OPENING 9/12/25:
Calico Exhibitions Presents: Signs & Wonders
Recent works by Caroline Burdett, Mark Mann, & CJ Matherne
September 12 - October 26, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, September 12, 6-8pm
Open Viewing Hours: Saturdays + Sundays 12-5pm, and by appt.
Upstairs at Small Talk, 1 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY
www.calicoexhibitions.com • calicoexhibitions@gmail.com • @calico.ny • @smalltalkwoodstock
Calico is pleased to present Signs & Wonders, an exhibition of recent works by Caroline Burdett, Mark Mann, and CJ Matherne. The show brings together three artists, each exploring a sense of “place” through their own unique, personal lens. Mostly rooted in the familiar motif of land and horizon, their works diverge into distinct perspectives - blending observation with invention, and geography with emotion.
Signs & Wonders invites viewers to consider what “place” means - not just as a physical location, but as a scene shaped by perception, memory, and imagination. Each artist’s vision offers a unique entry point, revealing how personal experience, material exploration, and creative interpretation can transform the familiar into the extraordinary.
Caroline Burdett is a visual artist living and working in Woodstock, New York. Primarily a painter, Caroline explores texture and visual effects by integrating acrylic, oil, chalk, pumice, wax, and other materials into her work. Her process is highly iterative and includes a repetition of adding and removing layers of paint and other materials to and from the canvas, linen, or panel.
Living in the mountains and being heavily drawn to the outdoors, Burdett finds influence in these surroundings. Her paintings lean toward abstract landscapes and are infused with her sense of wonder at the natural world, as well as what exists beyond the physical. Caroline has completed residencies at the Byrdcliffe Artist Residency Program in New York and the Vermont Studio Center, and she has participated in multiple group and solo exhibitions.
Mark Mann’s small-format acrylic paintings directly reference the themes of the renowned late 19th century painter, Frederic Remington. Drawing upon Remington’s enduring subject matter of the American West, Mann alters those original cowboy and Native American narratives to include evidence of present-day consumer culture vis-à-vis the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag or the oddly placed jet airplane. The resulting tableaus produce humorous yet anachronistic scenes that conjure thoughts of the environment, consumerism, and the ongoing history of American culture.
Mark Mann was born in Oklahoma City, OK and now resides in Shokan, NY. He received his BFA from the College of Santa Fe, New Mexico and has exhibited in numerous US and European galleries and art fairs. His artworks have been collected by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Norton Museum of Art, and the Sir Elton John Collection. Most recently, he has exhibited paintings and sculptural projects with the Owen James Gallery (NYC) and Calico (NY).
In CJ Matherne’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures, the boundaries between abstraction and representation are deliberately blurred, resulting in fantastical imagery of people within landscapes that evoke transformation. Growing up on the Louisiana Bayou and the South Florida coast, Matherne experienced environmental shifts firsthand - both as chronic losses and as sudden upheavals. Through a practice that balances precision with suggestiveness and flatness with dimensionality, Matherne seeks to convey nature’s dual capacity to erode and to regenerate.
CJ Matherne is an artist whose work explores the fragility of human structures in the face of environmental volatility. He is interested in capturing the erosion of stability while reimagining the remnants as signals of adaptation. Matherne has participated in numerous group shows and solo exhibitions in Chicago and New York. Matherne lives, works, and teaches in New York’s Hudson Valley. He holds an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College (2013) and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2006).
Recently Closed:
Calico Exhibitions Presents: WHO LET THE DOGS IN?
A Comprehensive Survey of Dog-Themed Art
June 27 - August 3, 2025
Upstairs at Small Talk, 1 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY
Open: Saturdays & Sundays 12-5pm & by appointment
The lore behind the infamous one-hit-wonder “Who Let the Dogs Out?” is laden with unexpected twists and turns through intellectual property questions, feminist perspectives, sports chants, and oddly enough - not really much about canines. Calico challenges this void of the seemingly obvious with its upcoming group exhibition: WHO LET THE DOGS IN? This curated group show will focus solely and intently on one subject: “man’s best friend.”
Paintings, photographs, collages, drawings, and prints are some of the ways that we’ve historically documented and celebrated our beloved pets. This group exhibit invited artists to submit their own unique portrayals of these quintessential companions. After reviewing over 100 pieces of art, a select group was chosen for WLTDI?.
The exhibition takes place at Calico’s upstate NY home base - Upstairs at Small Talk, 1 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY.
Exhibiting Artists:
Gülnar Babayeva, Steph Becker, Amanda Browder, Ross Carvill, Janet Carr, Georgina Clapham, Alexander Churchill, Audrey Doyle, David Enriquez, Molly Fletcher, Stephen Garrison, Sarah Grass, Amy Guidry, Kathy Halper, Aaron Hauck, Steve Keister, Hannah Lamar, Jon Legere, Todd Moore, Celeste Morton, Kate Nielsen, Jodie Niss, Jacqueline Oster, Catrin Perih, Skyler Smith, and Lori Solondz