Then or Now presents work intended to edify and transform viewer perspective via ideated experiences of another world, cosmos or plane of existence. Each artist brings a deeply personal narrative to their practice; projecting themselves into their work as if from a parallel or alternate timeline. 

Meticulous and material-critical objects provide entry points and commonalities in both practice and concept, while the other-worldly nature of these veritable artifacts is tethered here via craft and execution.

The labor and intentionality in Sergio Suarez’s mark-making process makes tangible the Spanish word “debrayer,” which loosely translates to the process in which one loses the sense of time.  He brings lost time and labor forward; capturing and translating it into a concise celestial lexicon within his work.  Figurative elements blend with cosmic and classic imagery, referencing a time both then and now.  

Y Malik Jalals floor sculptures radiate with the labor and heart of the artist. A metalsmith, a mystic, a true maker, Jalal forges and finesses objects that could have been useful in another dimension - and perhaps are.  A fountain, rusted and dry, is still a fountain. In contrast, shiny sinewy arms stretch out and around a second work; reaching for something. Abstraction, here, gives context instead of muddying it. Jalals work is heavy, and present, but not meant entirely for us; existing across time, place and persons. 

Leah Piepgras considers both what could have been and what is truly knowable in her work. A celestial, almost gaseous figure hovers, suspended in air and connected with a delicate chain; with the potential to expand, contract, and encompass more space as needed. A deep care for labor suffused with the primordial urge to exist and an elevated desire to understand the unknowable, result in work that serves the viewer's desire for all three.  

Together, these artists make work for and from a different place; each building from a need to understand and manifest something intangible but deeply personal. Presented together, their works become artifacts of these unique places; connecting themselves and the viewer to the same, unifying urge.

Y. Malik Jalal

Y. Malik Jalal is an artist based in Atlanta, GA. He received his BA in Studio Art from Oglethorpe University in 2016. Jalal was born in Savannah, GA, and raised in the Atlanta suburbs. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Atlanta Contemporary; Delaplane, San Francisco, and Alabama Contemporary, in Mobile. In both 2020 and 2018, his work was included in a two-person show at Hi-Lo Press and at group exhibitions at Mint, Mast, Swan Coach House, and The Gallery by Wish. His first book, A Brief History of the World Vol. 1, was published in 2020 in conjunction with For Keeps Books, Atlanta.

ymalikjalal.com

Leah Piepgras

Leah Piepgras received her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 1997, and has since exhibited and performed throughout the United States. She has work in the permanent collection of, among others, Wilmer Hale, New England Biolab and Fidelity Investments, and has been featured in Artsy, The New York Times and The Boston Globe among others.

leahpiepgras.com

Sergio Suárez

Sergio Suárez (b.1995) is a Mexican born, Atlanta based visual artist and printmaker. He uses the mediums of printmaking, painting and sculpture, to explore language and the structure of materiality in relation to narrative and contradiction. He often borrows small parts of complex systems of thought and production in an attempt to create a space balanced between past and present. His work has been shown around Atlanta, in spaces like the Welch Gallery at GSU, the Abernathy Arts Center, Pulp Gallery, Noch 8 Gallery, the Consulate General of Mexico in Atlanta, and in Studio 9 of Atlanta Contemporary. Internationally he’s shown at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair in London, the Haugesund Internasjonal Relief Festival in Norway, and the Ionian Arts Center in Greece; where he also was a resident in 2017 and 18. His work is also included in the SGCI archives of the Zuckerman Museum.

suarezsergio.com