Gallery 110 presents Cosmic Grids, a selection of mixed media works by guest artist Jessie Summa Russo, inspired by Nobel prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek’s conception of our universe as a “vibrant energy field” that he calls The Grid. Small oil paintings, collages, and monotypes support and contain Russo’s abstract maximalism to present a visual meditation on this concept.

In her oil and cold wax collages, each square represents a life that arises from the blue-black void of space, and belongs there in equal measure with all the others whether or not it is human, complete, or coherent. The layers of collage and paint reveal and obscure fragments of faces, words, and organic shapes, allowing viewers to ascribe their own meanings to what they see, while the void itself is filled with asemic writing—illegible and unknowable ‘answers’ to universal questions. She creates her monotypes by imprinting various materials—from plastic trash to antique, hand-carved wooden printing blocks—onto paper from a gel plate, often enhancing the result with printed brushstrokes, colored pencils, or ink.

Jessie Summa Russo is a third-generation painter based in West Seattle. Raised in Somerville, Massachusetts, she studied studio arts, set design, and animation at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, later pursuing graduate-level illustration at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design. A lifelong advocate for the arts with a diverse career in visual design, music, and venue management, Russo is currently the Director of Gallery 110.