Evening with friends and no topic is off the table!
Tonight we’ll discuss migration, parental angst, earth and cosmos, the sky, and the impossibility of time, among other things.
Dinner Party is an international group exhibition and artistic dialogue between five artists: Eepi Chaad, Inka-Maaria Jurvanen, Kelly Moran, Susan Plum and Chasity Porter.
Techniques vary from collage to drawing and original prints.
Eepi Chaad (Houston, Texas) is a multidisciplinary artist, advocate, and environmentalist who tells stories using textiles, fibers, metals, places, and people. After studying architecture with a specialization in sustainability, Chaad focused on creating healthy social practices. She worked as Residency Coordinator and Teaching Artist for an eco-art non-profit on the Gulf Coast to provide access to arts and ecology through public art and outdoor adventures to promote conservation coastal margins. Chaad was one of the first resident artists for the City of Houston. She worked with immigrant and refugee populations to create communal art around sharing experiences and creating place.
Chaad currently serves as Program Officer – Professional Development overseeing Artist INC, Artist INC Express, and Artist Leadership Fellows programs for Mid-America Arts Alliance. She believes that utilizing the arts as social practice ensures the growth of successful communities built on principles of equity, ingenuity and creativity.
https://www.esquaredpidesign.com/, Instagram: @eepi_chaad
Inka-Maaria Jurvanen (Vantaa, Finland) graduated from the MAA Art School in 2008. She is interested in representing time and its passage through drawing. Her works deal with different worldviews and their impact on society. Jurvanen has held over 20 solo exhibitions in Finland and the United States. Her works have been included in several curated group exhibitions, including the Kiasma Collection Exhibition and the Mänttä Art Weeks. Her works are in the collections of Kiasma and the State Fine Arts Commission. Jurvanen was awarded the William Thuring Award of the Finnish Art Association in 2023.
www.jurvanen.com, Instagram: @imjurvanen
Kelly Moran (Houston, Texas) has a BFA in painting from Louisiana Tech University, she studied ceramics at University of Houston Graduate program, and studied textile and ceramics for two years in Jakarta Indonesia. She participated in the artist collective Little Egypt Enterprises in Houston during the 80’s, left Houston in 1986 and returned in 2000. She was associate director of Texas Collaborative 2005-2011, a place where National and international artists collaborated to produce prints. She taught Printmaking at the High School for Performing and Visual arts 2011 to 2016. Her work is in corporate and museum collections nationally and the bulk of her work is in private national and international collections. Moran presently has a studio in Houston Heights. She occasionally collaborates on prints with another artist. Her past training in painting, ceramicsand printmaking has contributed to her love of craftsmanship and process-oriented work. She draws on contemporary events, personal life, and intuition to compose her well-crafted, quirky universal prints and assemblages.
https://kellymoranart.com/, Instagram: @kmkellymoran
Susan Plum (Houston, Texas) is a multidisciplinary artist whose oeuvre encompasses various media, including drawing, painting, photography, and performance. Her work often explores themes of cosmology, quantum physics, indigenous beliefs, and humanitarian concerns, reflecting her belief in art as a vehicle for healing, transformation, and social activism. Raised in Mexico City, Plum was deeply influenced by the region's Magical Realism and Surrealism movements. She pursued her education at the University of Arizona, the University of the Americas in Mexico City, and the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. Plum has been influenced by surrealist painters like Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington. Initially trained as a painter, Plum transitioned to glass art after travels in India, Nepal, and Thailand, where she was inspired by the material's luminous qualities. She studied flameworking under artist Ginny Ruffner at the Pilchuck Glass School, mastering techniques that allow her to "draw" three-dimensional forms with glass. Her work is included in the collections of the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Corning Museum of Glass, the US Department of State, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Instagram: @susanasusina
Chasity Porter (Missouri City, Texas) is a multidisciplinary artist with a concentration in collage, assemblage, and zine-making. Her artwork is inspired by everyday life experiences, nostalgia, and the absurd, often using objects and animals as metaphors for life and people. "I am inspired by everyday life experiences, dreams, and memories. Nature and beauty become a cover for dark thoughts and feelings. Objects and animals become metaphors for real life and people. I am also inspired by nostalgia, the mundane, and the visceral aspects of life. What makes people and objects unique, inspired, haunted? I am attracted to the absurd and how absurdity has become a part of everyday society; how it has affected us-how it has affected me- and what effect will it have on our futures?"
Chasity Porter received her BFA in Applied Design and Visual Arts from the University of Houston 2010. She is an artist, curator and zinester. Porter's work has been shown in the US and internationally since 2010. She is the founder of Dormalou Project and Co-Founder of Scissors of Texas and Make & Take TX.
www.dormalouproject.com, Instagram: @artbus_lady
Work above: Kelly Moran: Trip, 2020, solarplate print, 25 x 25 cm
