Bigs and Smalls

Traver Gallery is thrilled to present Bigs and Smalls, an exhibition featuring ten contemporary artists working with neon. The show, curated by Jen Elek, is inspired by the recent transition of neon, which is used primarily in commercial signage production, into an accepted medium used for contemporary sculpture in the fine arts world.

The process of creating a neon sign requires highly skilled craftspeople melting and bending glass tubing over an open flame torch. In this exhibition, Elek asked the artists, all of whom have an advanced technical ability to manipulate glass and neon, to present two artworks – one big and one small. By choosing to use light and scale as themes, Elek has left open the artists’ potential to showcase their technical skills and express their individuality, creativity, and conceptual ideas. With this exhibition, Elek aims to highlight neon’s sculptural possibilities alongside the artists’ creative processes.

In addition to spotlighting the individual expressions of these ten artists, the exhibition itself is a statement. Elek, installing more than 20 large and small illuminated objects in a dark space, creates an immersive experience for the viewer that further amplifies the impact of light and luminosity as an artistic medium.

The artists included in this exhibition are Jeremy Bert, Sarah Blood, Kelsey Fernkopf, Brian Haddix, Cedar Mannan & Lia Yaranon Hall, Amy Lemaire, Dick Marquis, Megan Stelljes, and Fred Tschida.