The Pickup's Culture coverage is brought to you by Tulsa Artists' Coalition Gallery, 40 Years of Empowering Tulsa Artists. Visit TAC Gallery to see American Highway Revisited by VC Torneden and Melinda Harvey Green, June 5 – 27, 2026.
"Celestial Waters" by Tessa Richardson
TAC Gallery
"Entangled Ecologies" by Shawn Smith
108|Contemporary (through May 23)
From cosmic dust to fungal bloom, the works in Celestial Waters and Entangled Ecologies trace the invisible systems that bind creation and decay. While artist Tessa Richardson reached toward the unknowable vastness of space and artist Shawn Smith burrows into the earthly intelligence of insects, both artists are interested in transformation: how matter shifts, collapses, regenerates and mirrors itself across different scales. In ceramic loops, pixelated carcasses, and cathedral-like termite towers, the familiar world is made anew, revealing the hidden geometries that shape the cosmos above and the dirt beneath our feet.
During an artist talk at Tulsa Artists Coalition last month, Richardson couldn’t resist touching her first wall hanging sculpture, Nebula Loop 105, as she spoke. This black mirror glazed torus was a striking example of contrast in both texture and form. Taking up almost a foot in diameter, one side of the ring was smooth and reflective, then transformed into a textured black matte glaze interrupted with raw white “witch fingers” that protruded and wrapped around its edges. Richardson made these appendages by squeezing coils of clay in her hands and pressing them into the circular wheel-thrown base.
This work took its name from the swirling nebular “loop” left behind by an exploded star that can faintly be seen in space, as well as digital screensavers popular in the ‘90s featuring spiraling colors. In her Checkered Loop wall hanging, she carved a black and white pattern into portions of the coil, a nod to the checkered computer chips present but not visible in many of the items with which we interact. Giving form to phenomena rarely seen, Richardson’s loops considered how objects emerge and dissolve, visualising our connection to spaces that remain beyond reach.
Six blue ink paintings separated the wall hangings from one another, their quieter presence emphasizing the bolder bearing of the surrounding sculptures. Further down one wall, glossy mushroom-shaped forms sprouted from three raw, ring-shaped clay surfaces. Named after the scientific theory that life emerged from nonliving matter, Origin Loop 102 continued the celestial rhythm throughout each of Richardson’s ceramic works. A close look revealed where the natural raw New Mexico clay ended and the dark, man-made reflective glaze began to cover the fruiting caps.