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Prima Materia

A Group Exhibition

July 11th – August 8th, 2026

Prima Materia is a group exhibition presented by The Artifice at Empire Arts Gallery.

A meditation on beginnings, transformation, and potential. Artists explore material, process, and creation through works that embrace experimentation, emergence, and continual becoming. Borrowing its title from the alchemical concept of the "first matter,"

Prima Materia invites artists to consider the raw state from which all things arise. Across painting, sculpture, photography, collage, installation, and mixed-media practices, the exhibition examines transformation not as a destination but as an ongoing condition. Each work reflects a unique process of becoming, revealing how materials, ideas, and identities continually evolve through acts of creation.

Brandi Smart, Breeburz, BRINK43, Brittany Curran, Daniel Curran, Gina Rowland, Jessica Locklar, Larry Holland, RJ Clarke, STAVI, Thomas Arthur Schaefer

Brandi Smart

Cold Lighting

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and acrylic on wood painters palette

12 x 9 in / 30.5 x 22.9 cm

$400

Bre Williams

Anxiety

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and acrylic, clay, and embroidery thread on wood painters palette

12 x 9 x 2 in / 30.5 x 22.9 cm

$500

BRINK43

Verdant Dream

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and spray paint & acrylic on wood painters palette

12 x 9 in / 30.5 x 22.9 cm

$250

Brittany Curran

Magma Paradise

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and mixed media on wood painters palette

12 x 9 in / 30.5 x 22.9 cm

$150

Daniel Curran

Rough Seas

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and acrylic on wood painters palette

12 x 9 in / 30.5 x 22.9 cm

$450

Gina Rowland

Piece of Cake

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and acrylic, ink, paper and gel medium on wood painters palette

12 x 9 in / 30.5 x 22.9 cm

$200

Jessica Locklar

The Plunge

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and acrylic and gouache on wood painters palette

12 x 9 in / 30.5 x 22.9 cm

$325

Larry Holland

(untitled)

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and mixed media on wood painters palette

12 x 9 in / 30.5 x 22.9 cm

$400

RJ Clarke

And Beyond I Imagine

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and mirrored tiles, wood, acrylic paint on wood painters palette

12 x 13 x 0.5 in / 30.5 x 33 x 1.3 cm

$250

STAVI

(untitled)

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and acrylic on wood painters palette

12 x 9 in / 30.5 x 22.9 cm

$750

Thomas Arthur Schaefer

The Last Arrangement

Plaster cast hand, working artist's palette, and oil on wood painters palette

12 x 9 in / 30.5 x 22.9 cm

$2,500

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