4TH FLOOR GALLERY

The Mystical, The Magical, & The Macabre exhibition features multimedia artworks conjuring a sense of mystery, awe, and fascination with the darkness. Artists investigate the dark through their chosen media by finding aesthetic beauty in the shadowy depths of our complex existence. While darkness can be associated with feelings of fear, anxiety, or sadness, the darkness also provides a place of comfort, quietude, introspection, romance, and peace. The Mystical, The Magical, & The Macabre, curated by Marci Rubin, showcases artworks that delve into what is lurking and lost in the shadows of the human experience. 

Mystical realities that seem inexplicable and are not immediately apparent to the senses or the mind, invite artists to attempt an explanation of the unexplained and travel along alternative spiritual paths. These non-comprehensive or unexplainable events that are sensed and felt are made tangible through the artist’s work by their awareness and comprehension of an extraordinary or otherworldly power. Artistic endeavors exposing a hidden mystical understanding, create visual alchemy while conceivably shining a light in the darkness. 

The practice of harnessing supernatural or mystical powers influencing and manipulating events to achieve phenomenal results is magic. Dazzling and delighting their audience, visual artists employ magic to create works of art possessing wonder, surprise, and excitement. Used to explore the subconscious, and tap into a realm that is both familiar and strange, artists like magicians produce illusions and spectacles challenging and manipulating traditional perceptions of reality. 

Involving dismal themes of death, decay, and darkness, The Macabre can be quite unsettling and gruesome. Ghastly, gloomy, and grim motifs explored in the artist’s dark depths evoke a visceral response from the viewer, thinning the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead.