities despite my lack of formal education in the arts and were always available if I needed guidance. They taught me to be confident in my abilities; I don’t think I’d have half the aspirations I do today if it weren’t for either of these women.

If I wasn’t walking a visitor through an exhibition, I was likely busy reaching out to local community groups with overlapping interests to an exhibition’s theme, writing letters of appreciation to patrons, updating our CRM database, preparing for an upcoming event, or snacking on cherry tomatoes from our back patio vegetable garden. My favorite work happened while we were bittersweetly deinstalling one exhibition and installing the next. I find the process of repairing holes in walls oddly calming and symbolic of healing, plus nothing beats the precious feeling of holding an artwork in your hands.

SK: What have you been doing since FSW closed and during Covid 19?

NK: The pandemic put a halt to some crucial fundraising efforts for FSW forcing us to close permanently. Unlike many people, I was fortunate enough to qualify for unemployment and not be burdened with food or housing insecurity. My focus has been on my physical, mental, and spiritual health. I see the culture of today as being very tiring, constantly asking us to perform success and prove ourselves. It’s easy to get caught up in this pressure while allowing traumas or feelings of anger, sadness, and grief to accumulate. It’s been nice stepping outside of that mindset and giving myself the time to process and move on from bad things that have happened to me. I just wish more people could be given that opportunity. It’s a bit cheesy to say, but life is really beautiful; I think this pandemic has helped open a lot of people’s eyes, including my own, to how lucky we are to be alive.

SK: Tell us about the exhibit you produced. You proposed and defined the concept, curated the art and mounted the exhibit, bringing your other work experiences to City Lights Gallery.

NK: diving knowing is a group show featuring 19 artists. Most of them are either self-taught or in the early stages of their career. The submission process consisted of me posting a call for art on my Instagram and reaching out to a few individuals I had already established a relationship with, asking if they wanted to submit. I felt so moved by all the work I had access to just through my personal network. A handful of artists in the show are close friends of mine. It’s really amazing to see all their artworks getting along with another in one space.

I was invited to curate this exhibition for women’s month. I wanted to develop a theme relevant to women’s issues and my personal experience as a woman, which wasn’t centered around biology or would risk excluding trans and non-binary artists. I was thinking about how commonly the voices of women, and other marginalized groups, are devalued or ignored and how over generations, this has pushed us into a more perceptive mode of being. Intuition is a really radical concept; there’s a lot of power in recognizing the knowledge you already have inside you and not depending on an external authority to validate it. It was a long train of thoughts and feelings, but basically, I wanted to celebrate something I’ve found to be so crucial in my own life and learn more about how it exists in the life and work of artists.

SK: What’s next? What are your ambitions or plans as an artist, creative, arts professional?

NK: My next, or current step, is finishing up my associate degree at Norwalk Community College. What I go on to study after that will depend on where I am accepted as a transfer student. I’m looking at schools offering majors in curatorial or archival studies but I’d also be totally satisfied getting my masters in education and teaching elementary school somewhere. Far as my ambitions or plans as an artist/creative/arts professional goes… I’d love to refamiliarize myself with guitar and get back into songwriting. My dream is to open up an alternative art space, with a similar value system as FSW, that doubles as a vegan fast food joint. Though that probably won’t be happening for another 5-10 years. One of the names I’ve been playing with for the space is “beans on bread.”

SK: Is there anything else you want to tell us or announce?

NK: No announcements here! I would like to thank every artist who submitted and everyone who supported me throughout this project. Knowing there were people in my life with curatorial experience who were willing to provide guidance if needed saved me from a lot of sleepless nights!

press release

divine knowing is a group art exhibition on view March 25 - April 17, 2021, at City Lights Gallery, located at 265 Golden Hill Street in downtown Bridgeport, CT. Gallery hours are Wednesday - Friday, 12 - 5 pm and Saturday 12 - 4 pm. Curated by Natasha Kuranko, in recognition of Women’s Month, divine knowing hopes to instill confidence in all its visitors’ familiarity with their intuition, empathy, and emotional intelligence.

Biased assessments of women made through the modern western male gaze in disciplines such as cinema, art, medicine, anthropology, and psychology have included perceiving instances of hormonal shifts, emotional expression and passion as bouts of insanity. The word hysterical has been and is still used as a derogation. It is a term rooted in the now disavowed psychological disorder of hysteria which was once believed to stem from a medical condition of the uterus. In the 2020 democratic presidential primary race, Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson both ran for election although neither previously held an elected office. While the media praised Andrew Yang for his experience as a tech entrepreneur, Marianne Williamson was criticized for her lack of qualifications despite her lifelong career as a writer, political activist and spiritual advisor.

Intuition, more specifically “a women’s intuition,” are terms often used to label and diminish forms of knowledge gained outside logical reasoning, or the collection of supporting empirical evidence, as information that is illegitimate and not to be respected. divine knowing hopes to counteract the dominant social narrative by celebrating intuition’s role in the creative process. This exhibition features artists working in a variety of media from sculpture, painting, photography, digital collage, decoupage, drawing, performance, musical composition, and stop-motion, to name a few.

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viewing guide

At its core, divine knowing is an exhibition about knowledge, power, and agency. It’s become a more common understanding that governments, institutions, and algorithms will manipulate the public with what information they frame as fact, fiction, or worthy of attention. Though I am early in researching this topic, I’ve only come across a minimal amount of mainstream discourse on how the initial threat limiting our scope of knowledge is a refusal to listen to ourselves.

In a world faced with so many threats - humans being violent toward each other, toward animals, toward the earth - it can be a bit unsettling to release the reins and allow ourselves to bear witness for a moment, as we slowly develop a deeper awareness of surrounding phenomena and happenings.  

divine knowing includes works by formally trained and self-taught artists. A majority of the artists are bisexual, non-binary, or transgender. Regardless of degree-status, gender, or sexuality, these artists have tapped into the autonomous well of self-knowing. Their artworks speak to tactics for opening up to a more perceptive mode of being. They unravel dependencies on external sources for knowledge and what we might recognize, connect with, or achieve once we do.

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Chardel Williams

Grounded

Oil on canvas

16 x 20 inches

Chardel Williams is a self-taught artist currently living in Bridgeport. Her biggest inspiration is her birthplace of Jamaica. Chardel views painting as a method for blocking out chaos. Her attraction to the medium springs from its coalescence of freedom, meditative qualities, and the connection it engenders. rears.

Intuition for me is going where my art flows. I implement it in my practice by simply creating space and time to listen. There are times when what I’m painting is done in everyone else’s eyes, but I just keep picking at it. Sometimes I would stop painting a piece and go months without touching it. Then, out of nowhere, be obsessed with finishing. I used to get frustrated with that process, but now I go with it. I stopped calling it a block and just flow with it. I listen because my work talks.

Ames Valaitis

All of me is war

Graphite on paper

All Of Me Is War by Ames Valaitis addresses the subconscious rifts society initiates between women, estranging them from each other and themselves.

Mari Ogihara

Blood Orange Torso, 2015

Press molded clay, glazes, acrylic paint, rub & buff

13 x 8 x 21 inches

Mari Ogihara is a sculptor exploring duality, resilience, beauty, and serenity as experienced through the female gaze. Her work is informed by the duality of womanhood and the contradictions of femininity. In particular, the multitude of roles we inhabit as friend, lover, sister, and mother and their complex associations to the feminine perspective. Intuition is an innate, immediate reaction to an experience. While making art, I try to balance intuition, logic, and craftsmanship.

Ellie Mesa

Kali, 2020

Oil on canvas

49 x 58 inches

Ellie Mesa

Subterranean Monsters, 2019

Oil on canvas

59 x 47 inches

Whitney Lorenze

Things from before (two pennies overboard), 2020

Oil on canvas

48 x 60 inches

Whitney Lorenze

Over and Over, 2021

Oil on canvas

30 x 24 inches

Kendall Kolenik

a rainbow trance into hot lava, 2020

Acrylic on canvas

Pamela Kivi

Smoke Bubble

Collage composed of found clippings

12 x 16 inches

Jes the Jem

pull the wisdom

Clay painted with acrylic

Jes the Jem

pull the wisdom

Clay painted with acrylic

Mary Hunt

Thank you for fixing my mirror, May 2018

XL denim jacket, wool thread

Mary Hunt is a fiber artist specializing in chain stitch embroidery. This traditional form of embroidery uses vintage machinery and thick thread to create fibrous art and embellishments. They use an approach called “thread painting,” which requires each stitch to be hand guided by the turn of a knob underneath the table while the speed of movement is controlled by a foot pedal. Chainstitch works can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 200 hours, encouraging a slow and thoughtful process. Mary uses a Cornely A machine, made in Paris over 100 years ago.

I think we are sent messages and guidance constantly. Our intuition is simply our ability to clear the path for those messages. The largest obstacles on my artistic path are usually self-imposed negative thoughts. I simply do things to take care of my spiritual well-being, first and foremost, and the rest follows. If I can trust the universe, trust the process, then I am much more likely to listen to the messages sent my way.

(detail)

Mary Hunt

Thank you for fixing my mirror, May 2018

XL denim jacket, wool thread

Gladys Harlow / Street Rat

All Power To The People, 2020 (detail)

Single-channel video with sound

Tulle, found TV, found rug, glass vase, dried flowers, three books, handmade tarot cards, handmade theremin and oscilator

All Power To The People originated as a recorded performance intended to demystify sound by revealing the tools, wires, and movements used to create it. All Power To The People then evolved into an installation conceived specifically for this exhibition. The installation includes a theremin and oscillator built by Gladys, a tarot deck they made by hand, and books from the artist’s personal collection, amongst other elements. Gladys has created a structure of comfort and exploration. They welcome all visitors of divine knowing to play with the instrument, flip freely through the books, and pull a tarot card to take home.