Artlink Contemporary Gallery is pleased to present OVER UNDER by Gabe Duggan, Robin Haller, Kate Nartker and Janie Woodbridge.

Please join us for the opening reception on Thursday, September 8th from 5-8 pm!

Exhibition Statement

As physical experiences become increasingly digitized, hand controlled digital jacquard looms are uniquely suited to address critical contemporary issues. In this exhibition, four artists propose to utilize this technology to develop works centered on the themes of disembodiment, disappointment, and longing. An exhibition of weavings, installations, and projected videos will invite viewers to examine material artifacts and grapple with the intersections and contradictions of physical and virtual landscapes.

The digital weaving processes and technologies practiced by artists Duggan, Haller, Nartker, and Woodbridge, are historically and functionally intermeshed. As with other digital fabrication processes, digital data (the pixel) is rendered in physical space through material construction. A unique characteristic of this process however, is an additional transmitter of this data: the human body. Ancient craft and digital organization are at work simultaneously as the artist’s hand guides both file design and physical translation. These questions are furthered by the works of these four North Carolina based artists through material, data, image construction, repeat development, narrative, and color theory. Questioning intersections of media, technological dysfunction, identity, and imaging, Duggan situates digital and physical breakdown to reflect larger social issues. Haller’s work reflects broad confluences of personal experiences and current events through constant refining of digital drafting and cloth construction. Nartker’s practice considers the 'eye as an organ of touch' through cinema and haptic interpretation. Personal narratives of brain trauma, obsessive behaviors, and barriers in communication inform Woodbridge’s research, expressed through rigorous formal studies. To consider at the same time that the very pixels used to build these works are emulations of their technological predecessors (thread on binary loom systems) introduces timely pertinence to the evolving fusion of digital/physical life and perception.

About the Artists

Gabe Duggan
Gabe Duggan (b. Buffalo, NY), Assistant Professor at East Carolina University, has also taught at the University of North Texas, Georgia State University, and North Carolina State University. Their work has been supported by the NC Arts Council, Art on the Atlanta Beltline (GA), Vignette Art Fair (TX); exhibitions at SECCA, Flanders, Lump, and Anchorlight (NC), and Garis & Hahn (NY); and residencies at Praxis Fiber Workshop (OH), Cooler Ranch (NY), Landfalls (NY), the Musk Ox Farm (AK), Governors Island Art Fair (NY), Ponyride (Knight Foundation Emerging Artist, MI), Rob Dunn Lab (NCSU+NCMNS), and Art + Science In The Field (NC).

Recent awards include the Juror's Prize at Art on the Trails by Sarah Montross (Associate Curator, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum), Best in Show at Artpsace NC's Fine Contemporary Craft by Mia Hall (Director, Penland School of Crafts), Engagement and Outreach Scholars Academy (ECU), and an upcoming Integrated Coastal Programs Coastal Fellowship (NC).

Robin Haller
Robin L. Haller is an artist who specializes in digital design and weaving. She is an Associate Professor and Area Coordinator of the Textile Design Program at East Carolina University, School of Art and Design, in Greenville, NC, where she teaches weaving and feltmaking. She has received multiple grants to pursue her research in digital design and weaving, including the North Carolina Regional Artist Grant which assisted in her Artist in Residence at the Icelandic Textile Center in July 2022. Robin’s artwork has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and recently has been the recipient of the HGA Award, Complexity’s Diane Fabeck Best in Show Award, and two-time Best of Show Award in Fiber Celebration, Colorado. She currently resides between her hometown of Cleveland, OH and her place of employment in Greenville, NC.

Kate Nartker
Kate Nartker works between animation and weaving to dismantle images, narrative, and material structures. She received an MFA from the California College of the Arts in 2012 and is an Assistant Professor of Textile Design at North Carolina State University. Her work has been included in exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally, including The Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, The Contemporary Austin, and the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. Nartker lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Janie Woodbridge
Janie Woodbridge is an Assistant Professor of Textile Design at the College of Textiles at North Carolina State University. She earned her BFA in Fiber Art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA in Textile Design from The Rhode Island School of Design. After years of working as a woven designer in the textile industry, she decided to focus her energy on textile education, studio practice and research. In addition to teaching at the College of Textiles she has taught at the College of Design and Penland School of Crafts.