You Got Your Secret On
6.25 - 8.7
Katarina Janeckova Walshe
Andrej Dúbravsky
Stephen Bron
Stephen Truax
Aaron Michael Skolnick
Sarah Kim
Paul Verdell
Hannah Beerman
Jimmy Wright
Kyle Coniglio
Ellen Siebers
Paul Metrinko
Mike Goodlett
co-curated with Aaron Michael Skolnick
You Got Your Secret On marks only the second time Quappi Projects has invited a guest curator into our space. I first encountered Aaron Michael Skolnick’s work in KMAC’s “In the Hot Seat” (2019); at some point last year during the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent quarantine, we began talking about partnering together on an exhibition. Both native Kentuckians and Queer men, our conversations revealed a shared lifelong love for and interest in the natural world. While not a theme that is often explicitly present in my own work as a painter, nature is an enormous part of my life as an artist, poet, and human being; for Aaron, who paints plein air, the natural world is a predominant motif, not just the dramatic scrim on which the action in his often hedonic paintings takes place.
Prompted by text written by Skolnick, You Got Got Your Secret On brings together works by a diverse group of artists exploring personal relationships with the natural world. A native of Bratislava, Slovakia, Katarina Janeckova Walshe lives and works in Corpus Christi, Texas and New York; Andrej Dúbravsky lives and works in Bratislava, Slovakia; Stephen Bron, Stephen Truax, and Sarah Kim live and work in Brooklyn; Aaron Michael Skolnick lives and works in Houston; Paul Verdell lives and works in Detroit; Hannah Beerman, Paul Metrinko and Jimmy Wright live and work in New York City; Kyle Coniglio lives and works in Hoboken, New Jersey; Ellen Siebers lives and works in Hudson, New York; and Mike Goodlett lives and works in Wilmore, Kentucky.
Because we are travelers inseparable from this planet, this galaxy, this universe, human beings’ relationship with nature largely defines our existence, yet we are both an integral part of the natural world but also somehow—perhaps because of our particular kind of consciousness—separate from it. Stuck in binary patterns, we often think there is us, and then there is everything else. Is it this ineffable gap that compels us to commune with the birds, the beasts, the trees, the sky, the mountains, and the sea? Or is it simply because the enchantment and solace we find in nature cannot be sourced anywhere else? This exhibition’s title speaks to the sense of respite that many artists—including those whose work is present here—find when engaging with the natural world. Imbued with reverence, joy, wonderment, and quiet praise, these works are a testament to the abiding and inexhaustible bond between us and everything else.
- John Brooks
Sitting on my porch staring at the great Texas sky which is interrupted by the branches of the live oaks that line the street. Squirrels rustling the leaves, birds talking and insects making off-rhythm music. All I can think about is my Kentucky childhood; spring and summer nights as a pastel pink would meet the blue in the sky letting us know that night was coming. Parts of my feet caked in dirt which was also under my fingernails. Precious moments not forgotten or unfelt.
Walking alone down by the creek as a light chill would come in cooling the final sweat that stuck to my skin giving my goose pimples. Trying to take in the dark greens and blues that overtook my sight looking up at the trees letting my bare feet find their place. Twigs cracking, pebbles massaging their bottoms. I would pretend to be in other places, other times, in other stories, just not my own. These passages/places around my house were walked several times a day by myself. It’s funny looking back I feel I was studying the light, the gentleness of the objects around me, even their sounds.
After years of running from it in one way or another for some reason or another I am constantly running back to nature in anyway I can. I will stick my feet in almost any body of water. Nature is meditation, it is god, or a god at least for me.
- Aaron Michael Skolnick
