http://www.distortionsociety.com/

Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY (2026)

10/10/2026

✷𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗦𝗧 𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗧𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧✷ Been so very in love with the luminous work of Song Watkins Park since visiting her studio at Chashama North - and was absolutely delighted when she offered us two of the works made during her residency for 𝙋𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙤! Please join us TODAY, Saturday, October 10 from 7-9pm on Main St in Beacon, NY at DISTORTION SOCIETY: Art Gallery + Tattoo Studio for the opening reception ✨

Song Watkins Park is a figurative painter whose work examines narrative, identity, and the human psyche. Using herself as both subject, she constructs intimate, psychologically charged scenes that reclaim the female body as a site of strength, vulnerability, and reflection. Drawing from childhood memories and literature rooted in her upbringing in Korea, her paintings weave together cultural specificity with broader, shared human experiences.

Her use of color and ambiguous, liminal spaces creates atmospheres where symbolism unfolds gradually, inviting viewers into emotional states that hover between fear, curiosity, and a sense of the eternal. Through these layered compositions, Watkins Park seeks to dissolve the boundary between inner and outer worlds, opening a space for dialogue between the personal and the collective.

Watkins Park was selected as the cover artist for New American Painting, Midwest Issue 179. She has exhibited nationally, with recent presentations in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, and St. Louis. In 2025, she was also featured in the SPRING/BREAK Art Show in New York and selected as the cover artist for New Visionary Magazine, Issue 16. Watkins Park holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis and is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Art at Saint Louis University.

📸 first + last slides: DAVINA HSU

▪️Opening recDAVINA HSUSaturday, October 10, 2026 from 7-9pm at DISTORTION SOCIETY: Art Gallery + Tattoo Studio 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY

▪️Inquiries or to receive a checklist preview: email [email protected]

10/10/2026

Come join us for the opening reception of 𝙋𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙤! Tonight from 7-9pm featuring work by Natale Adgnot Natale Adgnot (sculptor/fiber artist) , Traci Johnson Traci Johnson Traci Johnson , Lala Abaddon LΔLΔ ΔBΔDDON , Lu Walstad Lu 🌜🎂🌛 , and Song Watkins Park Song Watkins Park . Through their work, each artist considers the past—early memories, religious iconography, monocultural dogma, folklore, kitsch—and how it persists in the present. These remnants of the past hold different weight for each artist, yet for all, they remain significant. Harkening to the concept of object permanence, a developmental milestone where a child comes to understand that something continues to exist even when it is no longer perceptible, the exhibition asks: Do these formative relics continue to exist within us when they are no longer visible? What do we internalize, what do we idolize, and what do we shed?

Join us as we journey through Natale’s materially-informed work that juxtaposes her monocultural Texan upbringing with her international experiences, Traci’s subversive textiles that function as alternative architectures of care, Lala’s entrancing metaweaves that recontextualize the iconography of her catholic upbringing, Lu’s uncanny relief airbrush paintings exploring history and kitsch, and Song’s luminous, vulnerable self portraits rooted in her Korean and Midwestern United States upbringing.

Check out the full press release at the link in bio and we’ll see you tonight!

Press and art inquiries: [email protected]

10/09/2026

✷𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗦𝗧 𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗧𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧✷ We cannot get enough of Traci Johnson’s fabulously wild and intricate textiles and are thrilled to have two of their pieces in our upcoming exhibition 𝙋𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙤! which opens TOMORROW, Saturday October 10 from 7-9pm at DISTORTION SOCIETY: Art Gallery + Tattoo Studio in Beacon✨ These works are even MORE sparkly and lavish in person, you have to see IRL 💫✨

Born in New York City in 1998, Traci Johnson Traci Johnson is an emergiTraci Johnsontist currently living and practicing in Brooklyn, NY. After earning a BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology, Traci developed a practice centered at the intersection of public space, healing, and community engagement. Their practice is rooted in the soft subversion of textiles, using installation, sculpture, and participatory ritual to create alternative architectures of care. Raised within the tension between a strict Black Christian upbringing and their q***r identity, they learned early that sanctuary is rarely given; it is something we build for ourselves. Their work has become a way to construct those spaces: places where protection, reflection, vulnerability, and self actualization can coexist.

Drawing from AfriCOBRA, Afrofuturism, Hoodoo, and Femme Camp, Traci works with materials such as yarn, faux fur, beads, glass, and found objects to create tactile environments that function as spiritual roadmaps. They’re interested in how African diasporic spiritual traditions continue to survive, adapt, and reveal themselves within contemporary Black life despite histories of displacement, erasure, and religious assimilation. Rather than approaching these traditions as relics of the past, Traci sees them as living technologies, tools that help us navigate grief, remembrance, transformation, joy, and becoming.

📸 Slide 1: Sarai Garcia Sarai Garcia
Slide 5: AidSarai Garciaan Wilhite

▪️Opening Aidan WilhiteSaturday, October 10, 2026 from 7-9pm at DISTORTION SOCIETY: Art Gallery + Tattoo Studio 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY

▪️Inquiries or to receive a checklist preview: email [email protected]

10/04/2026

✷𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗦𝗧 𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗧𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧✷ We are thrilled to present two works by Lala Abaddon LΔLΔ ΔBΔDDON in our upcoming exhibition 𝙋𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙤! which opens Saturday, October 10 at DISTORTION SOCIETY: Art Gallery + Tattoo Studio ✨

Lala Abaddon seeks to examine the dual nature of binary relationships with parallels that give shape to their physical existence. In her woven work she integrates many components in her process, capturing her unique images multiple times through a repetitive sequence of traditional analog photographic methods, then arranging the large format prints into precise and deliberate pairings. She continues on to intricately and painstakingly hand cut each print into hundreds of strips and then hand-weave the prints with undulating and complicated patterns designed to convey a specific feeling, eventually leaving us with images within images and compelling the viewer to experience alternate realities or states of being. This process can take weeks depending on the complexity of the images and weave structures. Many times her work is mistaken for a digital manipulation, and the discovery of it’s true nature by the viewer is integral to the understanding of her process and purpose; to disrupt order, reconstruct historical notions of photography and weaving, and challenge what it means to create something solely for the purpose of creation.

Lala’s two works in 𝙋𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙤!, “இ_இ” and “ಥ_ಥ,” originate from her Martyr Syndrome series, an introspective recontextualization of the iconography of her Catholic upbringing. “ಥ_ಥ” visualizes the Virgin Mary crying blood, a particularly fascinating image for young Lala that exemplifies the duality of Mary’s existence: to be of service and to bear the pain of loss. Lala folds this Catholic imagery into her personal philosophies, study of the I Ching, and reverence for the divine feminine.

▪️Opening reception is Saturday, October 10, 2026 from 7-9pm at DISTORTION SOCIETY: Art Gallery + Tattoo Studio 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY

▪️Inquiries or to receive a checklist preview: email [email protected]

09/29/2026

✷𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗦𝗧 𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗧𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧✷ We’re over the moon about Lu Walstad’s Lu 🌜🎂🌛 two works in our upcoming exhibition 𝙋𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙤! which opens Saturday, October 10 at DISTORTION SOCIETY: Art Gallery + Tattoo Studio ✨

Lu Walstad is a tattoo artist, painter, and illustrator based in Brooklyn, New York. Lu was born and raised in San Francisco before receiving their Bachelor of Music in viola performance from UCLA in 2021. Since then they have worked full time as a tattoo artist in Los Angeles and New York.

Lu’s art is driven by a fixation on objects from the past. Through studying old relics, they find comfort in a sense of continuous collective human existence. Their work is research based, obsessively delving into pockets of history, tethered around human-made objects and the economies in which they were made. From medieval European to Midcentury American, Lu recontextualizes historic forms by using techniques like soft airbrush and pastel colors to create their own modern relics.

▪️Opening reception is Saturday, October 10, 2026 from 7-9pm at DISTORTION SOCIETY: Art Gallery + Tattoo Studio 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY

▪️Inquiries or to receive a checklist preview: email [email protected]

09/20/2026

A few cute ones by our resident artist georgie!

09/13/2026

▪️𝗦𝗔𝗩𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘: 𝗢𝗖𝗧𝗢𝗕𝗘𝗥 𝟭𝟬▪️Join us next month for a stellar group show DISTORTION SOCIETY: Art Gallery + Tattoo Studio featuring work by Natale Adgnot Natale Adgnot (sculptor/fiNatale Adgnot (sculptor/fiber artist)nson , Lala AbaddTraci JohnsonON , Lu Walstad LΔLΔ ΔBΔDDON Song Watkins Lu 🌜🎂🌛ong Watkins Park . ThrougSong Watkins Parkh artist considers the past—early memories, religious iconography, monocultural dogma, folklore, kitsch—and how it persists in the present. These remnants of the past hold different weight for each artist, yet for all, they remain significant. Harkening to the concept of object permanence, a developmental milestone where a child comes to understand that something continues to exist even when it is no longer perceptible, the exhibition asks: Do these formative relics continue to exist within us when they are no longer visible? What do we internalize, what do we idolize, and what do we shed?

Join us as we journey through Natale’s materially-informed work that juxtaposes her monocultural Texan upbringing with her international experiences, Traci’s subversive textiles that function as alternative architectures of care, Lala’s entrancing metaweaves that recontextualize the iconography of her catholic upbringing, Lu’s uncanny relief airbrush paintings exploring history and kitsch, and Song’s luminous, vulnerable self portraits rooted in her Korean and Midwestern United States upbringing.

Check out the full press release at the link in bio and we’ll see you on Saturday, October 10, 2026 from 7-9pm at the opening reception in Beacon, NY!

Press and art inquiries: [email protected]

Natale Adgnot, Cornemeuse, 2025.
Acrylic and enamel on thermoplastic, cotton muslin,
vinyl, horse hair. 20 x 8 x 8 inches.
Natale Adgnot (sculptor/fiNatale Adgnot (sculptor/fiber artist)rched the ages and combed the
skies to find my arrival of self, 2025.
Yarn on faux fur, mirror. 5.8 x 4.6 feet.
Traci Johnson

Lala AbbadTraci Johnson.
Metaweave (2 hand cut, hand woven
chromogenic prints). 19 x 13 inches + frame.
LΔLΔ ΔBΔDDON

Lu Walstad,LΔLΔ ΔBΔDDON26.
Acrylic, oil and joint compound on wood panel. 11 x 14 inches.
Lu 🌜🎂🌛

Song Watkins ParLu 🌜🎂🌛

09/03/2026

We’re honored to have 𝘽𝙚𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙙, 𝘽𝙚𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙏𝙤𝙪𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙙 featured in Hyperallergic as one of their September shows to see upstate! Thank you Taliesin Thomas for your thoughtful words on Holly McCabe’s work and Jaime Ransome’s curation ✨ If you’ve yet to experience this “wonderfully rowdy show” we advise you visit us DISTORTION SOCIETY: Art Gallery + Tattoo Studio this month! Holly McCabe Jaime ErnestiHolly McCabe
Jaime Ernestina Ransomes email [email protected]

Distortion Society

10/10/2026

10/10/2026

10/09/2026

10/04/2026

09/29/2026

09/20/2026

09/13/2026

09/03/2026

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