2025
GROWTH EDGE
MARSHA MACK
May 10th, 2025 - August 16th, 2025
Opening Reception: 6 PM - 9 PM, Saturday, May 10th, 2025
Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the opening exhibition of Growth Edge, featuring the works of Portland, OR-based artist Marsha Mack.
"Featuring glazed ceramic and glass, introspection, overwhelm, and emotional reality underscore works in the exhibition. Dressed in a nervous smile, Growth Edge uses imagery including crying eyes, happy faces, hearts, and butterflies in a femme aesthetic that allude to an inner world of emotions and indecision. Taking its name from the popular psychology term, “growth edge” refers to the limits of one’s previous experience, knowledge, and comfort levels through which one must travel in order to mature or heal. Poised on pedestals or hanging in suspense, Growth Edge is a rumination on connection and dissonance, longing and avoidance."
Marsha Mack holds an MFA in Ceramics and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Women’s and Gender Studies from Syracuse University, as well as a BFA in Ceramics from San Francisco State University. Working primarily in ceramic and installation, Marsha’s artistic practice blurs the line between sculpture and grocery shopping. In earnest pursuit of happiness, abstract vessels in built environments serve as carriers of multivalent identities that exist in constructed versions of paradise, adorned with a visual vocabulary of personal symbols culled from a lifelong fascination with Asian supermarkets. Her ongoing interest in cultural consumption and the formation of identity serves as a wellspring for embellished objects and installations that play to the subconscious, honoring playfulness and introspection as equals.
Marsha is the Assistant Director and Head Curator of Galleries Exhibitions at the Pacific Northwest College of Art at Willamette University in Portland, OR, a ceramic instructor, and a practicing visual artist. She has presented her artwork with the Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, OH); Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (Denver, CO); Black Cube Nomadic Museum (Englewood, CO); The Galleries of Contemporary Art (Colorado Springs, CO); and Skylab (Columbus, OH); among others. Marsha was the 2022 summer artist in residence at The Priscilla R. Tyson Cultural Arts Center, a 2023 Fall Artist in Residence at The Columbus Printed Arts Center, and a 2023-24 recipient of the Greater Columbus Art Council and Columbus Museum of Art’s Visual Arts Fellowship. She is currently an Artist in Residence with GLEAN in Portland, OR.
And All I Know Has Vanished Again
PHOENIX S BROWN
March 1st, 2025 - April 26th, 2025
Opening Reception: 6 PM - 9 PM, Saturday, March 1st, 2025
An Evening with Phoenix S Brown & LaNia Sproles: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM, Friday, March 7th, 2025
Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the opening of And All I Know Has Vanished Again by Phoenix S. Brown.
"And All I Know Has Vanished Again" explores the tension between the seen and unseen, the physical and the psychological, the real and the symbolic. Through acrylic paintings on canvas and plastic, alongside drawings, Phoenix S. Brown constructs a landscape where personal mythologies unfold, shaped by serpentine forms, symbolic gates, and shaped canvases.
Hands reach and grasp, marking acts of agency and surrender, while grids and fences suggest both protection and limitation. Symbols, drawn like sigils, function as personal wards, imbuing the work with a quiet but potent power. Urban landscapes emerge in fragmented glimpses, intertwined with organic elements—rivers, tornadoes, and sunspots—traces of movement and transformation that reflect the instability of psychological space. An imagined still life of a crystal ball hints at what lies beyond the present, while sumac, fire, and shadow evoke cycles of renewal and decay.
Among these works are what Brown describes as "tantrum-throwing" images—gestural, raw expressions of release and resistance. This body of work aligns with her ongoing exploration of personal and collective transformation through mystical and natural symbols, inviting viewers to reflect on what it means to let go, set fire, and rebuild.
Phoenix S. Brown is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Milwaukee, WI. Originally from Cincinnati, OH, she earned her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design with a minor in art history. Brown has received recognition through the 2024 Wisconsin Emerging Artist Achievement Award, a 2021 gener8tor Art grant, and has participated in residencies at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati (2021), Yale Norfolk School of Art (2018), and Vermont Studio Center (2024).
Her work has been highlighted in solo exhibitions at Wright Museum of Art in Beloit, WI, and Trout Museum of Art in Appleton, WI. Her paintings and drawings have also been presented at NADA Miami, Other Art Fair Chicago, and Untitled Art Fair Miami Beach. Her practice has been featured in New American Paintings.