As the earth trembles stages a conversation on artistic creation, drawing together seven abstract painters whose work is intently focused on process and surface; all of whom bring diverse media into their practices, materially and conceptually. The title is drawn from American feminist writer Adrienne Rich’s 1974 poem The Fact of a Doorframe, in which she narrates the cathartic, mighty process of poetic ideation. As the earth trembles likens the disruptive yet generative force of self-expression in language to that of painting. Rich’s Doorframe, mundane yet open-ended with its liminal purpose, is reinterpreted here as the pictorial frame, a demarcation of surface and space where subtle meanings found in linguistic fragments and splinters are immortalized as brushstrokes and marks.
Each of the seven artists in As the earth trembles bring a distinctive approach to abstraction that centers painting as both a vessel and a force. The artists grapple with the psychology of making and the experience of human existence, especially at a time when hierarchies of power are obstructive to progress - whether that be with regards to LGBTQ+ rights, climate change, or racial justice.
