Slippage and Structure

EMROSE projects is pleased to announce Slippage and Structure, a two-person exhibition featuring the works of Keith Crowley and Emma Barnes. Curated by Maria Hooper of EMROSE projects, the exhibition explores how memory, place, and identity are encoded through materiality, pattern, and form. By incorporating natural rhythms and layered narratives, the artists investigate the intersection of personal, historical, and cultural experiences, emphasizing the tension between slippage and structure in our attempts to recall and make sense of the past.

Keith Crowley’s work examines the patterns found in light, shadow, and geometry within suburban architectural landscapes. His intimate compositions highlight the repeating forms of cinder block homes, driveways, and window awnings, using these patterns to evoke the rhythm of daily life. Crowley’s process begins with photography, capturing ephemeral moments of light and structure, which he transforms into richly textured paintings. These patterns, while rooted in the physical world, become emotional maps that connect the viewer to the memory and feeling of “home.”

Emma Barnes uses pattern as both a compositional framework and a conceptual tool to explore the complexities of memory and place. Drawing from quilt patterns, she integrates oil paint, plaster, and photographic imagery to create works that oscillate between the tactile and the ephemeral. Patterns in her work serve as a veil or structure, simultaneously obscuring and revealing the layers of memory beneath. By blending the visual language of textiles with the physicality of patching and layering, Barnes deconstructs and recontextualizes the southern landscape, inviting viewers to piece together their own narratives of longing and nostalgia.

Both artists use pattern to address memory and narrative in distinctive ways—Crowley through the emotional resonance of repetitive architectural details and Barnes through the layering of quilt-like structures that echo personal and cultural histories. Together, their works underscore how pattern can act as both a tool for ordering experience and a means of acknowledging its inherent fragmentation.