ARTIST STATEMENT:
Environmental Advocacy

I will inhale smoke and exhale butterflies
Statement:
“I will inhale smoke and exhale butterflies”
This quote, gleaned from a dream, encapsulates my impulse to provoke the capitalist detritus of this world and cultivate it into a gravitational ecopedagogy.
An interdisciplinary artist, I probe the unrealized potential of a material to be reborn both in its physical nature and by changing a witnesses’ perception of the now. Focusing on fiber and mixed media constructions and installations that bear the weight of environmental activism by incorporating a material-based subtext (the material’s backstory adds depth to its new incarnation). My materials include salvaged ghost gear (a hazardous form of marine debris that endangers the oceanic environment from the surface tension at the top of tumultuous waves to the darkest pressures on the sea floor), recycled and antique textiles and furs (both being grotesque and beautiful in their own ways), and found/collected/border-line-hoarded objects. These building blocks come together to create a parallel universe, perhaps this planet’s next era, recreated past eras, or may serve as portals.
A blender smoothie of natural and social sciences create dialogue about how material can be both physical and conceptual, both before and after, here and there simultaneously, a Schrödinger’s cat. By appreciating the fleeting beauty of what is, it imparts one with the angst and ennui of a knowledge of its faulty adaptability in a roiling sea of change. Natural history’s attempt to teach through its museum of dioramas must approach anew with abstract tapestries and timelines, geologic and biologic replication, a physical manifestation of abstract concepts not yet known to the human species.
Born in New York in 1971, I now live and work in a studio located on a spit of sand on the coast of Massachusetts.
My working name has been amended to “Auntie Gin”, pronounced antigen, which reflects not only the auto-immune diseases I am dealing with in life, but also the artist’s role of socio-political agitator with a heavy reliance on scientific, historic and environmental research.
CV
American, Interdisciplinary Artist, Born in New York, 1971
Grants
2023: The Puffin Foundation’s Environmental Artistic Activism Grant
Finalist for the Gottlieb Foundation Grant
2022: The Rauschenberg Emergency Grant
The Awesome Foundation Grant
2020: Arts Foundation of Cape Cod Relief Grant
2018: Artist’s Resource Trust Endowment by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation
Residencies
2024: Arts and Science Program, Peaked Hill Trust, Provincetown, MA
Great Boston Harbor Islands Cleanup Field Work Residency, Center for Coastal Studies
2023: Twenty Summers, Hawthorne Barn, Provincetown, MA
Permanent Public Collections
Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA
Artist Talks and Panels
2024: University of Rhode Island
2023: Public Talk for installation, Twenty Summers, Hawthorne Barn, Provincetown, MA
2022: Center for Coastal Studies/Twenty Summers, Provincetown, MA
2019: Virtual Studio Talk hosted by On Center Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Chandler Gallery, Cambridge, MA
Fountain Street Gallery, Boston, MA
2018: Fountain Street Gallery, Boston, MA
Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA
2017: Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA
Teaching History
Provincetown Art Association and Museum’s Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Museum School Method Flux with Gin Stone
Prizes
2017: Juror’s choice prize Attleboro Art Museum
Selected Bibliography/Print Media
2022: The Provincetown Independent
2020: Vellum Art Magazine
2019: Mass Cultural Council: Studio Views: Gin Stone
Provincetown Banner
Portland Press Herald
Art New England
2018: ArtScope
New Cambridge Observer
2017: Blouin Art Info
2016: ArtScope
2010: Art of the Cape and Islands
2003/4: Provincetown Arts Magazine
Curatorial Work
2019: Prismatic Redux, Chandler Gallery, Cambridge, MA
2018: Recreating Nature, Fountain Street Gallery, Boston, MA
Creature Comforts, Cambridge Art Association (Large scale installation and curation)
Selected Exhibitions and Installations
2024:
- The 74th A-One, Silvermine Arts Center and Galleries, New Canaan, CT
2023:
- Solo Exhibit Past/Present, On Center Gallery, Provincetown, MA
- Solo Public Installation and Talk Birth of Commodity, Hawthorne Barn, Provincetown, MA in conjunction with Twenty Summers
2022:
- Museum Installation Commission Man, Materials and Our Lasting Legacy in the Sea: installation, Heritage Museums and Gardens, Sandwich, MA
- Solo Exhibit Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, On Center Gallery, Provincetown, MA
- 6200 Thoughts, Ivy Brown Gallery, NYC
- By Her Hand, Eckert Fine Art, MASSMoCA, N. Adams, MA
2021:
- Solo Exhibit They Say I’m Difficult, On Center Gallery, Provincetown, MA
2020:
- Art Fair IMMERSIVE 2, SCOPE, Booth: Vellum Art Mag, Miami Beach, FL
- The Locals, On Center Gallery, Provincetown, MA
- Recent Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA
2019:
- Two-Person Exhibition Being, Fountain Street Gallery, Boston, MA
- Fleeting, Coastal Contemporary Gallery, Newport, RI
- Two-Person Exhibition Prismatic Redux, Chandler Gallery, Cambridge, MA
- Natural Habitat: A Study of Man and Nature, On Center Gallery, Provincetown
- The Sartorial Self, Cove Street Arts, Portland, ME
- Man-Made: A State of Nature Invitational Group Show, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
2018:
- The Locals, On Center Gallery, Provincetown, MA
- Breaking the Rules, Fountain Street Gallery, Boston, MA (catalogue)
- Creature Comforts, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA (curation/installation)
- Thrive, Fountain Street Gallery, Boston, MA (catalogue)
2017:
- UPRISE/Angry Women, THE UNTITLED SPACE, NYC
- The Horse Show, ArtProv Gallery, Providence, RI
- BIOPHILIA, Sargent Gallery, Aquinnah, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
- Various Flora & Fauna, View Arts Center, Old Forge
- Line, Attleboro Arts Museum, Attleboro, MA
- Reclaimed, Mosesian Center for the Arts, Watertown, MA
- 16th National Prize Show, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA (catalogue)
- It’s the Little Things, ArtProv Gallery, Providence, RI
- Monsters and Misfits, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA
2016:
- The Harvest, Van Vessem Gallery, Tiverton, RI
- The Deep Sea Has its Stars —Trident Gallery/Ocean Alliance Art Installation, Gloucester, MA
- Embroidered Truths & Woven Tales, Nave Gallery, Somerville, MA
- The New England Collective VII, Galatea Fine Art, Boston, MA
- Inaugural National Juried Exhibition: Breaking the Mold, Cape Cod Museum of Art
- 15th National Prize Show, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA
2015:
- The Big Show 9, Silas Marder Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY
2012-‘14: Practice development shift from painting to multi-disciplinary/mix-media
2010-‘12: Hiatus while building live/work studio- Harwich, MA
2010:
- Solo Exhibit, The Frying Pan Gallery, Wellfleet, MA
2009:
- HIV Law Project’s 20th Anniversary Benefit, Helen Mills Theater, NYC
2009-‘15: Represented by The Frying Pan Gallery, Wellfleet, MA
2008:
- Solo Exhibit, The Jacob Sears Memorial Library, Quivet Neck, MA
- The Temptation of Abstraction, Bennett Street Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2008-‘09: Represented by The Bennett Street Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2005:
- ArtSeen, AIDS Research Alliance, Los Angeles, CA
- Visual Ground: Artists Paint the Landscapes They See, Firehouse Plaza Art Gallery, Long Island, NY
2004:
- Group Show, Søren Christensen, New Orleans, LA
- Group Show, The Lowe Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2004-2008: Represented by The Lowe Gallery; Atlanta, GA and Santa Monica, CA 2003:
- Two-Person Exhibition, Left Bank Gallery, Orleans, MA
2002-2006: Represented by The Left Bank Gallery, Orleans, MA
Stone’s interview with Helen Adams, Textile Curator:
Evolution, ecology and environmental activism are beautifully conveyed through American artist Gin Stone’s art. Critiquing “humanity’s approach to the degradation and disrespect of the natural world” she employs a range of found materials in her pieces that are rich in colour, texture and meaning.
Studio interview for the Provincetown Art Association and Museum