OPENING EVENT:

FRI 12/05: 6:00p - 9:00p

EVENT HOURS

FRI 12/05: 6:00p - 9:00p

SAT 12/06: 10:00a - 5:00p

SUN 12/07: 10:00a - 2:00p

Paperweight presents: Shop Paperweight. A thoughtfully curated and immersive exhibition and concept shop experience leaning into the cozy, kitschy, and classy nostalgia that comes along with this time of year. Expect to find an exhibition of artists from around the world showcasing work sized 10”x10”x10” or smaller as well as a concept shop of smaller wares curated from makers up and down the East coast and beyond. Peruse the show while sipping hot chocolate from the bar and be sure to make a christmas card or gift tag with a selection of festive hand carved stamps.

The opening reception will be held on Friday, December the 5th from 6pm-9pm with open gallery hours on Saturday 1pm-8pm and Sunday from 10am-2pm.

Buy something and swing back by on Sunday during gallery hours to pick it up and get it gift wrapped at our pop-up wrapping station.

OUR ARTISTS

2130 N. Hobson Charleston, South Carolina

what we’re all about

Introducing paperweight: an artist run, team project focused on contemporary art and its exhibition. Each paperweight member’s experience and skill come together to curate and exhibit contemporary art- presented in and around Charleston, South Carolina. The paperweight team includes Sonny Sisan (ceramicist and florist), Leigh Sabisch (painter and printmaker), Emily Furr (painter), and Mat Duncan (painter and sculptor).

PAST EXHIBITIONS

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PAST EXHIBITIONS 〰️

DON’T BE SHY, CLICK ON AN ARTIST TO LEARN MORE!

GALLERY HOURS:

SAT 4/19: 10:00a - 4:00p

SUN 4/20: 3:00p - 6:00p

OPENING RECEPTION:

FRI 4/18: 6:00p - 10:00p

NELSON GARCIA

SAVANNAH STRICKROTH

JAMES WINE

Handle With Care brings together three incredible artists from the Southeast to showcase a beautiful conversation of self-discovery. Of figuring out how to navigate sexuality both inwardly and outwardly. Bending what people expect from the queer community into the reality of what queerness can really encompass.

James Wine, a Painter from Charleston, SC: James Wine is a queer, ace visual artist from Charleston, SC who works in both collage and painting. His work explores themes of identity through a combination of representational imagery, abstracted form, and dense compositions. Drawing inspiration from meanders in nature, his personal experiences as an ace individual, and his love for anime, Wine’s art weaves together organic patterns, intricate forms, and vibrant colors. His collages and paintings balance introspection with universal themes, creating emotionally resonant pieces that reflect both his personal journey and broader reflections on the self. With a focus on visual storytelling, Wine’s work offers a unique, visually packed exploration of connection and identity, captured through the lens of his diverse influences.

Savannah Strickroth, a ceramicist from Charleston, SC: Savannah works primarily with slab and coil built forms which she illustrates on to create a blend between her ceramic and painting practice. Her focus is on the connection between women and their togetherness through grief, motherhood, girlhood, and friendship.

Nelson Garcia, a painter from Orlando, FL: I adore masculinity. When masculinity is playful and lighthearted, it generates warmth. When allowed to be silly or even self-aware, it is free. My artwork explores the intersectionality between masculinity and queerness, the stereotypes they both occupy and how they inform each other. Queerness, to me, is a powerful tool for liberating masculinity. To see that masculinity as an idea, rather than a set of rules to conform.

OPENING RECEPTION:

FRI 10/24: 6:00p - 10:00p

GALLERY HOURS

SAT 10/25: 10:00a - 5:00p

A solo show with Rebecca Forstater

{Training_camp} examines the creation of public memory in the current AI-fueled rat race through the lens of pop-culture history. Focusing on Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake's Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy, Forstater utilized the materiality of emerging AI software to make this installation, asking the training models to contextualize the past given the algorithm's present pool of data. The narrative of this Super Bowl performance, an event deeply intertwined with race, gender, and politics, is a case study of biased ideologies embedded in our digital social consciousness. The outcomes of the objects and videos visualize peculiar amalgamations, riddled with errors, and reveal fleeting instances of progress entangled with societal mistakes, shapeshifting into new iterations.

This body of work was created digitally, designed either through user-friendly AI models and AI models still in testing-phase during 2022-23. Each object exists in both digital and physical forms. Existing first as .png, .mp4, .wav, and .stl files that then find physical form to inhabit this room as decals, TV screens playing videos, and 3D prints. These objects echo the perpetual circulation and transformation of data and society, both on and offline, each informing the other.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Rebecca Forstater

“My creative practice and research consider the production of contemporary histories within digital landscapes. I explore how collective memory is shaped through pop-culture banality, online community myth-making, and artificial transformation. I present my work through an aesthetic of lo-fi deepfake performances, blending analog methodologies with rehashed digital videos reminiscent of half-remembered internet memes. These exchanges, both in real life and in my work, shift between fact, fiction, reality, virtuality, utopia, dystopia, aspirations, nightmares, fantasy, and algorithmic hallucinations as they circulate through the digital experience. Moments of believability in my work are interjected with absurdity and humor, converging sentimentality and fear to examine sociocultural conditions.”