Passing Through

In their two-person exhibition at Uprise Art, Passing Through, Laura Naples and Katrine Hildebrandt-Hussey both root their practices in quiet, contemplative gestures that channel the unseen. Whether through Laura’s ethereal forms inspired by mysticism and movement, or Katrine’s symbolic compositions that map the emotional rhythms of family and cosmic interconnectivity, both artists offer visual languages attuned to the intangible.

In Hildebrandt-Hussey’s work, the artist uses naturally-derived dyes from locally foraged plants like jewelweed, chamomile, marigold, and fern, alongside food scraps composted by her family, like avocado pits and onion skins. These works look to the cyclical patterns of light and growth as inspiration, drawing color from plants that depend on these cycles for survival. She uses these dyes to pigment the fabric and paper she works with, which is also made by hand. Comprised of paper scraps sourced from her children’s old homework and school papers, she creates a pulp that is then stirred, strained, shaped, and dried, becoming both a physical foundation and a symbolic one - shifting from a slurry of discarded knowledge into the connective tissue of the work itself.

Originating from a closed-loop studio practice, these materials are then combined with bent reeds affixed to the artworks’ surface and lines burned into the paper using a pyrography pen. Charting family rhythms, cycles, routines, and relationships, the recurring circles and their particular colors have come to represent temporality, while the reeds and burnt lines evoke a structure for balance, and a simultaneous growing and expanding. Hildebrandt-Hussey’s work is a sustained meditation on the invisible threads that bind us to each other, to our environments, and to the quiet cycles that shape our lives.

In 'Passing Through', Naples and Hildebrandt-Hussey each offer distinct but complementary approaches that engage with the subtleties of perception, sensation, and meaning-making rooted in material experimentation and deeply personal and self-reflective processes.

In Naples’ work, acrylic paint moves across the canvas in undulating surges of abstraction, guided by her intuitive and embodied process. Working on the floor, she pours diluted acrylics onto the surface, allowing gravity to shape the fluid interaction between water and pigment. This method evokes a quiet sense of wonder as colors merge, forming organic, unpredictable patterns that mirror both the fluidity of water and the spontaneity of her approach. Using the full reach of her body, Naples then moves across the canvas with sweeping brushstrokes that emphasize the physical relationship between herself, the materials, and the environment in which the work is made.

This act of attunement draws from a lineage of mystical and visionary art-making. In this recent series, Naples’ has resonated deeply with the transcendental mysticism of women artists who came before her. From the sacred chants of 12th-century polymath Hildegard of Bingen to the ethereal abstractions of 20th-century pioneers like Agnes Pelton and Hilma af Klint, Naples’ paintings become both a personal expression and a dialogue with a collective history of women who have used their art to explore the unseen, tapping into realms of intuition, divinity, and the sublime. In this reflection, Naples approaches her creative process with both reverence and curiosity, contemplating how these historical traditions intersect with her own evolving practice.

In Passing Through, Naples and Hildebrandt-Hussey each offer distinct but complementary approaches that engage with the subtleties of perception, sensation, and meaning-making rooted in material experimentation and deeply personal and self-reflective processes.

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