Surel's Place

womanhood
2024-04-07 11:00 - 17:00 (America/Boise) | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
GALLERY HOURS 11:00am – 5:00pm

GALLERY TOUR at 4:00pm

How does the nation you are in determine your gender role? What specific notions of masculinity and femininity within the construct of nationhood determine this? Perhaps an artist from outside the United States is best able to help our community explore these questions. Polish artist Karolina Majewska’s sculptural work explores objectification and repression around the politics of the body. “The process of casting my body has given me the perspective to self-observe and accept the mortality of my physical form,” she says. During her residency at Surel’s Place, she will create intimate, imperfect self-portraits using casting techniques to build installations that are also metaphors for the body of a woman.

BIOGRAPHY: Karolina Majewska Freeing is a visual artist based in Warsaw, Poland. She holds an MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York (2017) and an MFA in Painting from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (2014). Karolina’s recent work explores the fragility and organic qualities of the human body. Her installations feature natural materials such as wax, wood, and clay. Karolina’s work has been exhibited in Poland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Austria, Cyprus, Switzerland and the United States. She has participated in conferences and talks related to her practice during Manifesta 12; Rixc, Art and Science Festival, Open Field Conference, and more.

Yooti (Yo-di) - To Rise in Culture Abstracted
2024-07-09 13:00 - 19:00 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
EXHIBITION

YOOTI (TO-DI) – TO RISE IN CULTURE ABSTRACTED

Join us for Gallery Hours for Artist-in-Residence Kit Julianto’s exhibition with an Artist Talk at 6:00pm (with flute song).

BIOGRAPHY

Kit Julianto, Yooti, is an enrolled member of the Shoshone Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation and a descendent of the Navajo nation. He holds a BFA in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts of Santa Fe, New Mexico (2010) and a MFA in Secondary Education from Grand Canyon University (2018). He teaches Art, grades Pre-K to 12th at the Owyhee Combined Schools in Elko County School District. He believes in empowering youth to express themselves through different mediums such as painting, watercolor, pottery, drawing and art foundations in school and through workshops. Other outlets of using his artistry and culture are by presenting Native American workshops on how to play the Native flute, singing and hand drum making. His works reflect upon Native American culture, music, tradition, and storytelling, through various mediums, vibrant colors, and texture. His works of art have been shared throughout many Native and non Native communities, galleries, and gatherings.

This programing is supported in part by the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF), the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Idaho Commission on the Arts. Special thanks to Indigenous Idaho Alliance, the Riverside Hotel, and First Interstate Bank.

Reflection in Process: Galaxia Short Film Experimental
2024-09-13 19:00 - 20:30
NOTE: Content may not be appropriate for all ages

Robinson Moreno (VE/CO) spent his time at Surel’s Place working on his animation project “GALAXIA”, which is his first animation short film. He explored and experimented with different media and techniques to achieve a fluid ink on paper visual and animation style.

“This story came from an encounter with the real Galaxia near my home. Me, a skinny teenager and a fan of underground street culture. She, a fat woman in a black dress with pale skin and red lips, always lurking in the dark Caracas nights. A kind soul in sorrow, whose signature move was to lift her dress and show potential clients her vagina. Hers was the first pussy I saw. Years later, I have been dealing with the residues of a toxic relationship and the feelings of loneliness in a country in crisis. With this short film I want to explore how this bizarre first experience influenced my ideas about sex and love,” writes Robinson describing his film.

Robinson’s sketchbooks and the prints that form the animation sequences created during his residency can be viewed. He will also give a short art talk.

hum-ai-n
2025-02-03 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
EXHIBITION AND ART TALK

Art talk at 7:30 pm

What happens when AI gives you more (or less) than you asked for?Song Lu spent her residency deepening her exploration into the connections between what’s generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the bias that comes along with that. At Surel’s Place she began a third stage in this work. In all these stages, Song Lu utilizes AI-generated imagery that changes based on different prompts, highlighting embedded biases. The first stage, titled Snow Drawing, challenged the occupational segregation perpetuated by AI algorithms. When she prompted the AI program to generate an image of an artist, it tended to picture an older white man, which began Song Lu’s investigation into exposing the narrow, Western-centric perspective perpetuated within the design.

As a result of this first exploration, Song Lu found “It’s clear that there’s a need for more diversity in the art world, and this extends to the language we use to describe artists and their work.” The second stage, Working Women, explored individual experiences influenced by both Western and Eastern cultures. This stage seeked to underscore the significance of women’s agency and power in society.

Now, in this third stage, “Hum-ai-n,” Song Lu has delved deeper into AI technology, referencing official data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Song Lu focuses particularly on two major advancements in their database: the AI chatbot ChatGPT and the AI image generator MidJourney. She uses these tools to dissect and critique the underlying data structures that shape our world, exploring aspects such as occupation, race and ethnicity, place of birth, cultural background, educational background, gender and gender identity, age, interests, and hobbies. Her aim is to discuss what distinguishes “hum-ai-n” from humans and their potential relationship. She also explores how historical data about humans can become biased, leading to stereotypes, and how to revise these aspects to create a more diverse representation of human beings. Through visual formats, Song Lu examines the implications of these technologies on our lived experiences and societal structures.

Metamorphilia: Open Studio and Art Talk
2025-05-22 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
Metamorphilia is a conceptual framework that embraces change. Hybridizing scientific research and creative process, Nina Elder imagines a future where planetary dynamics act as scores for human behavior and we become adept in the flux between life and death, grief and joy, creativity and mourning. Inspired by the story of biologic extinctions and resilience compressed into Boise’s metamorphic rock, Metamorphilia investigates personal and environmental potentiality.

During her residency, Nina asked the land how we can learn from cycles of fracture and transformation. Erosion was her teacher. Granite revealed what endures after disintegration. Explored and expressed through performance, drawing, and writing, Metamorphilia invigorates the mind and body towards the future, imagines a planet that is dynamic and beyond human control, yet fosters deep connection and stewardship. As Nina works towards the culmination of this project, she will share both collections and creations from her residency: photos, videos, sculptural props and pseudo-scientific tools.

Exhibit and Art Talk: The OmniGripper
2025-08-29 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
EXHIBITION & ARTIST TALKThe OmniGripperFriday, August 29th | 7:00pm – 8:30pm

Alieh Rezaei has created four fiber-based panels depicting the emergence of bodies and organs from the chest of a mountain. These works are inspired by four monumental tombs carved high into a cliff face in her native Iran. Her research centers on Naqsh-e Rostam, a necropolis northwest of Persepolis, where rock-cut tombs honoring Achaemenid kings (circa 550–330 BCE) embody both historical preservation and political narrative. Reinterpreting these carved facades through a personal lens, she engages the body as a site of memory and transformation. At the heart of this project is an investigation of materiality: she associates the woolen texture of rock with a Quranic verse that describes mountains turning into carded wool on the Day of Judgment–an image etched into her memory since childhood. This symbolic connection becomes a framework for confronting and resisting recurring cycles of pressure, as she continuously reshapes carded wool, reclaiming the repetitive act of needle-felting as a gesture of endurance and transformation.

The art talk will be followed by a short Q&A and reception.

Becoming Who I Always Was: A Graphic Memoir of Trauma and the Search for Identity
2025-09-29 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
FINAL EVENT & ARTIST TALKBECOMING WHO I ALWAYS WAS: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR OF TRAUMA AND THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITYMonday, September 29th | 7:00pm – 8:30pm

free

at Surel’s Place: 212 E. 33rd Street in Garden City

Maja Miłkowska-Shibata will share from her graphic memoir weaving together themes of growing up with a disability, navigating a dysfunctional home, and building a career within the healthcare field. The memoir follows her experience as a patient undergoing forearm-lengthening surgeries due to an infection in infancy, alongside the highs and lows of her professional journey in health sciences, which took her from Poland to the Netherlands, across South Asia, and eventually to the United States. Through this work, she examines the lasting effects of medical trauma, the intergenerational impact of addiction, and the complexities of navigating the healthcare system.

The genre of graphic medicine blends the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare, merging the principles of narrative medicine with visual storytelling. Moved by the power of visual storytelling to capture the complexities of personal experience, Maja strives for an intimate and authentic account of her journey. Her graphic memoir integrates written narrative with visual storytelling, including sequential art, illustrations, photographs, and archival documents, all presented in her own handwriting.

The art talk will be followed by a short Q&A and reception.

"Heavy Weather:" Garth Claassen Opening Reception/Art Talk
2025-10-04 17:30 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
FLASH SHOW RECEPTION & ARTIST TALKHEAVY WEATHER with Garth ClaassenSaturday, October 4th | 5:30pm – 8:30pm | Artist Talk at 7:00pm

free

at Surel’s Place: 212 E. 33rd Street in Garden City

ARTIST STATEMENT

I work a lot in mixed media and often make pieces that consist of multiple, regular parts. The layout is somewhat like the panels in a comic book or graphic novel, and it implies a narrative, although there is no coherent story arc. Sometimes small printouts of earlier works are collaged onto pieces along with related sketches, other images, and simple abstract shapes. I am interested in process, specifically the exploitation of chance textures that arise during the making of the work.Much of my work explores the tension between flat shapes and modeled forms, jagged and rounded contours, strong value contrasts, and dramatic changes in scale. This sense of struggle and conflict prompted my exhibition title, Heavy Weather. The bulbous white forms were partly inspired by Alfred Jarry’s King Ubu, a comically vulgar and satirical play first performed in 1895. The flatter black shapes are partly indebted to Eugene Ionescu’s absurdist play, Rhinoceros, of 1950. The former play was probably a critique of imperialism and corruption, and the latter is considered an allegory of the rise of fascism, but I have made no attempt to illustrate the plot of either play.The ambiguity of the imagery is not intended to confuse the beholder (although it may do that). Rather, it is an invitation to viewers to construct their own stories based on what they see in my work.

BIOGRAPHY

Garth Claassen studied art at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, earning a BAFA in 1976, with majors in ceramics, art history, and English, and then a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Arts.

In 1982 Claassen was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study art history at Indiana University in Bloomington, graduating in 1991 with a doctorate in the history of modern art. During his time at Indiana, he continued to make ceramic sculpture, and mixed-media abstract collages. In 1989 he returned to South Africa and taught there for five years. Claassen joined The College of Idaho in 1994. He taught art history, life drawing, and painting. His attitude to making art has been deeply influenced by his academic studies and teaching experience.

Claassen’s work has been included in three Idaho Triennial Exhibitions—1995, 1998, 2011, and he was awarded Idaho Commission of the Arts Fellowships for 2001, 2009, and 2023. He has exhibited at the College of Idaho, the College of Southern Idaho, the Stewart Gallery in Boise, the Boise Art Museum, the Visual Arts Collective in Garden City, MING Studios in Boise, the Art Association Gallery, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, Montana, and the Prichard Gallery, University of Idaho.

ADDITIONAL FLASH SHOW GALLERY HOURS:Sunday, October 5th | 10:00am – 1:00pm

Art Talk and Exhibition: The Souls of Resilience
2025-11-03 18:30 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
ART TALK AND EXHIBITIONTHE SOULS OF RESILIENCEMonday, November 3rd | 6:30pm – 8:30pm

This residency is a collaboration with Global Lounge who is supporting music by Classical Queens during the reception beginning at 6:30pm. Art Talk at 7:30pm.

free

at Surel’s Place: 212 E. 33rd Street in Garden City

During her residency, artist Yidan Guo focused on creating new portraits of immigrant and refugee women—rooted in deep connection: she visited Boise’s local immigrant and refugee communities, conducting heartfelt interviews to infuse her work with their lived experiences.

At this event, you’ll encounter these new, high-quality portraits alongside existing pieces from her ongoing series Women Who Are Immigrants and Refugees. Together, the works weave a richer, more nuanced tapestry of the diverse experiences within our community.

This is your chance to engage deeply: explore the exhibition, hear the stories behind the portraits, and join Yidan for an intimate art talk. She’ll share her creative process, the challenges she navigated, and the profound insights gained through this project—followed by a Q&A where you can dive deeper.

Come connect with art that honors resilience, identity, and the threads that bind our community.

BIOGRAPHY

Yidan’s journey as a painter has spanned thousands of miles, from her birthplace in China to her present home in the US. This migratory experience has deeply influenced her choice of subject matter: women who are immigrants and refugees. As an Asian immigrant and a woman artist, there’s a shared bond, a collective experience of navigating new cultures, which forms the core of her creative exploration.

At the age of 15, Yidan began eight years of rigorous training at China Central Academy of Fine Arts – the most prestigious art school in China and earned her Bachelor of Art degree in Chinese Painting. In 2005 she earned a master’s degree in Philosophy from Renmin University of China and a MFA from Idaho State University in 2024.

This residency is in collaboration with Global Lounge.

BOISE'S BLACK PIONEER: ELVINA MOULTON
2025-12-06 19:00 - 20:30 | Idaho Black History Museum, 508 Julia Davis Dr., Boise, Idaho, 83702, United States
EXHIBITION & ARTIST TALKBOISE’S BLACK PIONEER: ELVINA MOULTONSaturday, December 6th | 7:00pm – 8:30pmfree

at the Idaho Black History Museum: 508 Julia Davis Dr. in Boise

Marshall Toomey’s paintings explore the Black American world through stories and portraits. He wants his colors to add life, not just color to his stories. During his residency, he will work to bring life to a historic event in the black history of Boise. He has chosen Elvina Moulton as his subject, who is recognized as Boise’s only known Black Pioneer. Elvina was born enslaved in Kentucky in 1837, walked the Oregon Trail from Missouri to Boise sometime around 1867, and was a charter member of First Presbyterian Church in Boise in 1878. She will also be featured in an upcoming Women’s Labor History exhibition at the Erma Hayman House in 2026. Join us at the Idaho Black History Museum where Marshall will unveil this new painting.

BIOGRAPHY

Marshal Toomey (California) is an accomplished artist with a career spanning over 40 years as a painter, illustrator, and movie animator. He was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri but moved to Southern California in the seventies to pursue his artistic career.

He worked for 20 years at the Walt Disney Animation Studio with credits including the supervising character lead in the creation of the animation of Rafiki in the The Lion King and Quasimodo in The Hunchback of the Notre Dame. You can see the many films he has worked on at his IMBD profile here. He has also illustrated many books – one of them being the The Lion King book published after the movie.

Marshall describes his work as autobiographical. “My own style is blended with traditional techniques to create an enriched view of the life I’ve experienced. I placed myself in the scene along with other characters from my life. I am taking a look at the positives in everyday life; the perspectives, traditions, and routines of being outside of the struggles.”

LETTERS ACROSS TIME: LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND STORYTELLING
2026-01-28 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
ART TALK AND EXHIBITIONLETTERS ACROSS TIME: LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND STORYTELLINGWednesday, January 28th | 7:00pm – 8:30pm

free

at Surel’s Place: 212 E. 33rd Street in Garden City

Setareh Ghoreishi’s work as a designer and visual artist focuses on language, identity, and storytelling through writing systems—particularly non-Latin scripts. This project explores the intersection of ancient and contemporary writing systems through typographic experimentation. During the residency, Setareh Ghoreishi focused on developing a new body of work centered around a self-invented typeface that blends characteristics of Farsi, English, and Cuneiform scripts. This process involves hand sketching and digital font design. The result is a series of typographic compositions that invite viewers to reflect on cultural hybridity and communication. The work investigates how language shapes identity, preserves culture, and visually communicates across boundaries.

BIOGRAPHY

Setareh Ghoreishi (Michigan) is deeply rooted in the relationship between language, culture, and identity—particularly how these forces intersect through typography. She is a graphic designer and multidisciplinary digital media artist. After receiving her B.F.A. in Graphic Design from the University of Art in Tehran, Iran, she migrated to the United States where she currently lives. In her work, she investigates cultural disparities, most specifically between the United States and Iran.

“I am fascinated by the way visual language can act as a vessel for memory, a tool for storytelling, and a bridge across cultural and linguistic boundaries,” Setareh elaborates. “Typography, for me, is not just a system of design and letters; it is a living form that carries emotion, history, and context.”

After moving to the United States, Setareh continued her education and acquired an MFA in Graphic Design from Florida Atlantic University and an MFA in Art and Technology from the University of Florida. This led her to make video art installation and use digital technology to explore the role of visual design in the interaction of cultural and social issues. Through the lens of her own experience, each country’s cultural and social relationships are examined.

Thank you to Setareh Ghoreishi’s Residency Sponsors:

Exhibition & Art Talk: Bold Simplicity
2026-03-27 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
EXHIBITION & ART TALKBOLD SIMPLICITYFriday, March 27th | 7:00 – 8:30pm

free

During his residency at Surel’s Place, Hector Beven immersed himself in the parks, riverbanks, and neighborhoods surrounding Garden City and Boise. His practice relies on extended time outdoors, observing light, movement, and the personality of place. He spent long hours sketching and painting along the Boise River Greenbelt and nearby landscapes, returning to the studio to translate these studies into larger, more meditative works.

This series of paintings embodies the character of the local environment–both the beauty of the natural landscape and also the energy and spirit Hector encountered in daily interactions with residents. “By emphasizing bold brushwork and expressive simplification, I want each work to feel alive with the persona of its subject, whether that be a tree, river bend, or overlooked corner of the city.”

This show presents the paintings created during Hector’s stay and sparks conversation about how an “outsider” artist perceives and interprets Garden City. His hope is that you recognize familiar places in new ways, opening dialogue about the unique character of your home environment.

Thank you to Hector Beven’s Residency Sponsors:

Exhibit and Art Talk: Trash Puppets
2026-04-30 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
EXHIBIT & ART TALKTRASH PUPPETSThursday, April 30th | 7:00pm – 8:30pmfree

at Surel’s Place: 212 E. 33rd Street in Garden City

During his residency at Surel’s Place, Karl Erickson created a series of puppet-sculptures and experimental animations about waste along the Boise River Greenbelt. He collected trash on the shores of the river and assembled these objects into puppet-like figures. He then digitized them using 3D scanning processes. These digital “trash-puppets” will sing, dance, and tell stories of their unexpected journeys along the river, personifying the entanglements that bring human-generated material into contact with the more-than-human.

The Boise River simultaneously connects and separates (Garden City on one side, Boise on the other!) and is a powerful nexus for gatherings and departures. What do we bring with us to the river and what do we leave behind–materially, culturally, politically? Who handles this material, and whose stories are told or forgotten in the process? The trash-puppets will act as witnesses of these overlooked narratives, ultimately revealing evidence of a global system in which nothing is truly separate.

BIOGRAPHY

Karl Erickson (Tennessee) is an Associate Professor of Digital Art at Rhodes College. He received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts and his BFA from Wayne State University. He was raised in the Detroit-area of Michigan. He makes digital animations, videos, installations, and audio/visual performances. His screen-based work takes place in galleries, museums, film festivals and music venues.

Karl’s art is about recognizing the agency of all the other-than-human entities with which we share the Earth. This includes plants and animals, as well as machines, “inanimate matter,” electricity, waste, the macroscopic and the microscopic. The complex systems he uses in his art-making, from photogrammetry to modular synthesizers to data analysis, are analogous to the complexity of the ecosystem.

Karl’s animation Know No Now has been screened at the 2023 LINOLEUM Animation and Media Art Festival in Kyiv, Ukraine, Chroma Art Film Festival in Miami, FL (where it won the 2023 award for Best Animation), and the 2023 West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival. He has been an artist-in-residence at Hub Feenix in Finland, The Arctic Circle (twice!), Loop Art, Plyspace, and Signal Culture. He is a 2025 recipient of a Current Art Fund award from Tri-Star Arts.

Thank you to Karl Erickson’s Residency Sponsors:

Exhibit & Art Talk: Penitent
2026-07-11 19:00 - 22:00 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
EXHIBIT & ART TALKPENITENTSaturday, July 11th | 7:00pm – 10:00pm

free

Artist-in-Residence Camilla Taylor focused their residency on a series of drawings referring to the myth of St. Mary of Egypt. She is depicted covered in her own hair after decades of an ascetic life wandering through the desert. Presumably, even her clothes disintegrated. Rather than decades, Taylor lost nearly everything in mere moments. All their artwork and possessions at their Altadena home and studio were destroyed in the Eaton Fire of 2025. They recently curated the group exhibit My House Burned Down at the Track 16 Gallery in Downtown LA, which closed in June, 2025, and in a solo exhibition and catalog at Track 16 Gallery in East Hollywood, Unkindness, that dealt with themes of atheist mysticism, which closed in January 2026.

“This loss and displacement changed the way I make art,” Taylor says, “My work became more fragile and more precious.” However, hair is a theme they’ve used often as a motif in their work. It is a symbol of the body and a material that is both deeply corporeal and also has near magical qualities in many cultures, controlled in how it’s cut and worn and revealed. Taylor references hair also as a symbol of femininity, and their own ambivalence towards it. This will be explored in drawings, prints, and sculptures referring back to the myth of St. Mary of Egypt, and the larger corporeal and quasi magical qualities that hair represents.

Also available to see by appointment July 11th – 13th by emailing camilla.a.taylor@gmail.com. You may also request a preview PDF.
