A clear line meanders through space, losing speed and direction until it shifts shape, becoming a cloud on a page. Core Sample: Open Sessions 13 explores drawn marks as a way to locate place on a sheet of paper or to suggest the expanse of geospatial time travel. Symbolic gestures borrowed from mythic worlds alongside references to the everyday offer insight into the artists’ varied traditions, identities, and cultures. Core Sample: Open Sessions 13 features the work of Alex Callender, Liz Collins, Dennis RedMoon Darkeem, Zatara McIntyre, Johanna Unzueta, and Cosmo Whyte.

Core Sample is one of five exhibitions presented in The Lab between October 2018 and December 2019 as part of the third cycle of The Drawing Centers Open Sessions program. These thematic group shows are conceived and organized by Rosario Güiraldes and Lisa Sigal, Open Sessions Curators, together with participating artists. In the second year of the program cycle, Open Sessions Curators also organize a full-museum exhibition to which all Open Sessions artists contribute work that best manifests and/or expands the meaning and relevance of drawing today.

Alex Callender lives and works in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her studio practice explores the intersections of myth, identity, and material culture. Through the visual forms of historical narrative, speculative fiction, and repurposed colonial imagery, Callender considers issues of gender, hybridity, and environmental instability. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, and has completed studio-based residencies with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Vermont Studio Center, Urban Glass, DRAWinternational, and the BAU Institute in France.

Liz Collins lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Collins is known for her diverse work in textiles and has, for over two decades, moved fluidly between fields and formats including fashion, craft, performance, and design. Collins’ multimedia installations and textile works have been featured in museums and galleries nationally and internationally, including the Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York; as well as group exhibitions at ICA/Boston, the FIT Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, MoMA, and the New Museum.

Dennis RedMoon Darkeem is a multimedia artist based in the South Bronx, New York, who creates work based on the familiar objects that he sees in his daily travels, discovering elements in architecture and among everyday items found within the home. Darkeem ultimately sets out to express a meaningful story about events in his own life as well as in the lives of others in the communities in which he works. His multimedia works allow for great versatility and a rich viewer experience as the eye uncovers the multiple layers.

Zatara McIntyre lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. McIntyre’s art on paper originates from an impulse to examine the ways in which hybridity and culture manifest through black womanhood. She often utilizes contradictory symbols of deified mythological figures to subvert patriarchal systems of power. Her recent artworks examine the extent to which evocations of female power can perform in an imagined space. She recently attended Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture after earning an MFA at Hunter College.

Johanna Unzueta lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her drawing practice in fiber and natural materials often references biological observations of life, plants and the sciences, textiles and architecture, trace, and vibrational fields that are more metaphysical than material.

Cosmo Whyte is a multi-disciplinary artist who employs drawing, performance, and sculpture to create conceptual work that explores how notions of identity are disrupted by migration. The Atlanta-based, Jamaican-born artist has shown extensively in the United States and internationally. Recognitions include the Forward Art emerging artist of the year award, the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, Artadia Award, and MOCA GA Working Artist Project award.

Open Sessions artists 2018–2020: Joeun Aatchim; Kenseth Armstead; Bahar Behbahani; Keren Benbenisty; Katarina Burin; Esteban Cabeza de Baca; Alexis Callender; Crystal Z Campbell; Ludovica Carbotta; Jesse Chun; Liz Collins; Mike Crane; Dennis Darkeem; Theodore Darst; Billy and Steven Dufala; Jonathan Ehrenberg; Carolina Fusilier; Rachel Granofsky; LaMont Hamilton; Kunlin He; Victoria Keddie; Young Joo Lee; Lux Lindner; Sharon Madanes; Guadalupe Maravilla; Zatara McIntyre; Ester Partegas; Omid Shekari; Tariku Shiferaw; Johanna Unzueta; Cosmo Whyte.

Open Sessions is made possible by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the Evelyn Toll Family Foundation, and, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.