Out of Bounds

The Kreeger Museum and Hamiltonian Artists are pleased to present Out of Bounds, an exhibition featuring the work of Hamiltonian alumni Selin Balci, Larry W. Cook, Joyce Yu-Jean Lee, Christie Neptune, Allison Spence, Kyle Tata, and Jing (Ellen) Xu.

Borrowed from the language of sport, Out of Bounds refers to the space beyond the limits of play. Figuratively, it can describe actions, ideas, or behaviors that go against accepted rules or expectations. Working across painting, photo, sculpture, video, and installation, the artists presented in Out of Bounds consider what it means to question, cross, or redraw established boundaries.

The Hamiltonian alumni’s work will be exhibited alongside selected contemporary works from The Kreeger Museum’s permanent collection, including artists Sam Gilliam, Frank Stella, Simmie Knox, and William Christenberry. Each of these artists was an iconoclast in their day, rejecting rigid geometries and traditional methods of paint application, and pushing the limits of fine art mediums and subject matter. The Hamiltonian alumni bring a similar spirit of ingenuity to their anti-disciplinary practices—experimenting with materials and challenging conventions of figuration and representation. 

Some may argue that boundaries exist to be dismantled; as so often, they are imposed to include and to exclude. This exhibition invites the viewer to reconsider who gets to define the rules, and who has the power to enforce them. What is at stake when boundaries are crossed? What becomes possible on the other side of spontaneity and risk? Each artist featured in Out of Bounds approaches these questions through acts of disruption and reimagining, pointing toward the vast possibilities that emerge when established structures are tested.

This exhibition is curated by Anisa Olufemi, director of programs and curator at Hamiltonian Artists, and presented under The Collaborative, a program developed by The Kreeger Museum in 2021 to support Washington-area artists.

Artists

Selin Balci (b. 1980; Istanbul, Turkiye) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Annapolis, Maryland. She holds an MFA from the University of Maryland, a BFA from West Virginia University, and a BS from Istanbul University.

Larry Cook (b. 1986; Maryland, US) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and archivist based in Laurel, MD. He is an Associate Professor of Art and Photography at Howard University.

Joyce Yu-Jean Lee (b. 1979; Texas, US) is a transnational Taiwanese-Chinese American visual artist based in New York, NY. She is an Associate Professor of Foundation at Pratt Institute and the 2027 HighSmith Distinguished Visiting Scholar at UNC Asheville.

Christie Neptune (b. 1986; New York, US) is an artist-researcher based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her M.S. in Art, Culture, and Technology from the MIT School of Architecture and Planning and her B.A. in Visual Arts from Fordham University.

Allison Spence (b. 1986; Florida, US) is an artist currently based in Indiana.  She received an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego, a BFA in Painting, and a BA in Art History from the University of Florida.

Kyle Tata (b. 1990; Maryland, US) is an artist based in Los Angeles. He received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012 and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2022.

Jing (Ellen) Xu (b. 1987; Hailar, Inner Mongolia, China) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Queens, New York. She received her MFA in Photomedia from the University of Washington and her BA in Sculpture and Law from Xiamen University.