This Spring, multidisciplinary artist Evan Paul English curates a group exhibition Inner Excess at the combined contemporary art gallery and tattoo studio Distortion Society (Beacon, NY). English’s work explores the intersection of image-making, spirituality, the body, and the ways in which capitalist consumerism shapes our perceptions of all three. Each artist in this exhibition brings a unique perspective to these themes, reflecting personal ideologies that are often shaped by shared histories and environments. Together, their works form a dialogue that questions value, visibility, and the blurred boundaries between the material and metaphysical realms.
Gracelee Lawrence (she/they) investigates the fragmented, gendered nature of the body by merging their own form with edible plants through 3D scanning and software manipulation. Their sculptures explore the ecological and ethical complexities of bioplastics, offering a meditation on the intersections of technology, consumption, and corporeality.
Similarly engaging with historical and material narratives, Colleen Rae Smiley (she/her) presents a ceremonial apron inspired by the protest garments of Suffragettes. Her work highlights the significance of the table on which the Declaration of Sentiments was signed in 1848—also later used for séances—suggesting the convergence of activism, spirituality, and the enduring struggle for visibility and agency.
Jared Freschman (he/him) turns inward, illustrating in colored pencil a personal ritual of drawing tarot cards upon waking. The recurring presence of The Empress—a symbol of divine femininity, creativity, and sensory awareness—evokes a spiritual practice rooted in self-discovery and intuitive connection.
Kat Ryals (she/her) interrogates notions of luxury, craft, and mass production by blending the aesthetics of 18th-century European Savonnerie rugs with modern banquet carpets. Her hand-built collages, later printed onto velvet rugs using consumer-level technology, lure viewers with opulent imagery only to reveal compositions of discarded, artificial, and dead materials. This juxtaposition challenges our perceptions of value, questioning the seductive yet deceptive nature of commercial aesthetics.
Sam Reeder (he/him) harnesses the allure of neon to explore digital communication and sexual desire. His neon sculptures expose the tension between visibility and secrecy, using the medium’s provocative presence to bring private longing into public space, forcing a confrontation with what is often hidden from view.
Emma Jackson (she/her) employs painting as a portal to an alternate realm accessed through transcendental meditation. Communicating with a non-human entity, she translates their world into visual form, depicting an alien history marked by cultural and environmental crises that eerily mirror our own. Her work serves as both a warning and an invitation to reflect on our collective trajectory.
Together, these artists engage with the intersections of embodiment, ritual, materiality, and desire, revealing the ways in which personal and collective histories shape our understanding of self and society. Through their varied practices, Inner Excess challenges the boundaries between the physical and the spiritual, the artificial and the organic, the hidden and the seen — asking us to reconsider what we consume, what we value, and what we choose to reveal.
To gain more understanding of the exhibition, the author and Distortion Society Gallery Director interviewed curator Evan Paul English on April 8 this year. Here is an edited version of their discussion.
MS:Â Can you tell us a little about yourself and your artistic practices?
EPE: Yes! I’m a tattooer and a painter. I explore themes of domesticity, growing up queer in America is what I always put in my artist statement. As a tattooer, I use a lot of imagery found in vintage textiles, and I translate them into tattoos, which I view as an act of reclamation.
Having grown up in Idaho surrounded by these types of domestic art forms, I’m kind of reusing them in different ways, whether it’s through my gallery work, creating paintings inspired by those same patterns, or making tattoos from the same source imagery. I’m very invested in themes of Americana and what that looks like when you manipulate it and rewrite the narrative around what those images represent.
MS: You know I’m a huge fan of your work, thanks for sharing. In the curatorial statement for Inner Excess, you mention that your work, and the work in this show, explores the intersection of image-making, spirituality, the body, and the ways capitalist consumerism shape our perceptions of all three. Can you speak a little about how that plays out in your own work, and why you chose the work that you did for this show?
EPE: Yeah, so as I said, I think tattooing can be a form of reclamation; getting a tattoo can be an act of transformation and a form of reclaiming your own body. So, that to me is a very spiritual act. I think art making in general is very spiritual; making art feels like a form of spellcasting.
You’re creating something new that you’ve never seen before that you want to put out into the world. And it sort of has this ripple effect through your community and potentially even larger than that. So, my art practice is very personal and it’s a way of creating a story about myself that I’m in control of. It’s like tattooing and seeing how my body has changed through getting tattoos and liking the way I look – feeling strong in my body. It’s in essence the same process through painting.
MS: I love that! One of the most compelling aspects of this show is the varied materials and processes each artist presents: we have a 3D printed mobile, a 7 foot figurative neon wall sculpture, a suffragette-era textile banner, an 18th-century inspired rug, a transcendental painting and two vibrant color pencil drawings. There is palpable tension between themes – physical vs spiritual, artificial vs organic – and how the materials exist near one another – hand-drawn vs mechanical, soft textiles vs neon light. Can you speak a bit about this?
EPE: I was interested in the different artists work because they were so varied, but they had a similar thematic undertone. I feel like they all work with these concepts of spirituality in the body and are working in these sorts of consumer level art mediums like colored pencil, for example, or these 3D printed plastic pieces. Neon is something that we interact with on a daily basis, just in a different context. So, in relationship to consumerism, that was how I selected the works for the show.
There’s also an inwardness to all of these – they all have a tenderness and a reflectiveness. That appealed to me, or I guess I resonated with me and my own practice. So, whether they’re illustrated bodies or a spiritual practice like tarot card reading or like in Colleen’s work, the ceremonial apron that has an image of a table where seances were performed, there’s different spiritual elements in each of them. I think even neon could relate to spirituality, like light as a medium. And when I think of light as a medium, I think of stained glass in a church or the presence of light, of color. Light is just very alluring and provocative.
There’s tension between the works and different things being explored, but they’re all very colorful and they’re all really fun, too, which I think ties back into this idea of consumerism, right? Like, why are we attracted to certain things? Is it the materiality? Is it the colors? What about something makes us want to have it and feel like we need to have it? So that was something I’ve been thinking about.
And then the title of the show, which I wanted to touch on, is Inner Excess. I think we all, as Americans especially, consume a lot of information every day through our phones. Everywhere we look, there’s an advertisement. And as a result, I feel like that excess excessiveness on the exterior, on the outward, we consume it, and it kind of becomes our inner worlds, and it changes the way we think about ourselves and things. We’re downloading all this information and then we’re making art, you know, as artists, and it’s like, what do we choose to make and why? And how has the consumerism outside of us shaped the way we think about ourselves and the art we make and what we want to do with our lives?
So, that was sort of the idea. And I think as queer people too, just to speak for myself, I don’t feel like a church is somewhere I can necessarily access my spirituality. The place that I do is when I’m alone or looking inward.
MS: I also access my spirituality by looking inward. This all really resonates with me! Do you find that after working on this show these themes have infiltrated your personal work in a new way?
EPE: Yeah, I’m interested in working in more mediums – seeing people who are very good at what they do is inspiring! Haha, but seriously I think it makes me recommitted to the themes that I’m interested in. When I was curating the show, I just felt so strongly about having each of these artists work here. And that’s a process of self-investigation too: why am I so drawn to this? What does that say about myself and where I’m at in my life right now?
MS: Ah, good point! What do you hope people take away from the show?
EPE: I hope that people have a little bit of pleasure from the show, a little bit of escapism. I think because the work is so colorful and vibrant and fun to look at, I hope that there’s joy. With art shows, it’s like a big party, you’re seeing a lot of your friends and sharing art and sharing passion with each other. I think that the importance of art right now is finding community and pals to share a little joy with.
Inner Excess will be on view at the combined contemporary art gallery and tattoo studio Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY through June 8, 2025. The gallery is in the front and is free and open to the public.
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