SVA Continuing Education and Artist Residency Programs present “Somatic Reactions,” an exhibition that brings together 14 artists from the spring 2025 Artist Residency cohort curated by Sarah Stolar. Artists in the exhibition include Michelle Alexander, Petra Balsley, Anastessia Bettas, Homosuperiorr, Jennifer Chilstrom, Aislinn Feldberg, Yuko Kyutoku, Catherine Kunkemueller, Isabella Marcello, Maureen Murray, Erika Senft Miller, Greg Sinibaldi, Josué Morales Urbina, and Tricia Waddell.

“Somatic Reactions” refers to physical responses in the body that arise from emotions, thoughts, or the subconscious, often manifesting in .ways that reveal the body's deep connection to internal experiences. The artists in this exhibition have cultivated a heightened sensitivity to how emotions surface in their work, how gestures, textures, and spaces evoke sensory responses, and how viewers might physically and conceptually react to their art. As a whole, their work presents itself with an intuitive sense of knowing.

This exhibition reveals the physicality of existence, engaging viewers on a visceral level. While diverse concepts are presented—humanity’s relationship with nature, the intersection of science and art, gender identity, immortality, spirituality, and place—a common thread of embodied experience runs through them, where awareness, instinct, and presence shape the way these ideas are felt and understood. Through abstraction, figuration, texture, scale, color, and repetition, these works activate innate responses, provoking sensations of tension and release, comfort and unease, immersion and detachment.

Tricia Waddell’s soft sculpture is at once a pensive, motherly figure and a towering monster ready to strike. The large-scale abstract form evokes dueling qualities of sadness, fear, power, and empathy. The immersive, looping installation by Guatemalan artist Josué Morales Urbina envelops the viewer in an architectural-like environment that speaks to his diasporic experience and deep, internal longing for home. The space is airy and meditative, yet grounded by a strong sense of gravity and ordered chaos. Greg Sinibaldi’s layered mixed-media painting taps into the core of his somatic awareness through an instinctive and physically engaged process of layering symbolic imagery with intuitive mark-making, opening a window into the collective unconscious. Michelle Alexander’s work directly explores the physical sensations that arise in the body when confronted with loss and grief. In a nod to Félix González-Torres, Alexander captures the ephemerality of life. Aislinn Feldberg, Isabella Cortez Steele, and Homosuperiorr examine identity and what it means to inhabit this world as marginalized people, with Homosuperiorr reminding us that our one true commonality is death.

This exhibition invites viewers to not only see but to feel, challenging them to engage with art in a way that is deeply embodied, intuitive, and immediate. The tension in these works—between presence and absence, form and formlessness—echoes the existential condition, where sensation often speaks louder than words.

Sarah Stolar (b. 1974, Chicago, IL; she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The breadth of her work includes painting, drawing, multimedia installation, film, video, and performance art. Rooted in a 30-year investigation of the feminine psychological narrative, common threads in her work include loss of innocence, sexuality, power, death, spirituality, and identity. Sarah is the daughter of artist and educator Merlene Schain (1948-2022), and a descendant of 19th-century German painter Adolph von Menzel and Rookwood Pottery master potter John von Menzel of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. She grew up in her mother’s art studio and award-winning art school Schain Studios in Cincinnati, and holds a BFA in painting from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and an MFA in new genres from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has exhibited across the United States and internationally, and she is an award-winning filmmaker. Sarah is also a core member of La Pocha Nostra, the oldest cross-border performance art troupe in the world. A committed educator for two decades, Sarah Stolar is currently the Chair of the Department of Fine Arts, Film and Digital Media at the University of New Mexico - Taos. On June 1, 2025, she will join the Art Academy of Cincinnati as the new Academic Dean and Executive Director of Academic Affairs.

SVA’s Artist Residencies offer artists, designers and creative thinkers time, space and a supportive community in which to develop ideas and focus on their artistic direction, with summer programs on campus in New York City, as well as year-round in online formats.

In addition to time-honored studio residencies, a variety of innovative professional immersion programs provide opportunities for artists to explore new areas of social and technological practice and engage critically within their field.

A unique combination of creative and professional resources provides a rich environment for growth and opportunity in the current, vibrant art scene.

On-campus housing is available, as are opportunities to display work.

For further information or questions regarding SVA’s Artist Residency Programs, email residency@sva.edu.

SVA’s Artist Residency Programs are hosted by the Division of Continuing Education.

For additional courses and workshops, refer to the Division of Continuing Education.