Dearest Top Cat Family & Friends,

I hope you are keeping yourself healthy, safe, and well during these most uncertain times, and that your spirits continue to be lifted by family and friends. We are finding the spring of 2020 to be unlike anything anyone of us could have imagined and nothing like what we expected.

Last December as I was finalizing the gallery’s programming for this year, I had a completely different plan for the spring season’s exhibitions. I was envisioning historicized shows inspired by themes of the political landscape of 1989 and the economic climate of 1968. However, these past two months have been a time of much-needed introspection—I discovered that I allowed myself to get caught up in self-serving hype of comparative critique of the present to the not-so-distant past. Focusing on this, and what I now see as solely recontextualized retelling of times that have been, I came to the conclusion that, lo and behold, history can in fact repeat itself.

As I researched further into these familiar histories, I questioned certain ideologies behind arguments and whether these conversations would benefit from another updated contemporary spin. Watching the world events unfold leading up to the 2020 PAUSE/quarantine situation in New York City, I was reminded that I established Top Cat to foster the careers of artists whose work speaks to both formal and socio-political aspects of the new and the now. In addition, I started Top Cat as a step towards creating a nonprofit foundation focusing on facilitating art therapy resources through outlets of art education, theory, and practice. If capital A Art is about anything, it is about caring—the active concern for and about others; whether that be embedded in an artist's practice or the practice of Art itself. 

During the synthesis of this month's exhibition, the work selected took several directions, and in the end the works on display come from a selection of artists and friends whose work highlights the idea of artwork as a caring practice. At such a somber time, and with such sensitive subject matter, many institutions are wondering how to take the next first step. How do we approach the present sensibly and with heartfelt intentions? At risk of letting history repeat itself again, should we not try making a better present for all with our actions instead?

It is more true now than ever before that the show must go on.

Top Cat is absolutely thrilled to present Reflections on Spring: an Online Exhibition in 3 Parts.

— May 15th 2020 

~ T.C. 😸

With a mirror reflection, we sometimes get caught up in the surface tension between what we see in the glass and what we want reflected back to us—however, it helps to not forget we can always hold a mirror up ourselves to also question any surface. In a similar vein, we must be sure to both look and see what reflections hold for us. The following artists engage this tension head-on with empathic results, often speaking more about the art of being human than the art of production.