Elly Reitman
energy
August 16 - September 20, 2024
Michelle Grabner, Kathleen Morris & Bronson Smillie
The Weather, or some other accident, curated by Danica Pinteric
Tiziana La Melia
Country Mouse City Mouse Hamster
June 7 - July 6, 2024
Jacob Jackmauh, Caitlin McCann & Benjamin Stallings
As for me, I’m just passing through this planet
March 8 - April 14, 2024
Irina Jasnowski Pascual
Wipers
September 15 - October 29, 2023
Coco Klockner
honesty
July 8 - August 6, 2023
Morgan Canavan, Ben Estes, Marisa Takal
More Coming Back & More Returning
May 5 - June 11, 2023
Sylvie Hayes-Wallace
Center of the Universe
August 5 - September 18, 2022
Amanda Horowitz
Bad Water, True West or Between Myself the Crickets and the Coyote
performed by Sophia Cleary and Ada Friedman
July 14 & July 15, 2022
Suzanna Zak
Coming Home to the Ice Age
opening May 13 - June 24, 2022
Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Milano Chow, Jenni Crain,
Kristin Dickson- Okuda, Rubens Ghenov, Ann Gillen, KB Jones,
Michael Kennedy Costa, Sean Macalister, Sarah McMenimen,
J. Parker Valentine, Anna Rosen
XX Perfect Souls, curated by Natalie Smith
April 1 - May 6, 2022
Justin Chance, Cameron Cameron, Tristan Higginbotham
Serendipity Trail
February 12 - March 25, 2022
Noah Furman
Beginners
December 3, 2021 - January 25, 2022
Angélique Heidler
Piselli
October 8 - November 19, 2021
Natalie Smith
Nothing Within or Without
August 13 - September 14, 2021
Celia Lesh & Esther Sibiude
A Hole Filled With Noise, curated by Colleen Billing
July 2 - August 2, 2021
E. Saffronia Downing
Field Dug Over
May 21- June 27, 2021
Thew Smoak
Body Without Organs
April 2 - May 2, 2021
Eleanor Conover
Learning From the Steep Slope
March 5 - March 30, 2021
★
About
Instagram
★
open by appointment
located beside
320 E. Churchwell Ave
Knoxville, Tennessee
Elly Reitman
energy
August 16 - September 20, 2024
Michelle Grabner, Kathleen Morris & Bronson Smillie
The Weather, or some other accident, curated by Danica Pinteric
July 12 - July 29, 2024
Tiziana La Melia
Country Mouse City Mouse Hamster
June 7 - July 6, 2024
Jacob Jackmauh, Caitlin McCann & Benjamin Stallings
As for me, I’m just passing through this planet
March 8 - April 14, 2024
Irina Jasnowski Pascual
Wipers
September 15 - October 29, 2023
Coco Klockner
honesty
July 8 - August 6, 2023
Morgan Canavan, Ben Estes, Marisa Takal
More Coming Back & More Returning
May 5 - June 11, 2023
Sylvie Hayes-Wallace
Center of the Universe
August 5 - September 18, 2022
Amanda Horowitz
Bad Water, True West or Between Myself the Crickets and the Coyote
performed by Sophia Cleary and Ada Friedman
July 14 & July 15, 2022
Suzanna Zak
Coming Home to the Ice Age
May 13 - June 24, 2022
Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Milano Chow, Jenni Crain,
Kristin Dickson- Okuda, Rubens Ghenov, Ann Gillen,
KB Jones, Michael Kennedy Costa, Sean Macalister,
Sarah McMenimen, J. Parker Valentine, Anna Rosen
XX Perfect Souls, curated by Natalie Smith
April 1 - May 6, 2022
Justin Chance, Cameron Cameron, Tristan Higginbotham
Serendipity Trail
February 12 - March 25, 2022
Noah Furman
Beginners
December 3, 2021 - January 25, 2022
Angélique
Heidler
Piselli
October 8 - November 19, 2021
Natalie Smith
Nothing Within or Without
August 13 - September 14, 2021
Celia Lesh & Esther Sibiude
A Hole Filled With Noise, curated by Colleen Billing
July 2 - August 2, 2021
E. Saffronia Downing
Field Dug Over
May 21- June 27, 2021
Thew Smoak
Body Without Organs
April 2 - May 2, 2021
Eleanor Conover
Learning From the Steep Slope
March 5 - March 30, 2021
★
About
open by appointment
located beside
320 E. Churchwell Ave
Knoxville, Tennessee
★
Past Exhibitions
Thinking About Power IV, 2024, Oil on panel
Untitled, 2024, Oil on canvas over panel
energy, installation view 
Untitled, 2023, Oil on canvas over panel
Thinking About Power III (Mulberry, Pose, Sinus, Orbs), 2023, Oil on canvas over panel
energy, installation view 
Portal, 2024, Oil on panel
Eights, 2024, Oil on canvas
U & I, 2024, Oil on canvas
Sky Stones II, 2024, Oi
l on panel
Alignment, 2024, Oil on panel
energy, installation view
Blood, 2024, hematiteEnergy
Elly Reitman
August 16 – September 20, 2024
I recently watched a drawing exercise that is only made possible with a partner. In this exercise, you rest the shoulder of your right arm against your collaborator's left. You may intertwine your arms, or hold them in close proximity. One person begins to draw while the other mirrors their marks. Watching this process, I began to understand that the two halves of the drawing aren't necessarily reflections of each other— one person can't perfectly mirror someone else.
I've always described the process of making a show with someone as a brief moment of stepping into the other half of their brain. It's a particularly intimate experience, one impossible without trust. I've found myself interested in exercises that get close to this sensation. Earlier this year, a friend led a group meditation based on mirroring a partner’s movements. Silently, one person begins to move as the other tries to match their gestures. It’s embarrassing, and requires completely letting go of self-consciousness. (Elly and I have agreed we are much better at being children now than when we were young). Eventually the group starts to oscillate between who is leading and who is following. It becomes nearly impossible to tell where the movement begins and where it ends.
These exercises embody an energy found in Elly Reitman’s work. Their paintings are a commitment to trust and unknowing. They possess a consciousness of the self without being so self-conscious. They arise from a sense of desire, a yearning that resonates from deep within the gut, outpours from the heart, and swirls around the mind. Though they often begin with an image, there is an innate sense of trust for what might emerge through the process.
Elly uses a universal yet entirely idiosyncratic understanding of signs and symbols to develop a tacit language for approaching their paintings. They are thinking about energy. The recurring image of a socket throughout the work could be seen as a meditation on power, resources, and the relationship between kinetic and potential energies. Ears offer a glimpse of the body, serving as a passageway for a whisper and a symbol for sound. Tongues elicit a sense of language and taste, a bridge between the inside and outside of the body, a letter: “U” & “I”. Even in the absence of a figure, the internal conditions of the body are made external on the surface of the work.
The paintings are always a psychic problem—an ache to make the unknown known, a misunderstanding of the relationship between figure and ground, a negotiation of the boundaries between “U” & “I”. Between You and I.
★★★
Elly Reitman (b. 1990) received a BFA from The Cooper Union, MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, and diplomas in TCM Acupressure and Naturopathy at École Setsuko. Their work has been included in recent exhibitions at Joe Project, The Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, White Columns, Rumpelstilskin and ROMANCE. Reitman is an artist and bodyworker living as a guest on unceded Indigenous lands in Tioh’tià:ke / Mooniyang / Montreal.