AUTOMAT

01/03/2025

Rachel D’Angelo finds objects that are discarded and gives them a new life through her work. D’Angelo pushes the limits of these found objects, and other recycled materials to see what they’re capable of becoming. Through intimate hand crafted process, D’Angelo reforms these found materials into sculpture that embody her experiences, questioning reality and her place in it.



Off Label, on view at AUTOMAT from 12/7-1/18, features the unique usage of materials and processes as unconventional remedies for existential ailments.

Stop by AUTOMAT on Saturdays from 12-5pm to view works by Allison Hudson, Anna Bockrath, Bryan Hutchison, Carla Weeks, Lilah Benetti, Rachel D’Angelo, Robert Zumwalt, Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez, Wade Kramm, and Yuki Takeshima.

01/01/2025

As we enter 2025, we say a bittersweet farewell to member Jacqueline Yvonne Tull. Jacqueline has served as a member of Automat Collective for the past four years, contributing both solo and co-curations, and assisting with day to day administrative support and social media posts.

Jacqueline is stepping down to make room for new chapters that have opened since her move to Baltimore in May of 2022. She is currently the Interdisciplinary Sculpture Studio Manager and Metalworking Instructor at the and a member of , a group of women and non-binary Baltimore-area artists. Follow Jacqueline’s work at

Jacqueline credits her time at Automat Collective with greatly enhancing her project management, communication, and collaborative skills, as well as forging professional and personal bonds with wonderful artists and art enthusiasts. Jacqueline would like to extend a special thanks to her co-members for all of the support, advice, and love that helped her grow professionally and personally over the last four years.

Stay tuned for an exciting collaboration between Goxxip Girl Collective and Automat Collective in February of 2025!

Shown above:

Images 2-4: File Save/Sift Search, an open call co-curation with in April, 2021.

Images 5-7: Immortal: Interventions in Time, solo curation including Caitlin McCormack, Divya Anantharaman, Celeste Morton, and Alexander O’Harro in March, 2022.

Image 8: Office Hours, support programming for adjuncts spearheaded by co-members Lydia Smith and Addison Namnoum in collaboration with local arts education organizing groups in Feb-March, 2023

Images 9-11: Secondary Context, co-curation with members Lou Serna and Kate Testa featuring Christina P. Day and Sam Whalen, October + November, 2023.

Images 12-14: A Gorgeous Whole I Never Was, solo curation featuring Ringo Lisko in August, 2024.

Images 15+: Some moments from Jacquie’s time at Automat.

12/31/2024

Robert Zumwalt’s ceramic practice is a material investigation guided by process. Zumwalt creates iterative systems of production that result in series or fragments of larger works. Form is often a byproduct or secondary to this practice. Zumwalt’s systems are set up to fail, creating obstacles that compel intuitive making, balancing process and hand, and ultimately reflecting humanity.
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Off Label, on view at AUTOMAT from 12/7-1/18, features the unique usage of materials and processes as unconventional remedies for existential ailments.

Stop by AUTOMAT on Saturdays from 12-5pm to view works by Allison Hudson, Anna Bockrath, Bryan Hutchison, Carla Weeks, Lilah Benetti, Rachel D’Angelo, Robert Zumwalt, Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez, Wade Krimm, and Yuki Takeshima.

12/29/2024

Carla Weeks is a British-born painter now based in Midcoast Maine, after a decade in West Philadelphia. Informed by her personal interactions with both the natural landscape and built environment, she utilizes abstraction to navigate through the physical and emotional experience of place. Employing a distinct shape vocabulary to formally explore color relationships, her paintings articulate the shifting nuances of sensory memory.

The Winter Grid paintings examine the passage of time over a Maine winter. Almost calendar-like in their order, the floating grids evoke the rhythms and routines we slip into during the least social months of the year. Each day flows into the next, introducing familiar patterns with subtle variations. Layers of transparent color meld with vaporous texture to comment on the fleeting and predictable cadence of days and nights.



Off Label, on view at AUTOMAT from 12/7-1/18, features the unique usage of materials and processes as unconventional remedies for existential ailments.

Stop by AUTOMAT on Saturdays from 12-5pm to view works by Allison Hudson, Anna Bockrath, Bryan Hutchison, Carla Weeks, Lilah Benetti, Rachel D’Angelo, Robert Zumwalt, Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez, Wade Krimm, and Yuki Takeshima.

12/24/2024

Cloud Study V, an excerpt from the “After Lorenz” series by Bryan Hutchison, explores the relationship between measured, observed natural phenomena (in the sky primarily) and the kind of visual form math elucidates: slope fields, graphs, polygons, geometry, and the like. Hutchison thinks of these works as a haiku (as it were) to the sky, the earth, and the world of simulacra made possible through mathematical abstraction.



Off Label, on view at AUTOMAT from 12/7-1/18, features the unique usage of materials and processes as unconventional remedies for existential ailments.

Stop by AUTOMAT on Saturdays from 12-5pm to view works by Allison Hudson, Anna Bockrath, Bryan Hutchison, Carla Weeks, Lilah Benetti, Rachel D’Angelo, Robert Zumwalt, Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez, Wade Krimm, and Yuki Takeshima.

12/20/2024

Elements of time and place are embedded into Anna Bockrath’s work, marked by labor, accumulation, and repetition. Driven by a fascination with process and materiality, Bockrath investigates ways that materials and images can be transformed through iteration and layering. Bockrath aims to create objects that shift with their surroundings, using materials and processes that allow light and air to pass through.



Off Label, on view at AUTOMAT from 12/7-1/18, features the unique usage of materials and processes as unconventional remedies for existential ailments.

Stop by AUTOMAT on Saturdays from 12-5pm to view works by Allison Hudson, Anna Bockrath, Bryan Hutchison, Carla Weeks, Lilah Benetti, Rachel D’Angelo, Robert Zumwalt, Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez, Wade Krimm, and Yuki Takeshima.

12/18/2024

AUTOMAT Collective is an artist-run gallery dedicated to bold, experimental work by emerging and mid-career artists. A cornerstone of Philadelphia’s art scene, we provide a vital platform for the artists who are shaping the future of contemporary art.

Help us meet our goal by December 31st using the link in our bio! Your donation will allow us to support our ambitious programming, maintain our accessible artist-run space, and continue amplifying the voices of Philadelphia’s creative community through 2025.

12/17/2024

Driven to manipulate raw materials into something new and unrecognizable, Allison Hudson enjoys the physicality of building, tearing apart, and mending together – striving to create work that is at once ethereal and visceral. Hudson uses imagery that suggests elements of the human form including hair, skin, and bones – or that which can be lost, sloughed off, become broken, and then regenerate over time.



Off Label, on view at AUTOMAT from 12/7-1/18, features the unique usage of materials and processes as unconventional remedies for existential ailments.

Stop by AUTOMAT on Saturdays from 12-5pm to view works by Allison Hudson, Anna Bockrath, Bryan Hutchison, Carla Weeks, Lilah Benetti, Rachel D’Angelo, Robert Zumwalt, Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez, Wade Krimm, and Yuki Takeshima.

12/16/2024

Gratitude to all who joined us last week for the opening of “Off Label”! It was a joy to see people engage with the work. Special thanks to the talented artists whose compelling creations crafted a distinctive atmosphere of presence and engagement.

The gallery will be on view every Saturday through 1/18. Regular gallery hours are 12-5pm.






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12/12/2024

Tonight! Join us for the Opening Reception of “Off Label” from 6-9pm. Off Label was curated from our annual open call and features the works of 10 artists who share with us the power of materiality as medicine. Explore the unique creative fingerprints of Allison Hudson, Anna Bockrath, Bryan Hutchison, Carla Weeks, Lilah Benetti, Rachel D’Angelo, Robert Zumwalt, Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez, Wade Kramm, and Yuki Takeshima at AUTOMAT tonight.

Can’t make it to the opening? Stop by AUTOMAT on Saturdays from 12-5pm to see the show during our regular gallery hours.

Detail Images, in Order:

Bath Stool, Yuki Takeshima
notion (to dig in the earth in search of the sky) Anna Bockrath
Queen, Robert Zumwalt
Triptych, Allison Hudson






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12/10/2024

AUTOMAT Collective presents “Off Label,”, which brings together the work of Allison Hudson, Anna Bockrath, Bryan Hutchison, Carla Weeks, Lilah Benetti, Rachel D’Angelo, Robert Zumwalt, Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez, Wade Krimm, and Yuki Takeshima, curated via our annual open call. Their work features the unique usage of materials and processes as unconventional remedies for existential ailments.

𝐎𝐧 𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰: December 7th to January 18th
𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: December 12th, 6-9pm

𝐀𝐝𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬: AUTOMAT, Crane Arts Building, 1400 N. American St, Suite 105, Philadelphia, PA 19122

Background image: Bryan Hutchison, Cloud Study V

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12/05/2024

Questions about what it’s like to be an AUTOMAT member? We have answers! Join us this Sunday, December 8th from 3-4pm for a virtual Info Session and Q&A.

During the Info Session, you will be able to meet with our current members and learn more about the application process. Access the Zoom link in our bio to join.

【Ｉｍｐｏｒｔａｎｔ　Ｄａｔｅｓ】
Online Info Session and Q&A: December 8, 2024 from 3-4pm over Zoom

Deadline to Apply: January 15, 2025 by 11:59pm​

Notification: Mid February, 2025

11/24/2024

🗣 AUTOMAT Collective is excited to announce an open call for new members!

We are looking for engaged, enthusiastic Philadelphia-area artists, arts writers, and curators who would like to contribute to the Philadelphia art community.​ AUTOMAT Collective is a curatorial collective championing emerging artists through exhibitions, programming, and publications. We are created by and for artists: It is our mission to support the developing trajectories of emerging artists and to provide a space where artists and curators can undertake experimental projects that advance the dialogue of our visual culture. In addition to our regular programming, we are proud to partner with other collectives and community organizations for collaborative engagement.

Read more at becoming a member and apply at the Open Call link in bio ⤴️

【Ｉｍｐｏｒｔａｎｔ　Ｄａｔｅｓ】
Online Info Session and Q&A: December 8, 2024 from 3-4pm over Zoom
Deadline to Apply: January 15, 2025 by 11:59pm​
Notification: Mid February, 2025

11/22/2024

Jim Strong is an artist and musician whose body of work draws on the sacred and the absurd, conjuring a discreet world-building with allusions to the artist’s faith, beliefs, and confusions. He has created site-specific work for the National Liberty Museum, The Philadelphia Flower Show, and Rhizome DC, and exhibited at Vox Populi Gallery and Space 1026 in Philadelphia, Platform Project Space and Hudson House in NY, and The Center for New Music in San Francisco. He operates the experimental music label, COR ARDENS and has organized events and workshops in abandoned graveyards, school auditoriums, and exhibition spaces throughout the Philadelphia area.

“I work in a self-devised method of painting I refer to as “recording’, forgoing traditional mark-making to observe the concentrating effects of time, evaporation, and gravity as a means of latent image processing. The results are tied to the synesthetic associations of spiritual abstraction in painting but also feel as a system, like some alternative universe of early photographic/alchemical production. Language experiments and Bucolic Scenes emerge as ghost-images recorded in compressed skins of pure pigment. Like bone fragments in veneration each piece is housed in a carved wooden reliquary-like box which bely the works private and devotional function.”

Read the ArtBlog feature on Jim written by
Artblog | The art of expectant waiting, going for a walk with Jim Strong (Link in stories)

Tomorrow is the last day to view 𝕭𝖊𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕬 𝕱𝖎𝖊𝖑𝖉 🦋
1400 N. American St. 12-5pm

Curated

11/20/2024

11/19/2024

Daisy Diamond is a painter and sculptor who works with collage, craft, and found materials. Daisy has exhibited recently in Philadelphia at Vox Populi and Da Vinci Art Alliance. Select experiences include a residency at Penland School of Craft (NC), workshop at Peters Valley School of Craft (NJ), and research internship at The Jewish Museum (NY). They have a BA in Art and Visual Culture from Bates College and are currently completing a MS in Art Conservation at the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation.

“My sculptures and paintings explore the relationships between objects, decay, renewal, and the subtleties of material memory. My works are often layered and textural with organic forms. I am interested in how things change over time and our agency in this process. Informed by my training in studying the degradation and physical care of material culture within the field of art conservation, I create objects that resist simple categorization and emphasize our relationships to architecture, nature, and things as sites of ritual and historical reckoning.”

This Saturday is the last day to view 𝕭𝖊𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕬 𝕱𝖎𝖊𝖑𝖉 1400 N. American St. Viewing hours 12-5pm.

Curated by

11/16/2024

Claire Downes Whitehurst is a painter, printmaker and sculptor. She received a BFA from the University of Mississippi and MFA from the University of Iowa, where she was the 2018 recipient of the Stanley Fellowship for International Research.. She worked in the Dordogne region of southern France where she studied polychromatic cave paintings. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and a book of her drawings and poetry was published in 2021 through Drum Machine Editions. Her work has been featured in publications including New American Paintings, Oxford American, ArtMaze Magazine, and the Graphite Journal in collaboration with the Hammer Museum.

“I draw from the landscape and atmosphere of the deep South, exploring q***r space, religious iconography and architecture through form, color, and composition. My work plays with the relationship between image and object. The imagery skirts around immediate representation in favor of shifting optical strata that transfix the viewer’s gaze. Meandering or chopped rainbows figure prominently, referencing q***rness as a physical object or space. Multicolored lines create a palpable visual density that offer a suspended moment of visual stimulation or confusion; a hybrid paint-object moving into and out of the viewer’s space.”

See Claire’s work in 𝕭𝖊𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕬 𝕱𝖎𝖊𝖑𝖉 open today 12-5pm at 1400 N. American St.

11/13/2024

Ｔ Ｏ Ｍ Ｏ Ｒ Ｒ Ｏ Ｗ! 🦋
Join us for the reception of 𝔅𝔢𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔄 𝔉𝔦𝔢𝔩𝔡
Thursday, November 14, 6-9pm

Kim Altomare
Lexi Arrietta
Zoe Cohen
Daisy Diamond
Claire Downes
Jim Strong

The six artists in Becoming A Field survey territories – psychic, imagined, and remembered – to source the symbolic imagery which shapes their personal mythopoetic narratives. The landscape here reflects aspects of self: bound in nets, lost in fields or the wilderness, decaying, overgrown, shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Body, mind, and spirit are mined as sites of growth, trauma, transience, and healing.

Organic forms stand in as self-portraits or snapshots of inner states: rainbow, sun and moon, moths and butterflies, webs and coral, nests, ferns, flowers, and fungi. Memories and observations of the natural world shift and collide in works which inhabit their own liminal realm and operate with their own logic.

Even the human-made structures and objects – a house, a ferris wheel – are mottled, shaped, and warped by hand to reflect a childlike sense of play, a dark fairytale influence – or to indicate the long passage of time. Crusty gates warp and distort, a braid tangles around an anchor, turkey tail mushrooms cluster on a child’s swimsuit.

Exhibiting these works together, born of individual narratives, creates interstices of relatedness – a widened psychic vista, a navigable field of universal associations, symbols, and language.

Becoming A Field asks, how do we embody landscapes? What shapes do our exiled energies take over time? What forgotten parts of ourselves are buried, wandering, or lost, and what relics remain to be excavated from our deeper wounds?

On view Saturdays 12-5pm or by appointment
AUTOMAT, Crane Arts bldg, 1400 N. American St.

Curated by Kimi Pryor
Poster image 🦋
Title from work in show 🌾