Altered States is an exhibition and a full weekend of experience.
Two artists. Two visual languages. One source.
Tyler Wcislo's digital collages erupt with color, sacred geometry, and the raw exposure of interior states. Ross Gronvold's sculptural works pull toward elemental silence — deeply textural, form arrived at through material intelligence. Both speaking from somewhere beyond the self and asking you to listen.
FRI APR 17, 6–8PM Opening Reception + Live Music w/ Father Otter
SAT APR 18, 6–9PM Live Music w/ Draiodoir + open floor
SUN APR 19, 5–7:30PM Contemplative Movement + Live Sound
Student Union Art Gallery, Room 235 · UMass Amherst
Free to attend. Open to all. Donations in support of the artists and musicians are deeply appreciated. Venmo: @brianna_barry
Sunday / Contemplative Movement + Live Sound :: An invitation to enter the work from the inside. This evening takes the observer and makes them a participant. Join us for an intimate exploration of free-form contemplative movement within the exhibition — lightly held by facilitator Brianna Barry and accompanied by improvisational live sound by Nash Atkins + Glenn Smith, whose music emerges in direct dialogue with the art that surrounds us. This is not a performance. There is no right or wrong way to move. This is an exploration — an invitation to bring the texture and the feeling of the work into your body. What does it feel like to mirror in your body what you are seeing? What does the material ask of you? The music informs the movement. The art informs the music. Everything is in dialogue.
The evening closes with tea and an open conversation about our experience. 5pm arrival / 5:15pm opening / 5:30pm music begins / 7pm tea + conversation / 7:30pm close Suggested donation $10–30 in support of the artists [ Venmo: @brianna_barry ] Space is limited — RSVP encouraged
•
ROSS GRONVOLD (b. 1987, Rhode Island) is a contemporary artist and spatial designer based in Holyoke, Massachusetts, working in sculptural wall works and functional objects made from raw, elemental materials — charcoal, beeswax, concrete, sawdust, and wood. His practice begins with listening: not to a fixed idea, but to the materials themselves, each carrying its own intelligence, its own desire to become. A background spanning photography, creative direction with National Geographic, interior design, and finish carpentry shaped both his aesthetic sensibility and technical range — he designs and builds every element by hand, from grinding charcoal for pigment to constructing each panel and frame. The result is work that is singular, emergent, and unrepeatable — artifacts for contemplation that ask for presence.
TYLER WCISLO (b. 1998, Massachusetts) is a conceptual artist and writer based in Amherst, working in digital collage — a medium whose capacity for rapid iteration and revision has transformed the creative act from one of deliberate construction into one of emergent discovery, in which each composition arrives at something that could not have been planned, something not so much built as followed through the feelings it invokes. At the foundation of his work is the conviction that the human experience is divinity recognizing itself as what is — and that to hold suffering through beauty is to take the very thing consciousness holds apart from itself and fold it back into wholeness. Wcislo is a BDIC student at UMass Amherst, graduating 2026.
FATHER OTTER (Nash Atkins) is a lifelong disciple of music. Learning piano at the age of 7 has dovetailed into a myriad of genres, cultures, and approaches to the musical terrain. Over the last 10 years he has traveled all over the US offering sound journeys and live musical performances across intentional gathering spaces. He draws from a deep well of musical knowledge put into practice with experiential spiritual awareness and full presence. Employing a powerful mix of droning sounds, hypnotic guitar playing, complex harmonies and alluring beats — Father Otter connects the listener inward and upward.
DRAIODOIR hails from southern Vermont, playing hypnotic metal — long immersive riffs drifting between stoner groove and the heavy mood of 90s rock, steeped in dark musical sorcery.
BRIANNA BARRY is an experiential event producer and artist manager based in Western Massachusetts. She has facilitated free-form dance and contemplative movement experiences since 2018, drawing from a deep personal practice in embodied work. As an aspiring curator, she is drawn to art that holds the sacred in darkness — devotional, restrained, alive in its material and form.
