Introductions Please, Opening March 9

It was February 2016, and Pat Abrams’ elderly mother, Gertrude, was slipping in and out of consciousness. “About two to three days before she died, she asked me if she was on her way,” Abrams remembers. “I told her yes, that I thought she was. That seemed to comfort her.” When Gertrude finally let go, Abrams fell headfirst into heartache. She wanted to scream and wail. “The magnetic fields of grief, worry, and turbulence had compromised my emotional compass,” she explains. “I was untethered and needed to map my way through the loss.” Unsure of how to articulate her sorrow, Abrams picked up a paintbrush. The subsequent piece, “On Her Way,” is a testament to the “abstract nature of [the] human experience” and will debut at Trackside Studios as part of the March group show, Introductions Please. Other featured exhibitors include baseball artist Mike Floyd, painter Nancy Moore, and others. Come April, the gallery will pivot to host Cycles of Nature. According to a press release, the exhibition’s theme explores “growth and decline, abundance and scarcity, life and death.”