STRATIFIED GESTURES

Dimensions Variable (DV) is pleased to present Stratified Gestures, a group exhibition throughout all the galleries. Participating artists include FIU Alumna Karla Kantorovich, Nicole Burko, Yanira Collado, Regina Jestrow, Jamilah Sabur, Bruno Castro Santos, Jenene Nagy, and Gerbi Tsesarskaia. Curated by Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova. The exhibition opens on November 16, 2024, 6—9 pm.

ON VIEW NOVEMBER 16, 2024—FEBRUARY 2025, ALL GALLERIES

Stratification is the horizontal layering of materials like rocks, soil, or ice, occurring through the settling of particles, glacial melting, or the slumping of material. Similar to the geologic process, urban stratification involves the evolution of cities, where new buildings are constructed over existing ones, as seen in Rome, where ancient ruins lie beneath modern developments. This concept is also present in economic stratification where society is divided into social classes based on economic status, affecting social relationships and power dynamics.

After visiting several geological landmarks along the American West, the evidence of time through millions of years of layers is quite unfathomable. There is a darkness that comes with the knowledge that all that exists will crumble into one of these layers with time. This stratification of everything was the thinking that led to the impetus for Stratified Gestures. Not just the gestures of mark-making and layer-building in art that mirror nature, but those actions we impose on the layers of strata in nature, the built environment, and the human systems we develop.

Stratified Gestures follows a thread of thinking connecting the work in the exhibition not just to the process of making strata by building layers on a surface, but also the themes of natural, urban, and systematic stratification putting all the work in a visual and conceptual conversation. Through documentation photos, painting, geometry, collage, ceramic, and other mix media, the landscape experienced throughout the American West, once part of an ancient sea, is recreated within the gallery walls, reminding us how time will lead us to the same end every time—humbling us with every layer.