Across painting, sculpture, textile, photography, and mixed media, the artists in BolsterArts residency’s inaugural exhibition Bolster.1 [Layered], curated by Maty sall, explore the many layers and tensions that shape one’s identity. Their works look closely at inherited behaviors, imposed narratives, and cultural histories that influence how identity is formed and understood.

Ann Marie Auricchio, Anna Ting Möller, Cassandra Mayela Allen, Chris Cortez, Grace Lynne Haynes, Jasmine Murrell, Michael Coppage, and Ruth Jeyaveeran approach this from different perspectives. Their practices draw on community, cultural lineage, indigenous knowledge, philosophical research, maternal experience, and moments of psychological strain. Some reimagine identity through self-portrait, hybrid or futuristic figures that point to resistance and possibility; others explore the contradictions within care, migration, or belonging—how these experiences shape us by holding and challenging us at the same time. Through these varied approaches, identity appears as something shaped by evolution and disruption, by what we inherit and what we self-manifest.

Together, the works form a shared reflection on the complexity of the self. These artists push against fixed definitions, opening space for identities that shift, expand, and adapt. The exhibition presents identity as an active process—one that can be questioned, rethought, and redefined.

PRESS RELEASE