Material Gallery presents Katie Green & Wren Ross — Liminal Spaces
Katie Green, Character Study Series, 2022
Material Art Gallery is pleased to present Liminal Spaces, a two-person exhibition featuring the work of Katie Green and Wren Ross, on view from April 24 through May 22, 2026.
Some experiences resist language—states of being that are difficult to name while we are inside them: grief, shock, disorientation, pain, becoming, healing. These are often the very conditions from which art emerges.
Liminal Spaces brings together the work of Green and Ross, whose practices move through these in-between states. Working between the visible and invisible, both artists engage the body as a site of rupture, endurance, and repair, attending to what is carried, what overwhelms, and what quietly transforms us.
Both artists are interested in what exists just beyond certainty: the emotional and spiritual residue that lives in the body, and the private landscapes we traverse when untethered—when we are becoming, and when we are trying to find our way back to ourselves.
Ross's work inhabits spaces of pressure and disorientation, employing materials that evoke weight and residue—ash, salt, and relic-like forms—to map terrains of shock, vertigo, and quiet oppression. Attuned to the body as something that absorbs impact and continues, Ross traces the body's effort to orient within collapse, where bearing becomes both survival and navigation.
Green's work moves through states of shifting perception, centering on the emergence of character-driven forms that give shape to internal and sensory experience. Their figures appear as companions to changing conditions of embodiment, holding multiplicity across grief, queerness, and disability. Approaching the body as relational and transformative, Green considers how sensation and limitation open into new ways of perceiving and imagining. Here, care is not sentimental but practiced: a mode of survival and a way of moving toward what is felt.
Together, their work approaches art as a portal into the unknowable, where intuition and sensation give form to what is felt before it is understood, and where the unseen quietly shapes who we are.
Material co-founder Colour Maisch shares:
“Katie Green and Wren Ross each work from deeply embodied and intuitive practices that speak to states we often struggle to articulate—grief, transformation, disorientation, and repair. In Liminal Spaces, their works come into dialogue through a shared sensitivity to the body as both witness and archive. At Material, we are interested in how their practices open thresholds rather than conclusions—spaces where meaning is felt before it is fully known, and where vulnerability becomes a form of quiet strength and attention. We are honored to present this exhibition of Green's and Ross's work and excited to share their work with our community as individual voices and in dialogue with one another.”
Events
Material will host an opening reception for Karie Green and Wren Ross on Friday, April 24, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., preceded by an artist talk from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m.
The exhibition will also be open for viewing on:
Friday, May 15, 6:00–8:00 p.m., as part of Salt Lake City's Gallery Stroll
Friday, May 22, 6:00–8:00 p.m., during the closing reception
By appointment
The Liminal Spaces exhibition coincides with the 2026 Mural Fest on May 9, featuring guest artist Katie Green as she creates a signature mural directly across from the gallery. Material is proud to partner with South Salt Lake Arts to offer this intimate look at Green’s world-class studio practice alongside her large-scale public work.
The Liminal Spaces exhibition is supported in part by a mini-grant from South Salt Lake Arts, with generous funding provided by Rocky Mountain Power.
About the Artists
Wren Ross (she/her) is a works-on-paper artist whose practice explores embodiment, myth, and psychological states through material and symbolic forms. Their drawings and paintings unfold as dreamlike, at times uncanny narratives that balance severity with sensitivity. Rooted in intuitive mark-making and empathetic attention, Ross's work is grounded in a ritual of noticing—elevating the mundane, the overlooked, and the quietly transformative.
Born and raised in Utah, Ross received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2006. Influenced by myth, allegory, and prehistoric mark-making traditions, her practice creates space for introspection within shifting social, political, and environmental conditions. Working primarily with water-based media, Ross often incorporates natural materials such as minerals, earth, herbs, and salt.
Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and Finch Lane Gallery, as well as inclusion in major regional exhibitions such as Greater Utah at UMOCA. Ross's work is held in the State of Utah Fine Art Collection, with multiple acquisitions and juried awards from statewide competitions. She has also completed public art commissions in downtown Salt Lake City. She has been featured in publications and media outlets such as SLUG Magazine and BYUtv, establishing a strong presence in the region's contemporary art landscape.
Katie Green (she/they) is a visual artist whose practice centers on intimate watercolor personas that are eerie, ethereal, and emotionally charged. Emerging through a process of searching and intuitive mark-making, their work gives form to internal landscapes, where figures arise as companions to states of feeling, transformation, and healing. These paintings extend into large-scale murals, where Green abstracts and expands these sensibilities into immersive environments populated by fluid, fantastical beings.
A significant aspect of their practice involves community collaboration, including participatory mask-making projects that culminate in public artworks exploring hidden and collective identities. Working across roles as muralist, facilitator, and collaborator, Green engages diverse audiences in processes of creative expression and care.
Based in Mohkínstsis (Calgary, Alberta), their work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Calgary Arts Development, with residencies at the Santa Fe Art Institute and Vermont Studio Center. Their murals have been realized internationally across North America, Europe, and Asia.
About Material
Built on the collective vision of artists Jorge Rojas and Colour Maisch, Material is a multifaceted art space housing a commercial gallery, artist studios, classes and community events. Material exhibits local, national, and international artists through community-centered events and collaborations.
