The Way You Want It

About

Nostalgia is commonly associated with bittersweet memories and a deep sense of longing for the past. Objects often serve as time capsules for these feelings. The six artists in The Way You Want It utilize these conjured feelings to create new objects that feel familiar, yet expand to accommodate their particular and multifaceted identities. 

Darlene Deloris, Mari Claudia García, Sonja John, Sira Marissa Lewis, Carson Parish, and Daniel Samaniego mine personal, cultural, and familial histories as they intentionally fabricate spaces and communities of belonging. Utilizing a multitude of art forms such as painting, video, photography, drawing, and process based work, each artist presents projects that not only transcend time but explore new futures. 

These acts of creation have developed in a unique environment, that of the SHIFT Residency, which provides shared studio and mentoring opportunities for arts workers to advance their creative processes. The residency in itself met each artist as a past version of themselves, looking to devote more time and energy into their practices. While the root of each artists’ praxis exists within a sense of longing, their new works define secure frameworks for liberated futures. Exhibiting these works together furthers this future building momentum and welcomes the merging of different perspectives and communities.