JUNE 13 – AUGUST 23, 2023

Opening Reception with the Artists
Tuesday, June 13th, 5:30-7:30 PM

SOCO Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Potentially Everywhere, a two-person exhibition featuring work by Holly Keogh and Jillian Mayer. The gallery will host a public opening on June 13, 2023 from 5:30 - 7:30 PM. This will be Keogh’s second  exhibition with SOCO Gallery and Mayer’s first.

In Potentially Everywhere, new oil and acrylic paintings created by Keogh and ceramic vessels and hanging glass pieces of Mayer will be exhibited alongside each other. 

Keogh creates small and large scale figurative paintings that focus on our relationship with memory and our desire to document or freeze time. In contrast to her earlier work, where the artist referenced old family photographs and shared memories, Keogh documents endearing moments with friends and family in North Carolina over the past few months, anywhere and everywhere. The paintings are playful, contemplative but still mysterious – images are seen from multiple angles and the viewer catches glimpses of figures through mirrors and reflections. “In previous work I was inspired by found imagery; the moments were never mine. This new work feels liberating in the sense that the starting point for each painting is a moment from my daily life. There is no finite archive to explore, only potential inspiration everywhere. Painting through this more personal lens adds an element of vulnerability that I also hadn’t expected.” (Holly Keogh, 2023)

Mayer is a multimedia artist whose glass orbs and ceramic vessels reflect similar themes – reflections, mirrors and created shadows illustrating infinite and alternative modes of space and of looking. Through installations of multiple materials, here glass and ceramic, Mayer explores the points of tension between imagined and physical worlds and makes work that attempts to inhabit the increasingly porous borders between the two.  Hung from the ceiling, the glass and wire orbs catch the light, play with shadows on the wall, and continually  shift  colors and patterns. The artist states “As humans, we tell stories. Stories come in many forms – it can be written word, a family quilt, and sometimes we tell them in glass. Glass is fascinating as a material. It will always break; it’s just a matter of time. It could last 1000 years or one day. I began to think about the properties of glass in a new way and its transformative powers as a material.” (Jillian Mayer, Highsnobiety, 2022)

Potentially Everywhere entices the viewer to dive into a moment in time, to look and then look again. In this immersive exhibition, we see ourselves in and around the artworks - a moment to be potentially everywhere. 

Holly Keogh (B. 1991)

Holly Keogh’s studies (Charlotte, NC) include a year at the University of Cape Town, South Africa in 2012 where she concentrated on painting before graduating from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. After graduation, she became an original member of the Goodyear Artist Collective where she had the inaugural artist residency. She is currently represented by SOCO Gallery in North Carolina and has exhibited with various galleries in the Southeast. In 2019 she was selected to participate in the Pienkow Artist Residency in Chelm, Poland where she was the recipient of the People’s Choice Award. January through May of 2020 she was an artist in residence at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation. She was a Bennett Prize Finalist in 2021, and one of 10 female artists invited to participate in their nationwide exhibition that lasts for two years. Keogh is the current artist chosen for Constellations CLT where her artwork will be exhibited throughout the Mint Museum, Uptown. She will be attending Goldsmith College, London UK this fall to complete her MFA. 

Jillian Mayer (B. 1984)

Jillian Mayer is an artist and filmmaker based in Miami, Florida. The artist received her BFA from Florida International University in 2007. Mayer has had solo exhibitions at Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT and Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL. She has participated in global exhibitions at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami, FL; Girls’ Club Collection, Fort Lauderdale, FL; 2014 La Biennale de Montreal, Montreal, QC; Miami Dade College’s Museum of Art + Design, Miami, FL; Young Art Museum, Davie, FL; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; National Center for Contemporary Art, Russia among others. In 2010, the artist’s work was one of the 25 selections for the Guggenheim’s Youtube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video. As part of the Guggenheim’s Creative Video Biennial, the artist’s work was exhibited at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain; and Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Germany. Recent exhibitions include “Past Skin” at MoMA P.S.1 as well as solo exhibitions “Slumpies” at Perez Art Museum, Miami; The Occasional at LAX Art, Los Angeles; and Salt 9: Jillian Mayer at Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City. Mayer’s work is a part of important public and private collections, including the Perez Art Museum, Miami and The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami.