{"id":292449,"date":"2026-07-10T17:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T17:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/292449\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T17:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T17:14:10","slug":"mixed-emotions-exhibition-at-growhouse-examines-pandemic-era-grief-and-growth-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/292449\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Mixed Emotions\u2019 exhibition at GrowHouse examines pandemic-era grief and growth \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"MixCollage-10-Jul-2026-12-29-PM-3402\"\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Artwork titled \u201cComputer Vision\u201d by Caitlin Jones and Miela Foster, and \u201cReturn to Self\u201d by Unique Hodge. The works are part of \u201cMixed Emotions,\u201d a collaborative exhibition at GrowHouse NYC that explores the emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a generation of young artists.<\/p>\n

Photos courtesy of Miela Foster<\/p>\n

When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill in 2020, Miela Foster, Unique Hodge, and Caitlin Jones were students at Harvard University.\n<\/p>\n

Six years later, the trio is expressing the emotional impact of the pandemic on their generation through a collaborative art exhibition titled \u201cMixed Emotions\u201d at GrowHouse NYC, 410 Marcus Garvey Blvd. in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The exhibition features 21 small-format works, including paintings, collages, sculptures and mixed-media pieces.<\/p>\n

Foster and Jones graduated from Harvard in 2021, and Hodge graduated in 2022. The pandemic gave them pause to reconsider how they would \u201center the world post-pandemic,\u201d Foster told Brooklyn Paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI studied statistics at Harvard, Unique studied biology, Caitlin studied history of art and architecture, and so we\u2019re all coming from very different backgrounds, but post-pandemic, post-graduation, we all decided we all found creative practices, different practices, mixed media, painting, etc., and decided to kind of give artistry or creative work a real shot,\u201d Foster said. \u201cI think the pandemic was a very important moment for us to give ourselves time and space to take it seriously and to believe in ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Artwork titled \u201cMoss minded\u201d by Unique Hodge and Caitlin Jones.Photo courtesy of Miela Foster<\/p>\n

Foster became an artist-researcher and founded Foster The Studio, focusing on artwork that addresses invisible systems of oppression. The idea for the exhibition emerged from her ritual of rereading her journals at the end of each year. Last year, she focused on her \u201cpandemic\u201d journals and reflected on her generation\u2019s experience and the push to \u201creturn to normal\u201d as the pandemic revealed and exacerbated inequities, leading young people to reject \u201ccorporate structures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started our workplace in the pandemic; we started remotely, we didn\u2019t see the value of this monitoring or like surveillance culture that I think a lot of corporate institutions kind of found themselves in, and I didn\u2019t want to like think about all this stuff in isolation,\u201d Foster shared.<\/p>\n

\"\"Artwork titled \u201cPolar Glow\u201d by Caitlin Jones.Photo courtesy of Miela Foster \"\"Artwork titled \u201cWaiting on the World to be made\u201d by Miela Foster.Photo courtesy of Miela Foster<\/p>\n

Foster reached out to Hodge and Jones, and together they developed a five-part framework for the exhibition that defined their early adulthood through contradictory, oscillating, layered, unresolved, and generative emotions. Foster explained that the exhibition serves as a visual representation of these feelings, and she hopes it encourages visitors to reflect while also serving as a form of collective therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took a lot of our emotional grief of the pandemic and transformed it into a creative lens, so ultimately this show is really trying to give us a shared language to understand how we were feeling emotionally during the pandemic. The thesis is that that time was valuable for our collective development, for emotional intelligence, and that it\u2019s worth exploring. I feel like a lot of therapy in the modern world is like very individualized. It\u2019s an opportunity for like group therapy with like a group kind of like shared language,\u201d Foster explained.<\/p>\n

Foster, Jones, and Hodge collaborated on most of the artwork.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that a lot of the art industry kind of prefers this idea of like a sole author, so there\u2019s a lot of dual and tri-authorship in this work,\u201d Foster explained.\n<\/p>\n

The show opens July 11 from 5 to 8 p.m. and will be on view through Aug. 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artwork titled \u201cComputer Vision\u201d by Caitlin Jones and Miela Foster, and \u201cReturn to Self\u201d by Unique Hodge. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1149,61219,98,100,99,111687,111688,111689,39611,111690,111691,9,24,12,370,63,30915,111692],"class_list":["post-292449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-art","tag-art-exhibition","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-caitlin-jones","tag-collage","tag-covid-19-pandemic","tag-growhouse-nyc","tag-miela-foster","tag-mixed-media","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-painting","tag-unique-hodge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}