10is pleased to present Guided By Voices, curated by Lindsay Comstock and Monte Wilson, exploring the spiritual dimensions of creativity through the lens of seven artists working in various mediums: Theresa Daddezio, Steve Ellis, Jo Nigoghossian, Pareesa Pourian, Caroll Taveras, Paul Weil, and Rodney White. The exhibition is on view June 21 through July 27 and during Upstate Art Weekend and AMR Open Studios.

Guided By Voices goes beyond traditional artistic expression by tapping into the spiritual dimensions of creativity. The exhibit suggests that the act of creating art is not solely an intellectual pursuit, but a sacred process, guided by an invisible force that links the self to a higher state of consciousness and the rhythms of the natural world. It serves as both a reflection and an invitation to embrace the power of inner guidance, leading to a deeper understandingof the self and the universe.

Theresa Daddezio’s paintings resemble futuristic mandalas as images of contemplation. The three works in the exhibition, Queen, Scarab, and Cyclops bring in the mytho-poetic of cross-cultural archetypes that flow through human consciousness and story. Her paintings create a new cosmology for interpreting ancient form and symbolism. 

Steve Ellis broke from conventional artistic constraints in preparation for this exhibition, taking heed of many voices while trance-drawing with paint and shape-shifting along the way to reveal hidden patterns of flow and motion. The blurred lines in his work glow as if they carry their own aura from another realm. He also allowed himself to be “Guided By Voices,” choosing the album, Alien Lane, from the eponymous band, to inform his works’ creation. 

Jo Nigoghossian works with the state of awe as an intermediary for creation, exploring the tension between the inherent chaos of nature and the human desire to tame and order. Her works in the exhibition draw upon the five elements as interpreted through Chinese medicine—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water—which attempt to integrate human activity with nature.

Paul Weil draws upon his performative and musical experience in countercultural environments to inform his image-making which also incorporates non-dual concepts of unified consciousness when allying the subjects of his work. Alluding to them as “unexpected meditations on utopias,” the illumined shapes within the works represent a unified vision of his graphic style and a nod toward our contemporary political climate. 

Caroll Taveras writes on the back of her mixed-media collages: “Our humanity is merging with our divinity more and more each day. We are waking up to who we truly are. We are remembering. Our DNA is evolving, expanding beyond its current form. The future human will embody 24 strands of DNA. We are moving towards this. Some of us have already arrived.” The works in the exhibition were guided by her communion with Ascended Masters and Egyptian cosmology, creating symbolic forms that give rise to the ever-unfolding human potential and a remembrance of who we truly are.

Rodney White’s search for beauty in surprising areas of the picture plane keeps him engaged in his painting practice, which incorporates a kind of neo-Transcendental motif wherein the continuous line and its emergent shapes contain geological topography, silvergrass, and inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci, for example, to create the illusion of movement. The titles of his works come from poems, song lyrics, and questions that double as statements. This exhibition includes My Wandering Soul, Keep Me in the House of Saints, and Hope You Know What I’m Thinking, lyrics from Josephine Foster, Lucinda Williams and M. Ward, respectively. 

Pareesa Pourian uses a slow, devotional process to construct her paintings, similar to counting prayer beads or chanting mantras, she says, repeating flower drawings and morphing lines that undulate through the works in a complex tapestry that draws from her Persian heritage, growing up in the dense visual landscape of Louisiana and the tangles of foliage of her current Catskills home. Adornment is a concept of intrigue for the artist as is the landscape of the natural world. Her work moves between the two. Through the repeated flower doodle she plays with the nature of the feminine, from “girly” interpretations of floral patterns to the adornment one might bestow upon the archetypal goddess. 

All of the artists in this exhibition push the boundaries of their own perception to unearth new ways of interpreting our current state, ultimately imagining humanity into a new resonance and harmony within the ever-unfolding and expanding present moment