Tactics

SNAP is pleased to present Tactics featuring new work by Guen Montgomery and Emmy Lingscheit. The exhibition runs from March 8 – April 5, 2025 at SNAP Gallery.

This exhibition centres the sense of touch– of textiles, of soil, of kin– and how these experiences anchor us to our bodies and to the broad world of fellow organisms whose fates are intertwined with ours. These works celebrate and struggle with the wonder and the strangeness of this condition.

Opening Reception: Saturday March 8, 7pm-9pm

Artist Talk: Saturday March 8, 6-7pm

Artist Statement

Artists/partners Guen Montgomery and Emmy Lingscheit present this collaborative exhibition informed by another audacious ongoing collaborative project– that of queer kin-building in the form of parenthood. “Tactics” is first and foremost about the sense of touch– of textiles, of soil, of kin– and how these tactile experiences anchor us in our bodies and to the world, connecting us to the broad web of fellow organisms whose fates are intertwined with ours. This primacy of touch exists in both printmaking and in the care of a small human being; in the embrace of paper to inked matrix, and of body against body, The persistence of the material world–this friction–is by turns smothering, grounding, and liberating, in a time when what we see and experience is increasingly dominated by screens and auto-generated visual noise. In Guen’s work, touch and tactility are centered in both the actual, literal, pressured touch of inked fur or fabric matrix to paper, and in the sense of longing to touch that comes from the printed illusion of fabric or fur. Instead of acting as pictorial reference, these slinky, musty, furred creatures are objects themselves, printed from cut and sewn pelt pieces, and only tangible when pressed, inky, into the paper. Pulled from autobiographical experiences with death, lesbian family life, and infertility, these creatures are both misunderstood, Grendel-adjacent beings, and expressions of a hard-to-name affective phenomenology. Emmy’s work draws on similar themes to explore our entanglements with the non-human world, and our relationship with deep time as finite beings. Recent hand-carved relief print installations embrace the repetition and mutability inherent in printmaking as a hopeful nod to the future continuity of the natural world even in ecologically grim times. Her work is a celebration of the resilient Other, underground ecosystems both literal and symbolic, and the inherent queerness of nature.

“Tactics” refers also to the strategies we use, as artists and as parents, to navigate and shape the world. Through successes and failures, hopes and resilience, we are stewarding something rare and wonderful into existence, and striving for a more equitable and sustainable future for young beings everywhere. We cannot escape our creature-ness, or the materiality of this world. This exhibition celebrates and struggles with the wonder and the strangeness of this condition.

About the Artists

Guen Montgomery is an artist and performer whose work investigates identity through studies of material culture, gender, and family mythology. Montgomery’s work is located in the tactile intersections between printmaking, performance, and sculpture. Montgomery has exhibited nationally and internationally and has work in public collections including the Centre for Art and Design in Churchill Australia, and Mushashino Art University, Tokyo, Japan. She’s completed multiple residencies, including the Vermont Studio Center, Pentaculum, and Calumet residencies. Within the last year, Montgomery has exhibited in multiple solo and two-person exhibitions.

guenmontgomerystudio.com

Emmy Lingscheit is a queer visual artist and educator. Her prints, zines, and wall-based installations explore our entanglements with the non-human world: interdependencies between beings and across time, and from the microscopic level up to the scale of our global economy. Lingscheit has held artist residencies at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Zygote Press, Ucross, the Kohler Arts/Industry Program, and St. Michael’s Printshop. Her work has been exhibited widely, including recently at Davidson Galleries, Seattle, WA, The Center for Contemporary Art and Culture, Portland, OR, and The International Print Center New York, NY.

www.emmylingscheit.com