Waking Dream – Paintings and Jewelry by Allison Edge and Diana Alexander

September 23 – October 21, 2023
Kokol Gallery

Reception:
September 29, 2023
5PM – 7PM
Kokol Gallery

In this dual exhibition featuring the works of Allison Edge and Diana Alexander, “Waking Dream” refers to the experience of seeing the outside world in low-lit, half-lit, or fog-obscured scenarios, evoking a dream-like quality and straddling the boundaries of familiarity and unknowns. Allison’s paintings, hung on the walls in this exhibition, set the stage and atmosphere for Diana’s neckpiece adornments, presented on pedestals and armatures within the space. Allison Edge’s body of work titled “Waking Dream” includes oil paintings depicting landscapes and images of nature at night, at twilight, in fog or mist, or a combination of these factors. She has been collecting photographic references as source imagery for these paintings, including scenes from Western North Carolina, the South Carolina coast, Florida, and Costa Rica. Some images are pinned with stars or artificial light sources, often indistinguishable from one another.

Adornment has been worn by humans for thousands of years, and by virtually every culture ever known. It has played a symbolic role in every part of the world since then. In Diana Alexander’s “Waking Dream” series, she endeavors to create adornments that mesh with the environment created by Allison’s paintings. Somewhere between reality and myth, shadow and breaking light — How would you adorn yourself in an atmosphere evoked by these dream-like qualities, darkened but glistening with muted color, shadowed but alive with movement?