MOSAIC Productions and OFFICE SPACE GALLERY present

Bring It! Recent Works by Ewolf, Deb King and S. Kay Young

OPENING RECEPTION September 27, 2025 6-10 pm

Bring It!

OFFICE SPACE Gallery is proud to present Bring It! Recent works by Ewolf, Deb King and S. Kay Young. The three artists featured in this exhibition distort the expected in favor of the sensual.

Bring It! runs from Saturday, September 27 through October 18, 2025.

Gallery Hours: Saturdays, 12:00 – 5:00 pm

OFFICE SPACE GALLERY is located at 2868 East Grand Blvd (between Oakland Ave. and Beaubien St.), Detroit 48202.

For more information, please contact MOSAIC Productions at 313.478.6722 or 248.875.7332. Email: officespacegallery2868@gmail.com

EWOLF

Ewolf is a long-time Detroit-based photographer. Simultaneous with his career as a museum photographer, he managed a career photographing a multitude of musical acts - playing in a few notable bands, himself - contributed  photography to books on art and architecture along with select advertising jobs and even shot a few weddings. You’ve undoubtedly seen his work, even if you don’t know who took the photos. Being rather publicity shy, he’s okay with that.

The pieces in the “Illiteral” body of work represent an exercise in pursuing a feel rather than an explicit photographic representation of subjects, utilizing specialized lenses and handmade optical filters to achieve the effects, instead of digital manipulation. The works are not titled so to avoid steering the viewer toward a specific interpretation.

DEB KING

I work with vessel forms in my practice.  Ceramic vessels have been omnipresent in global cultures -- 30,000-year-old vessel shards discovered in China, pre-Columbian vessels of the Mississippian culture are still being uncovered along the east coast; vessels in Mali dated to 9,400 BCE.  Earthenware, stoneware, terracotta, porcelain – all composing a tapestry encompassing the functions of everyday life, ancient rituals,  and death. 

My recent work includes the ‘Otherness Series’ and ‘Weyward Sisters.’

‘Weyward Sisters’ is a homage to the ‘three sisters’ in Shakespeare’s ‘MacBeth’. Characters with seemingly no history, no individual voices and othered by their eccentricity; they were a perfect foil for MacBeth during the 16-17th century witch hunts.  Depicted as shadowy goblins, voodoo witches and evil absurdities, the vessels are asymmetrical and somewhat figurative. Their interiors are sensuous, complex and partially hidden. Heat and oxides create the visual narrative of the form’s journey through fire.

‘Otherness’ emerged from work with ‘Weyward Sisters,’ and continues consideration of the term ‘other.’ These forms are based on a back and forth of actions between myself and the clay, leading the natural collapse of wet porcelain. The interiors are also sensuous and partly obscured, demonstrating the natural grace of the clay as it folds, thickens and stabilizes.  The surface is polished, and Egyptian paste (now called gloop) is used to signify a sense of randomness or external events.  Culturally, the term ‘other’ inspires awe, fear, neglect or curiosity toward individuals, groups and the world around us.  While these two series differ conceptually and in process, they both address questions that surround our everyday life.  How do we interact with the world around us? Do our lives depend on a ‘us and them’ scenario or do we all--including the clay and oxides I work with—coexist as part of the same interrelated world?

Currently I’m working on a series of Haiku ceramics -- inspired by the work of my husband and partner, Dennis Teichman. He first showed me these Haiku about three years ago after extending readings of Zen master Basho’s work.  It wasn’t long before we agreed to collaborate on a poetry/pottery project. This is the initial group of vessels from that partnership. More to come.

Richard Sennet, while writing his 2009 book “The Craftsman,” was asked what he wanted to convey, he simply stated “making is thinking.”

Yes it is, beautiful thoughts.  

S. KAY YOUNG: THE VEIL

The Veil references time and generational connection. Time passes, shadows lengthen, and I begin to understand the connection of past to present. Separated by a thin veil from the ancestors, I cast a shadow on my own lived experience.

The exploration of this project started in 2017.

The impetus of The Veil series is my own shadow. The work references the dual nature of all things. The images retain their essential elements but shape-shift to more mysterious and universal motifs and reference the endless cycle of life and death. They recognize and honor the thin, ephemeral nature of The Veil that separates,  joins us, and adds our story to all that came before.

My Tennessee parents, who survived poverty and a war, taught me to be proud of who we were and where we came from. Their struggles made me tough, resilient.

We were Moonshiners, musicians, sharecroppers, cotton pickers, carnies, homemakers. Hard workers who were loving parents, UAW proud, Pure Detroit. They walk beside me in the images.

With a 50-year career as a photographer, my camera has captured shadow images since I started shooting and developing film. The abstract transparency of a shadow falling upon the earth is organic and transcending. The shadows hold the spirit of all my relations.

This exhibition goes back to my beginnings, exploring ways to deconstruct my formal training as an artist. It also allowed me to free the work, release it from the formality of institutional ideas of presentation. The photographic process to create the images is both primitive and liberating. My childhood experiences are a backdrop for the 2025 shadows to propagate and live.