SPRANG BRAK

Opening Sat 4/26, 4-8p
Curated by Off Hours

April 26 - May 17 at 120710 Gallery

Featuring: Mary Campbell, Anjelica Colliard, Jillian Crochet, Torreya Cummings, Kyle Daniels, Michael Diamond, Sammy Gripe, Hudson Hatfield, Chloe King, Gabrielle Medina, Chris Thorson, Ester Tuva

In a groggy haze, the smell hits you first: tequila, lime, and sweat radiating off sun-scorched, lobster-red skin. As your eyes adjust, the scene comes into focus—chipped champagne bottles, Liquid IV packets, a pool of vomit creeping from the hood of an unfamiliar sweater behind the couch. A sliver of sunlight cuts through blackout curtains, and from somewhere deep in your chest comes the rallying cry heard around the world: “SPRANG BRAK BITCHES!”

The group exhibition SPRANG BRAK uses the haziness of spring break—a time of respite, reclusion, and formative experiences bookended by institutional order—as a departure point for ideas around play, naivety, sexuality, childlike wonder, and villain origin stories. Long seen as a rite of passage, it’s a time rife with formative moments, naive explorations, and budding rebellion. Through their painting, sculpture, and multimedia work, artists Mary Campbell, Anjelica Colliard, Jillian Crochet, Torreya Cummings, Kyle Daniels, Michael Diamond, Sammy Gripe, Hudson Hatfield, Chloe King, Gabrielle Medina, Chris Thorson, and Ester Tuva channel the adolescent whimsy and sun drenched delirium of spring and summer vacations, revealing its ripple effects through our lives, culture, and environment.

At first glance, the artists in SPRANG BRAK unify around the petty disobedience and foggy adolescent memories of warm weather holidays. Campbell’s sculpture implies juicy orange fruit stains on a crisp white tennis uniform. Tuva and Medina reminisce on youthful emulation and idolization of Jersey Shore cast members, or the thrill of a first queer kiss stolen behind the chapel. Collard’s large, nymph-like figures set against a colorful, botanical blur call to mind the magic of a road trip through unrecognized landscapes. At the same time, Diamond’s foam rendition of an Oakland classic car rental agency mascot provides the dream vehicle for such an adventure. Together, these artists recall those first technicolor, sugar-rushed glimpses of freedom; sunburned snapshots of youth that cling to us well into adulthood, only to return as a rush of nostalgia passing by in a hurry.

Other artists reveal a darker side to the spring break fantasies we are sold. Recalling films like Spring Breakers or Bodies Bodies Bodies that transform escape into spectacle, Thorson and Hatfield reflect leisure through a distorted lens that implicates us in systems we try to outrun momentarily while on holiday. King’s glowing paintings of pill-induced hallucinations capture a first-trip moment between panic and ecstasy, creating space for Daniel’s ceramic creatures to be welcomed without questions. Cummings reminds us of the material cost of all this debauchery, where the glitter of excess rots eternally in a landfill. Whether in the throes of libidinal wantonness or wading through its excruciating consequences, the artists capture the thrill of “firsts” experienced during these periods of recreation.

Uniting these two sides of the spring break spectrum are artists Jillian Crochet and Sammy Gripe, whose soft sculptures provide physical comfort. Crochet’s enormous lumpy chartreuse “accessible crip lounge” offers a rare intermission for rest amid chaos—a reminder that different bodies have different needs. Gripe’s bouquets of fabric flowers are plastic entities filled with plush stuffing, blending the symbolic “fresh start” of new blooms in spring with the coziness of a beloved teddy bear.

While these artists may not be wild party animals, their work captures the titillation, confusion, and volatility of unsupervised spring break activities: sneaking away from parental oversight, competing for your crush’s attention at summer camp, heaving up green stomach bile after a night of Blue Hawaiians. The exhibition invites viewers into a staged world saturated in the aesthetics and longing of nostalgia—a dreamscape of props and fragments. The story that unfolds here is up to you. Will it be one of gore and chaos? Joy and respite? Or simply a memory—half-true, sun-drenched, and still echoing with wonder.

WHAT: SPRANG BRAK, a group exhibition curated by Off Hours

WHERE: 120710 Gallery, 1207 Tenth St., Berkeley, CA, 94710

WHEN: Opening night April 26, 4-8 pm; On view April 26 - May 17, 2025

WHO: Mary Campbell, Anjelica Colliard, Jillian Crochet, Torreya Cummings, Kyle Daniels, Michael Diamond, Sammy Gripe, Hudson Hatfield, Chloe King, Gabrielle Medina, Chris Thorson, Ester Tuva. Curated by Off Hours (Katherine Jemima Hamilton, Shaelyn Hanes, Ebti), hosted by 120710 Gallery.

BIOS:

Off Hours is a nomadic curatorial project led by Katherine Jemima Hamilton, Shaelyn Hanes, and Ebti. We present artist-driven exhibitions that result from dialogue developed through studio visits, ongoing conversation, and collaborative writing practices. Off Hours supports and spotlights emerging Bay Area artists through thoughtful curation, programming, and writing.

CONTACT: offhours.sf@gmail.com