Ripples
Ripples @ The Playground Studio
Opening night:
Aug 29 4–9 PM
108 E Broadway (Entrance in Back Alley)
Aug 29–Sept 13
A collective exhibition by Barbara Love, Dali, Mariana Trujillo, Moonsoo Kim, Karo Pelc & Kylee Burt.
Ripples brings together six artists working across painting, sculpture, installation, ceramics, sound and participatory happenings. The exhibition considers water not only as a biological fluid or natural element, but as a metaphor for the changing conditions of human life.
Like human experience, water can be gentle and forceful, flowing and stagnant, contained and impossible to hold. Across the exhibition, the artists explore these shifting states, creating a language of expression through image, texture, rhythm, storytelling and atmosphere; forming an ecosystem of vulnerability, intimacy and memory.
Ripples: A Collective Exhibition
Surrender, Surfacing & Voyage, 2026, Stoneware, Glaze – Kylee Burt
Stagnant Water, 2026, Sound installation – Moonsoo Kim
keepsake, 2026, bioplastic, natural pigment, steel rebar – Dali
birdwatching, 2026, Acrylic paint on canvas – Karo Pelc
wanna go to the beach? 2026, Video Installation – Karo Pelc
Ripples: A Collective Exhibition, Display
Globus Sensation, 2026, Installation & Happening – Mariana Trujillo-Lezama
Wanna go to the beach?, 2026, Triptych – Karo Pelc
globus sensation, 2026, Interactive Happening
Pool Party, 2026, Paper, pencils and markers 8.5 X 11 in – Barbara Love
Globus Sensation, 2026, Installation – Mariana Trujillo-Lezama
Surender, 2026, Stoneware, Glaze 12 x 17 in Kylee Burt
Voyage, 2026, Stoneware, Glaze 11 x 14 in Kylee Burt
Surfacing, 2026, Stoneware, Glaze 12 x 16 in Kylee Burt
Surrender, Surfacing & Voyage, 2026
Stoneware, Glaze
Kylee Burt
This body of work consists of three ceramic stools using glaze, texture, and molds made from seaweed harvested in Halifax. Creating textured forms that evoke marine environments while belonging to an imagined world of their own, Kylee works with a material not typically associated with furniture.
Challenging the boundaries of ceramic sculpture, the stools broaden the ways of interacting with the pieces; these stools are an invite to the body, and its senses, to interact, sit and touch.
The firing process introduces unexpected shifts in texture, surface, and form, which the artist embraces as essential parts of each piece’s becoming. Rooted in her experiences of sobriety, recovery and reconnection, this series reflects Kylee’s return to curiosity, agency and belonging.
The uncanny, oceanic subjects and forms within the work hold a duality: they evoke care, wonder, and connection, while also carrying the possibility of fear, fragility and danger. Through this tension, Kylee explores the ocean, the body and memory as complex places of refuge and brutality.
wanna go to the beach? 2026
Acrylic on canvas, triptych
Karo Pelc
1.4 billion km³ of water on this earth, but the one trapped beneath the thin, stretchy surface of my skin feels a lot more… fervent — or more accurately — boiling" to boil”.
This triptych — “wanna go to the beach?” — explores the instinctive bond of our bodies to water through water. Melting bodies merge with the ocean, encouraged by the motion of the tide.
The body of water’s reaction is triggered by sadness, lust, pain or pleasure. Hence, the ocean's thin, stretchy surface tension mirrors the human skin and the abyssal macrocosm of desires that’s hidden beneath.
The cyclical nature of water mirrors the cyclical nature of desire: intrigue, succumbing, limerence, and, ultimately, dissolution.
globus sensation, 2026
Installation & Happening
Mariana Trujillo-Lezama
globus sensation explores tears as a bodily, emotional, and collective form of medicine. Through installation, participatory exchange, ritual, and printed matter, the work considers crying as a process of regulation, release, protection, grief, and care.
At the center of the work is a small fort where participants may enter one at a time, select an unknown story from Trujillo-Lezama’s personal record of crying, and exchange it for a story of their own. Together, they create a protective vessel from sea salt, distilled water, rose petals, and—if tears arise—their tears. The vessel may be taken by the participant or returned to the installation.
The accompanying zine extends the work through scientific research, poetry, prayer, and personal reflection, connecting tears to water, land, ancestry, memory, and collective healing. When the happening is not active, the installation remains as a trace of these exchanges.
Keepsake, 2026
bioplastic, natural pigment, steel rebar
Dali
In this piece explores the traces that water leaves behind after external forces like gravity, temperature, density, and time affect it. Water acts as a universal solvent and transportation medium, holding information as it flows and searches for physical and chemical balance. This ephemeral, biodegradable piece, invites reflection on time and the traces that processes leave behind.
The bioplastic is made from solid materials that are dissolved into water. After heat is applied, they activate and can then be shaped. As the water evaporates, it leaves behind a pigmented membrane that takes on a form of its own. Its edges curl, shift, and sometimes break, making the final form difficult to fully control. The material becomes a record of the conditions and processes it has undergone.
Being contained and shaped, only to be transformed and left behind as a keepsake of time and process.
The form and materiality of this piece are influenced by practices that have contained and formed Dali as an artist and designer. Pulling from shapes from the past and materials used in construction, mold making, and casting, the artist takes a new leap by experimenting with bioplastics and natural pigments as a continuation of her own visual language.
Stagnant Water, 2026
Sound Installation
Moonsoo Kim
Stagnant Water explores the feeling of being stuck in periods of exhaustion, depression, and uncertainty. Through low, heavy sounds and slow shifts, the work creates the sensation of being submerged and unable to move forward.
Through headphones, the listener temporarily enters a different auditory state within the same exhibition space. Like stagnant water, it may seem still, yet subtle movements continue beneath the surface.
Stagnant Water, 2026
Sound Installation
Moonsoo Kim
Stagnant Water explores the feeling of being stuck in periods of exhaustion, depression, and uncertainty. Through low, heavy sounds and slow shifts, the work creates the sensation of being submerged and unable to move forward.
Through headphones, the listener temporarily enters a different auditory state within the same exhibition space. Like stagnant water, it may seem still, yet subtle movements continue beneath the surface.
Pool Party, 2026
Paper, pencils and markers
Barbara Love
Pool Party is a sneak peak into another dimension. One between outer space and inner worlds. Maybe it is like being on the water; no gravity, no problems. Join me in this aquatic space fantasy, to explore what life can look like on the other side.