Intimacy is too often confined with matters of love; yet the word belongs more to trust, to faith. It denotes an act of revelation found in the simple gesture of sharing; bringing that which was previously hidden out from the shadows and into the light. In this exhibition, the artworks chosen explore intimacy in both their content and their form. They touch on  more singular intimacies; personal histories, dreams and desires. The works reflect on self- intimacy, experienced in solitude, and the intimacy shared between us, be it romantic or platonic, familial or fleeting.

There is, too, intimacy of familiar spaces, spaces we inhabit in both the world and in our minds. And then, there is the intimacy of objects, and our relationships to them; a cherished photograph, a processing of something delicate, or something so detailed and hidden that it is brought to light.  Velvet Kisses encompasses many intimacies. Intimacy between friends, family and even yourself. An ‘encounter’ extends beyond romantic love, and opens the show up to a certain type of multiplicity.

The show includes artists, Ewuresi Archer, Claire Bowman,  Adrian Eisenhower, Amy Casey, Ray Caspio, Brooke Inman, Helen Lardner, Megan Lubey, Greg Martin, Darius Steward, Kari Russell-Pool, Marc Petrovic,  Amber N Ford, Christine Ries, and Darius Steward, Qian Li