Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia is pleased to present Enter Linger Exit, an exhibition featuring the work of Amira Pualwan, Matthew McLaughlin and Stella Zhong. The artists were chosen individually from a pool of nearly 300 applicants to our 2018 Open Call for a Three-Person Exhibition. The title of the show (derived from one of Zhong’s works) evokes the fictionalized architectural spaces each artist uses as a means to explore human relationships with constructed environments and the symbolism of place. The exhibition opens at TSA on Thursday, December 13th, and runs through Saturday, January 19. The opening reception will be on December 13th from 6-9pm, with an additional Second Thursday event on January 10 from 6-9pm.

Amira Pualwan
The conceptual motivation behind my art practice is examining how we explore, imagine, and construct spaces. Recently this pursuit has manifested in a fascination with swimming pools, and spurred an ongoing drawing series. Pools are traditionally constructs of opposing ideals – artificial landscapes that can symbolize relaxation, play, and the labor of sport. This project uses these connotations as well as the aesthetic properties of “the pool” as a departure point. These works are vessels for compositional creativity, and the act of drawing them is a personal sanctuary. Working on (purchased) letterpressed, gridded paper is a practical and aesthetic choice, and provides an underlying structure, while adding a layer of visual depth. The grid also references draftsmanship, as these are imagined and constructed spaces. These placid portraits are an offering of escapism.

Amira Pualwan received her undergraduate degree from Wheaton College (MA) in 2013, where she studied printmaking and graphic design.  After graduating, she spent three years in Minneapolis, MN developing her printmaking practice and completing two Jerome Foundation-funded residencies at Highpoint Center for Printmaking and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.  Currently she is participating in the Fob Holder program at Second State Press in Philadelphia, PA.   She was recently accepted into the Post-Graduate Apprenticeship Program at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, and the Women’s Studio Workshop Beisinghoff Printmaking Residency in Germany. 

Matthew McLaughlin
Through image manipulation and the re-contextualizing of symbols, my work creates new perspectives for the viewer to consider when confronted with their own relationship with the environment. The work strives to have a conversation with the audience about their own awareness of space, want of things and societal norms, by not forcing a specific viewpoint. My art aims to bring forth questions that spark an inner dialogue that may or may not affect their perspective on their environment. “Proxemic Boundaries” is a series of work that visualizes the boundaries and borders humans create to divide and define ourselves at both personal and societal levels. Human relationships work on different scales depending upon their situation, from personal to societal, and each can be defined by the feeling of need for a separation of space. These works aim to visualize this separation of space on an abstract scale to allow the viewer to interpret them as they can relate and consider how the form affects their relationship with the implied space and colors.

Matthew McLaughlin is a mixed media artist whose work explores the human relationship with their environments, specifically urban and suburban spaces. He received his BFA degree in Fine Arts from Ringling College of Art and Design and his MFA degree in Printmaking from Arizona State University. Matthew has had solo exhibitions in Washington, DC and Phoenix, among other locations. His work has been included in group exhibitions, both nationally and internationally, in commercial galleries, artist-run spaces and museums. He has received numerous awards including the Maryland State Art Council Individual Artist Award 2016 in Works on Paper. His work is in the collections of the Zuckerman Museum of Art and various university’s, along with private collectors. Along with his personal artistic practice, Matthew is an emerging curator in the Washington, DC metropolitan region.

Stella Diming Zhong

I am a builder of virtual and architectural environments. I create charged spaces inhabited by sentient objects and I activate them using natural forces such as water, air, and gravity. At times these living environments are captured in videos; at times they exist independently, activated only through one’s presence and imagination. Moving real events into fictional, virtual space, I reinterpret them through simulation and manipulation of distance, scales and properties. The resulting installations and digital environments operate in the shadow of the actual, entangling the immaterial and the corporeal. Engaging with one’s tactile imagination, I create the condition for spontaneous exploration into the inner life of objects and places — a world that is multivalent, nameless, and beyond clear logical understanding. As I pursue an expanded subjective reality, I test the limits of logic and empathy.

Stella Diming Zhong’s sculptural practice spans activated objects, architectural spaces and recorded actions. Born in Shenzhen, China(1993), Zhong has lived in Beijing, China; Canterbury, UK; and Providence, RI, where she received a BFA in Glass from Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been the subject of solo and two-person shows at Hunter College, New York; Peninsula Art Space, Brooklyn, NY; Weybosset Gallery, Providence, RI; and Guan Shan Yue Art Museum, Shenzhen, China. Zhong currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY where she runs Unnamed, an interdisciplinary exhibition and production space.