Current Exhibition:
Project Space:
Safe Travels
Ariel Bullion Ecklund
1 May 2026 - 20 June 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, May 1, 2026 | 6-9PM
Mid-Exhibition Reception: Friday, June 5, 2026 | 6-9PM
SAFE TRAVELS | Ariel Bullion Ecklund
exhibiton statement
Emotional experience and life circumstances influence this work, in which themes of absence, impermanence, memory and yearning are explored. Each piece functions as a contemplative search, an escape from the complexities of the human condition and a tangible record of my short physical existence on this earth.
Photography was my first love and the reason I attended art school, decades ago. Taking images has been an integral part of my life. For quite a few years I abandoned the practice, although never fully. Recently I returned to it as a method of building narrative and as a form of momentary escape. Composing imagery, searching for relationships within the images and then physically reconfiguring them, remains a challenging and worthwhile creative exercise. Even though the act of taking a snapshot is often simply the recording of a moment in time, I am fascinated by the photograph's ability to tell a story, to entice and intrigue, and to build a curious landscape to travel to and from - often leaving the viewer with more questions than answers.
An interest in ceramics came along much later in life. I needed to feel the work, to be more physically involved with it, to touch every part of it. I desired to move beyond the flat, two-dimensional surface of photographs and dive into the realm of three-dimensional construction.
Yet, coil building a ceramic form is a challenging problem to solve. The process is additive, then reductive : ultimately, I carve and scrape away to reveal an honest sculpture. Finding each three-dimensional piece is the distillation of emotion and the discovery of a message.
Within these forms, along with the photographic work in Safe Travels, I hope to isolate particular states of being. By constructing small environments in which I can define and invent the space, I am able to impart an illusion of control and instill order from the chaos that inherently lies within the inner and outer spaces of my life.
An artist friend recently told me that my work could be “felt”. To me, this is the highest form of compliment. I hope the work can continue to exist and remain as an intimate remnant of truth.
CURATOR’S STATEMENT
Safe Travels, a collection of works by artist Ariel Bullion Ecklund, explores intersections of internal and external states. Photographic imagery, stitched and scripted, along with sculptural vessel and vestige, create a kind of ‘mise-en-scene’, where we can enter as either character or witness. The work considers its own physical presence in the third dimension, while communicating a fourth - a perceived passing of time. Ecklund’s objects are containers for deeper psychological exploration. Her vessels in particular suggest spaces of embodiment, a ‘within’ and ‘without’. Layered imagery acts as both setting and state - more than documentation, it is reflected upon itself, in the realm of dreams and memories. A soft wish, Safe Travels asks us to enter both our interior and exterior journeys with a sense of care; to honor what chooses to arrive, and to accept what moves towards us.
-Alisha Sickler Brunelli
Artist Bio
Ariel Bullion Ecklund (b.1969) is an independent curator and multidisciplinary artist in Upstate NY. She holds a BFA in Art Photography from the School of Visual and Performing Arts and a Master’s Degree in Museum Studies, both from Syracuse University.
Following earning her Master of Arts, Ariel worked as a freelance photographer and in the Dept. of Preservation and Conservation at Cornell University Libraries. In 2009, she purchased a gallery and framing studio and has since curated and mounted over 100 physical exhibitions during her 17-year career as a gallerist at Corners Gallery, in Ithaca, NY. In 2025, Ariel partnered with TDB Architecture to aid in the curation and management of their new multipurpose educational gallery + showroom space at Trade Gallery.
Ariel has exhibited her work internationally and nationally in a multitude of galleries and museums and her work can be found in many private collections. Ariel has been the recipient of numerous awards in juried exhibitions and was the recipient of a Kodak Merit Scholarship. In 2021, she was awarded the Cayuga Arts Collective Paddle Grant, to aid in her ongoing ceramic education.
In 2023, she was a co-juror for the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Summer Residency Program (for photography/video) and was a guest artist in the Finger Lakes Pottery Tour. In 2024, Ariel presented a solo exhibition at Hawk + Hive in Andes, NY, and in January, 2025, she exhibited ceramic lighting at The Interior Design Show in Toronto, Canada. In 2025, Ariel’s work traveled to Basel, Switzerland at the VOLTA Basel Art Fair during Art Basel Week, presented by Normal Royal Gallery. Ariel also exhibited during Upstate Art Weekend at The Catskills Barn, a group exhibition of 16 artists and designers curated by artist Jeff Quinn. In August, she was an Artist In Residence at the Two Coats of Paint Residency hosted by painter and writer Sharon Butler in Queens, NY. In November, Ariel was invited to speak and create a commissioned work with Shinnecock photographer Jeremy Dennis at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY.
Ariel’s work has been published in Ceramics Now, ELLE Canada and The World of Interiors. In 2026, Ariel is scheduled to curate, design and exhibit at various sites in New York, New Jersey and Toronto. Ariel’s artistic influences include Sally Mann, Louise Nevelson, Lenore Tawney, Agnes Martin, Maria Lai, Todd Hido, Isamu Noguchi and Richard Serra. She also finds inspiration in architecture, maps and images of galaxies in outer space.
Ariel lives and works in Ithaca, NY.
The project space
The Project Space at ABFA is a 15 x 15 ft. area dedicated to a rotating program of experimental projects and special exhibitions. The intimate environment challenges perceptions of scale and space through installation considerations and juxtapositions. The space serves as a playground for exhibition ideas which may be outside of our gallery’s central program. The space allows us to invite artists whose work we find compelling and innovative.
Artists represented by ABFA have an opportunity to exhibit smaller bodies of work, a new series, or works from their studio that bring us further into their process; creating a channel of communication that connects artist and viewer. The Project Space is located at the back of our first floor main gallery.
If you would like to submit a proposal for the Project space, please email your project proposal with images to:
Our Main Exhibition continues into Project Space this month with VERSE LIBRE by David Edward Johnson.