First Impressions introduces a dynamic group of accomplished artists whose work is being shown at Momentum Gallery for the first time. Spanning ceramics, glass, steel, embroidery, photography, painting, and mixed media, the exhibition brings together distinct practices united by an exceptional sensitivity to material, process, and meaning. Featured artists include Steven Young Lee, Norwood Viviano, Carol Shinn, Sharon Berebichez, Heather Beardsley, Arthur Hall, and Russ Connell, each contributing a singular visual language shaped through years of sustained studio practice.
Though diverse in form and medium, the works share recurring concerns with environmental consciousness, cultural history, transformation, and the interconnectedness of human and natural systems. Lee’s ceramics engage histories of decorative tradition and identity, while Viviano’s cast glass sculptures evoke fragility, memory, and ecological change. Connell’s steel works consider relationships between structure, environment, and human intervention, while Beardsley, Berebichez, and Shinn employ layered textile processes to explore memory, place, labor, and cultural continuity. Hall’s large-scale photographs, often composed through glass and reflection, collapse architectural space and human presence into richly layered single-exposure images that capture the complexity and simultaneity of lived experience.
One of the exhibition’s most compelling threads is the prominent role of textiles and the language of handwork. Embroidery appears in the practices of three artists, functioning not as embellishment but as a method of tracing memory, mapping place, and making visible the passage of time. Whether stitched into landscapes, layered onto photographs and found fabrics, or integrated into sculptural forms, these tactile interventions foreground care, accumulation, and interconnectedness.
Together, the artists in First Impressions invite close looking and sustained reflection. While each body of work stands powerfully on its own, the exhibition reveals surprising resonances across disciplines and materials, offering an introduction not only to exceptional individual practices but also to the shared questions that shape how we experience place, history, and one another.