Summer J. Hart
Contact Information
Studio & Gallery
Cold Spring, NY
Please contact artist for purchases, commissions, etc.
Installations
Archived Work
Artist's Biography
Summer J. Hart is an interdisciplinary artist from Maine, living in the Hudson Valley, New York. Her written and visual artworks are influenced by folklore, superstition, divination, and forgotten territories reclaimed by nature. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Boomhouse (2023, The 3rd Thing Press) and the microchapbook, Augury of Ash (Post Ghost Press.) Her poetry can be found in Waxwing, The Massachusetts Review, Northern New England Review, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her mixed-media installations have been featured in shows and galleries including SPRING/BREAK, NYC; Pen + Brush, NYC; Gitana Rosa Gallery at Paterson Art Factory, Paterson, NJ; and LeMieux Galleries, New Orleans, LA. Summer is a member of the Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation.
Artist's Statement
I am astounded by the resiliency of the forest: the endless process of reproduction, mutation, and evolution. Even after we trample it, cut it all down, build from and over it, new seeds scatter, vines reach. My work explores the way nature reclaims the built environment. Who or what will fill the vacancies after we have passed through?
I’m drawn to former industrial buildings, abandoned gardens, and the kinds of interstitial spaces that might go unnoticed—under the stairs, odd corners or alleys, the roots, trunks, crooks of trees. Neglected or decomposing spaces hold promise. My hand-cut artwork is a false nature. It’s the juxtaposition of artificial forest to forest-scape.
Selected Exhibitions
Solo
2020
Unsaid, InLiquid at One Commerce Square, Philadelphia, PA
2019
Unwritten, Sohns Gallery, Bangor, ME
Protection From What Remains, The Art Dept. Collective, Philadelphia, PA
2018
Cold Light, Wynono & Company, Cold Spring, NY
Group
2022
Look Again, DUMBO, NY
Curator: Bree Scotti
In Pomerium, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York, NY
2019
Furies, Fairies, Visionaries, Pen + Brush, New York, NY
Curator: Alice Gray Stites
Out of The Box, Gitana Rosa Gallery, Art Factory Studios, Paterson, NJ
2016
Birds & Bears & Flowers & Things, Sohn's Gallery, Bangor, ME
2011
Whatsoever the Wolf Wishes, Vaudeville Park, Brooklyn, NY
2009
shining with the secret of it, CoLAB Projects, New Orleans, LA
not a bird nested here, Kasia Kay Art Projects, Chicago, IL 2023
Publications
2023
Boomhouse. Full-length poetry collection. The 3rd Thing Press (forthcoming 2023)
2022
11 Triptychs. Limited edition, hand-bound artist’s chapbook
Eleven ink and salt drawings paired with eleven “triptych poems” by Sandra Simonds, selected from her collection, Triptychs (Wave Books, 2022)
2021
Quote Quote Sleeping
Collaboration with Sandra Simonds, Couplet Poetry
Your Eyes Repeat the Landscape
Collaboration with Sandra Simonds, Conversation #45, The Scales Project
2020
Tidewrack, Conversation #24, The Scales Project
2019
Artist Spotlight #25, Digging Press
Poetry
2022
"A Man is an Earthworm in this Respect"; "A Man is the Red Glow of a Compass in this Respect"; "A Man is the Longest Moon in this Respect", the tiny journal
2021
"Auspice 13"; "Auspice 17"; "Auspice 20"; "Auspice 26"; "Auspice 28", The 3rd Thing Press
Published alongside the land acknowledgment for all 2021 books
"The Good News", Hypertext Review
"Horse Crazy", HAD, Hobart,
"Auspices", Pidgeonholes: Fearless Literature
"Auspice 31"; "Auspice 32"; "Auspice 33"; "Auspice 34", Annulet: A Journal of Poetics
"Auspice 24", The Mississippi Review
"Auspice 18", Ariadne
"When the Snow Melts, Prepare for the Snow"; "Hot 104.7"; "Steps, Worn Smooth in the Middle"; "The Incident at Millinocket Lake", Denver Quarterly
"No Man’s Land", Driftwood Press
2020
"Boy Crazy"; "Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board", Waxwing
"Salt for the Stain", Golden Walkman Magazine podcast
Edited by W. Todd Kaneko
"Salt for the Stain", The Massachusetts Review
"Augury of Ash", Micro-chapbook, Post Ghost Press
2019
"North Triptych", Northern New England Review
"44°41'00.3” N, 68°36'20.3” W," Northern New England Review , 2019 True North Summer Spotlight
"Red Bird, Red Bird", Third Point Press
"REAL TURKEY SUPPER", South Broadway Ghost Society
Interviews
2022
"Native Voices", The Massachusetts Review
2021
"10 Questions for Summer J. Hart", The Massachusetts Review
"Summer J. Hart Reads Louise Erdrich on 'Lyric Essentials,'" The Sundress Publications Blog
2020
Wong, Mandy Suzanne, "Cold Light," Entropy Magazine
Wong, Mandy Suzanne, "Vacancies," Kiskadee column, Talk Vomit
Honors
2022
MacDowell Colony Fellow, Peterborough, NH
2021
Land Acknowledgment Writer, The 3rd Thing Press, Olympia, WA
Artist in Residence, PHS Meadowbrook Farms, Jenkintown, PA
Finalist, “2021 Poetry Prize,” The Mississippi Review
2020
Finalist, “Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition,” Black Lawrence Press
Finalist, “2020 Adrift Chapbook Competition,” Driftwood Press
Finalist for “Red Bird, Red Bird,” Best of the Net Anthology, Sundress Publications
2018
Artist Resident, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
Professional Affiliations
2019 - Present
Artist Member, InLiquid, Philadelphia, PA
2012 - Present
Artist Member, The Brooklyn Collective, Brooklyn, NY
2015
Artist Member, RAW: natural born artists
2006 - 2007
Printmaker Associate, The Ink Shop Printmaking Center, Ithaca, NY
2004 - 2006
Co-Director, OPENSOURCE Art, Champaign, IL
Education
2000
The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA
MFA, Book Arts/Printmaking
1997
The Hartford Art School, West Hartford, CT
BFA, Printmaking
Recent Artist Member Mentions on InLiquid
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Summer J. Hart New Publication
11 Triptychs is a limited edition, signed, hand-bound chapbook with a hand screen printed cover that began as a correspondence between the poet, Sandra Simonds, and interdisciplinary artist and writer, Summer J. Hart. Sandra sent 11 of her triptych poems to Summer, who scanned the poems for lists of words, phrases, and visual impressions: columns of rock, fire, blood mixing with water, bodies entwined, Let’s Make the Water Turn Black. Summer responded with a series of abstract drawings in ink, salt, and other natural materials that absorb or repel water such as stones and breath. To echo Sandra’s three-columned poems, Summer worked in batches of threes. Some pieces are quickly recognizable as triptychs while others contain objects or creature-forms with threes as either the positive or negative space. Sandra and Summer picked 11 of the drawings, and over the course of several months paired poem to salt / salt to poem. These pairings don’t always appear side by side in this collection but are connected by their titles, each an appropriated line from one of Sandra’s poems.
All copies are hand-bound by Sandra Simonds and Summer J. Hart. The jacket was designed and hand screen printed by Summer in her Cold Spring, NY studio.
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In Pomerium
Rise from your grave to meet your new god. Pomerium: Ancient Roman city limits inside which it was illegal to … See Full Post
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Sculpture in the Glen III
InLiquid celebrates 22 years with a month-long exhibition in collaboration with the Friends of the Glen, Sculpture in the Glen … See Full Post
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Article on Summer J. Hart’s “Unsaid”
Manqué Magazine did a feature on Unsaid, Summer J. Hart’s installation at Commerce Square! Read the article here.
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Banished for the Good of the Realm
Banished For the Good of the Realm is a virtual exhibition highlighting work from InLiquid’s artist members that they have made during the unprecedented stay-at-home order during the Spring of 2020.
