Hug by Hard Shapes
Join us at The LINE Hotel Austin on August 29 to celebrate “Hug,” an installation by Future Front resident artist Hard Shapes (Laree Evelyn) in the hotel’s East Gallery.
Curated for The Front Festival 2024 in partnership with The LINE Hotel Austin, "Hug" will be on view through the end of 2024. The opening reception will happen concurrently with The Front Festival 2024’s opening night on The LINE Hotel Austin pool deck.
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about the show
All hard shapes and soft feelings, Hug is an ode to gentle hope—a reminder that nothing’s quite as it seems.
Featuring works on canvas and wood by Austin-based artist Laree Evelyn (also known as Hard Shapes), each painting uses geometry and thoughtful primary colors to explore the duality of life, as well as the rituals and mindsets that get us through.
Pairing inverted shapes like loving (or questioning) partners, Evelyn asks the viewer to challenge reality, to try on new perspectives. Is that a line in the sand or an open door? A boxed-in square or a stepping stone? A circle or a portal?
Through every harsh line, washed in vibrant color, Evelyn reveals that what may seem permanent often only requires more time, more information, fresh eyes or even a new shape.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
HardShapes (she/they) uses a language of colors and shapes to translate the world around and inside of them. Bold, bright, and intentional, they specialize in large-scale commissions and murals.
“In the stillness of isolation, everything I had been running from caught up with me. All of the memories and emotions I had carefully avoided showed up all at once. Overwhelmed, I started painting giant shapes. Moving the shapes around until there was calmness. Placing them in benign order, letting that place inside me that had no words speak to my eyes, in our own brutal and bright language.
Now I use that language to tell stories of growth and healing in all its messy brilliance. Thank you so much for sharing in these shapes with me.”
HOW TO ATTEND
This exhibit is free and open to the public as part of The LINE Hotel Austin’s ongoing partnership with Future Front and The Front Festival 2024. For details on The Front Festival’s four-day schedule, please head to thefrontfest.com.
PREPARE YOUR VISIT
VENUE LOCATION + ACCESSIBILITY — The LINE Austin is located at 111 E Cesar Chavez St, Austin, Texas 78701. The venue is wheelchair-accessible and all activities will occur on the ground floor.
PARKING — We highly encourage utilizing rideshare or carpooling as there is limited valet parking available onsite. This venue is easily accessible by Austin public transportation, too.
OUR COMMUNITY SAFETY GUIDELINES —
All FFTX staff, volunteers and guests will be required to practice mutual respect, as well as demonstrate an alignment with Future Front’s code of conduct and values.
All sessions are held online or in outdoor, open-air spaces. Capacity is limited to reduce crowding of any kind.
All guests are required to practice mutual respect and social distancing, as well as follow APH’s COVID-19 Guidelines, which currently include:
At all levels, people can wear a mask based on personal preference, informed by their personal level of risk.
People with potential COVID-19 symptoms and/or exposure to someone with COVID-19 should wear a mask, regardless of a negative test.
People with a positive COVID-19 test and/or not fully vaccinated should not participate in an in-person Future Front event or visit a Future Front location until they test negative and/or they are fully vaccinated and no longer at risk.
AVAILABLE LANGUAGES — ASL interpreters can be provided upon request. Si necesita traducción al español para participar en este evento, envíenos un correo electrónico a hello@futurefronttexas.org.
GOT QUESTIONS? Shoot us a note at hello@futurefronttexas.org. We're happy to help and will get back to you!
THIS EVENT IS PART OF EMERGE.
Emerge is an annual partnership between Future Front and The Line Hotel’s GET HERE program. Since 2017, our strategic collaborations with the hotel—from art installations to community swims to The Front Festival—have generated $75,000+ in support for independent women & LGBTQ+ artists in Austin. Forever featuring emerging creatives, consider this series a love note to their work and an intro to the city we call home.
Future Front is a 501c3 nonprofit, homegrown in Austin, Texas. We nurture spaces where women and LGBTQ+ creatives, founders and leaders can grow together. Currently, we produce The Front Market and Festival, host year-round workshops and meet-ups, as well as create resources for resilience in creative industries. You’re invited to join us, of course. You can learn more about how it all works, our team and what we do: futurefronttexas.org
The Line Hotel Austin is located in Downtown Austin, Texas. Once home to a jazz club that broadcast live on local radio in the late 1960s, the hotel is part of Downtown history and holds a cultural legacy as unique as the city itself. Today, you can find a little bit of everything HERE—art, food, design—even nature.