Resonator is excited to present the exhibition Altar / Alter by Savannah, GA based artist Andrea Durán-Cason.

Andrea Durán-Cason is an interdisciplinary artist who seamlessly merges traditional media with installation, performance, and relational aesthetics. Her current work investigates human-animal relationships and ethics within a framework of activism and ethical eating practices. She is a passionate advocate for animal rights and believes food is an effective art medium for social change. She is the author of “The Preachy Vegan Cookbook”; a recipe book, art book, and biography exploring multi-cultural identity and invisible ideologies. Andrea earned her BFA from The University of Oklahoma with a focus in painting and printmaking where she practiced and developed a strong foundation in figurative indirect oil painting techniques. In 2018 she received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Andrea is a nationally exhibiting artist and currently a full-time professor of painting at Savannah College of Art and Design.

“ My work investigates the tension between compassion and complicity - what it means to act in accordance with our ethics. Centered around the dinner table—a space of comfort, ritual, and denial—this body of work asks what it means to act in alignment with our values in a world where cruelty is often normalized or obscured. I’m interested in how kindness and indifference coexist within us, and how the act of eating can become a mirror for those contradictions.

Through installation and painting, I reimagine the table as a modern altar. Corn stalks grow from its surface, recalling my Mesoamerican ancestry as cyclical symbol of life, death, and rebirth. In the paintings, a solitary figure sits uneasily, embodying both human and animal. She becomes a mirror to our fractured empathy and the difficulty of being an ethical consumer in a world where disconnection is routine. “

- Andrea Durán-Cason, 2025

Opening Reception is Art Walk- August 8 at 6:00 pm. Exhibition will remain up until August 20.

Join our friends at Co Arts Productions for an original theatrical presentation.

Grœnland was written by CoArts contributer, playwrite Chip Keebaugh.

Keebaugh, a climate activist, untangles the mysterious collapse of a Medieval Norse Colony. A wedding. A suicide. A witch-burning. These are the three extant records that reveal what might have happened in the final days on the harsh island. Directed by Lauren Linsey, the play represents a nearly decade-long collaboration with Chip, a fellow graduate from the OU School of Drama.

Click here for tickets

ALL CAPS! |  A Celebration in Art and Prose of Mushroom Folk and their Culture

      The Mushroom Folk are a group of characters from a Native American fantasy world  I created in 2012. In this world a natural disaster known as “The Great Fall” struck the Americas in the 1840’s just after the removal of First Americans of the southeastern tribes from their homelands and leaving the lands of the Great Plains as one of the few habitable areas on the continent. With this natural disaster came the strange effects of magic and magical creatures in the land. This included the appearance of the Mushroom Folk in the area once known as as New Orleans. The following is an excerpt written by Ebrnt Tendigrads, a half Cherokee half Irish shaman of the Cherokee tribe.

   Some tribes say the great fall was simply a natural occurrence. That the earth is in constant flux and that the layers of our Mother shifted in such a way that the Eastern and Western seaboards experienced massive earthquakes and tidal waves, leaving what we in our reality know as Southern and Western prairies to be the most inhabitable lands of North America. Others point to the Great Octopod that sleeps at the bottom of the ocean. The creature was so large that three of its tentacles are in the Great Eastern Ocean while the other five are in the Great Western Ocean. These tribes believe that the Great Octopod adjusted itself during his eternal sleep and caused the massive disaster. The lands mainly thought of as the Lands of the White Settlers were no more. Everything east of the Mississippi River was underwater. The lands that we know as Mississippi, Missouri, and Louisiana became unimaginable swampland where massive reptilian beasts roamed. All of California and half of Nevada fell into the sea. Much of Mexico also fell. The lands to the north were fairly intact. But the Continent of North America was unrecognizable. And the First Nation People, who had been pushed out of their homes and relocated to the center of of the land had mostly avoided the tragic end that fell on most of the colonialists.

   The land began to see monsters and magical creatures from the old legends of native lore. And the First People found that they were touched by magic, a very tangible magic that varied in power throughout the folk. They found they could alter the weather, create fire, heal the sick and wounded, and even repel the monstrosities that sometimes attacked their towns and villages.

    And in the Louisiana swamps the voodoo magic of New Orleans was amplified, causing other life forms to rise and form a society of spiritual creatures that begin to rebuild the city in a form that was true to their vision. The Mushroom People evolved from the combination of molded vegetation, magical anomalies and voodoo to claim the city.

   The Mushroom People are highly sentient magic users and use their magic to heal the land and creatures around their magnificent city. They also have the ability to reshape themselves  and even split their form into multiple sections. Mushroom folk have psionic abilities and are very creative with earth and water based magic. They became fascinated with the history of man and although they despise the actions and philosophies of the former human occupants of the city many of their styles in architecture and art are created as embellishments of the inherent French styles of New Orleans.

    The most notable aspect of Mushroom style is their use of ladies dresses. Although mushroom people are agender, they most commonly change their shape to fit the form of the beautiful dresses once worn by the elite women of New Orleans. And so it is that Mushroom People usually appear as female.

    The Mushroom community is peaceful and their ability to charm even the most intelligent beings is their primary defense against those who might cause harm to their community and beloved city. They primarily communicate with the People of The First Nation through telepathy but have been known to speak when it is deemed necessary. It is uncommon for Mushroom People to travel outside of their lands, and even then they will only travel during rainy, humid conditions. The only real enemy of the Mushroom folk is fire. The small elemental swamp drakes that are fire users can seriously damage a Mushroom person if they happen to surprise a fire drake.

     The mushroom folks are very small in number, only about 300 actually become sentient at a time. It is believed when the a Mushroom person reaches its end that its spirit simply transfers to a new fungal host and grows into a new mushroom body.

Ebrnt Tendigrads   The Mushroom People that have come to our version of the world have studied human behavior and history and find it unbelievable that we continue to try and hide our failings when we could learn so much from them. When they discovered that the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instructions policies concerning the non-education of the history, they offered a plan to tell the darker parts of the human struggle that would be more considerate of the superintendent’s fragile ego.

Gregg Standridge, renowned mushroom folk historian Felicia Highspore and many other poetic friends bring this exhibit of mushroom history to Resonator Institute in July of 2025.

 Gregg Standridge - Artist Statement

   I think of myself as a multidiscipline artist. I work primarily in wood veneer creating marquetry pieces ranging in size from 4” to as large as 10’ x 16’. I am also a working singer/songwriter/guitarist for hire. I write stories and make stop animation videos too! I love projects that are theme based or conceptual oriented. I don’t mind using my art as a tool to bring awareness to unfairness in our world. My themes include Native American, fantasy, social justice, and nature.

Gregg Standridge Bio

 Oklahoma based Choctaw/Cherokee artist, Gregg Standridge, has been creating since 1979.  A polymath who has made over 4000 wood art pieces, 14 original music albums, written/produced a full length musical and a novel, Gregg is constantly finding new ways to create. His themes include indigenous subject matter, fantasy and social justice. His current technique of hand cut wood marquetry is influenced by his love of the old Japanese wood block masters such as Katsushika Hokusai. Gregg was a 2023 Thrive Grant recipient through the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition and The Andy Warhol Foundation.

 Education

OCCC Associates Fine Arts

USAO Music Performance/Music Education

OCU Masters Music Performance

Private Study with Sheryl Cozad

Resonator is proud to host a pair of dynamic kids classes taught by Tracy Gibson, a local artist/educator who has taught Art in Norman Public Schools for over three decades.

Epic Art Escape is a four day class that combines art and problem solving. It is filled with fun escape room challenges and games that keeps kids entertained and engaged while they learn about and create art!

• Students need to bring a lunch and water bottle each day

• Wear clothes that you don't mind getting a little messy for art activities

• Session Cost: $215 per participant (price includes snacks and art supplies

• Sibling discount: $25 off for each additional child

• Enrollment cap: 12 students

Day 1:  Escape Room Theme: "The Starry Night Has Been Stolen!"

Day 2:  Escape Room Theme: "The Color Caper"

Day 3:  Escape Room Theme: "The Mysterious Art Inventor"

Day 4:  Art Games Day: Encourages creativity, teamwork, and problem-solving

• Art Gallery Walk at 2:30 pm on day 4 - all are welcome to join us!

First class will be June 23 -26, Second one will be July 7 - 10.

Space is limited. Sign up soon!

To register, visit: https://sites.google.com/normanps.org/epicartescape/camp-registration-page

Join Resonator as we welcome local emerging artist Gavin Taylor (The Muffled Siren) for his first ever Second Friday solo exhibition.

“The Walls Can Speak, and this is what they have to say.” -The Muffled Siren

Wall Scabs is a collection of works created by The Muffled Siren while writing his rock musical, The Nursing Home Milkshake. Both the musical and the paintings explore the idea of narrative conveyed through interiors. The musical is narrated by a character named Carambola Crest, who is the human embodiment of the nursing home. To tap into the psyche of such an unconventional character, The Muffled Siren began creating pieces that resembled fragments of walls.

The catalyst for this collection started with a piece titled Prison Scab. This piece was created during the early writing process of the musical when The Muffled Siren was still in secondary school. Here The Muffled Siren recounts the creation of this piece: “I took a tile from the school’s supply closet and began attaching various artifacts to its surface: a piece of wire fence, plaster cloth, and half of a pair of rusted scissors which resembled a shank. I then extemporaneously wrote the word "Igloo" in charcoal on the attached plaster cloth. The result evoked sensibilities reminiscent of the primitive work of Jean Dubuffet.”

Like Dubuffet, The Muffled Siren aims to provoke a primitive and visceral reaction within the viewer. After the creation of “Prison Scab,” He set out to create multiple pieces based on different interiors. Each piece insinuates complete narratives provided by the titled setting and placement of the wall wounds. The mold, burns, holes, and “scabs” add a haunting history to each piece. It is up to the interpreter to create backstories for each interior by reflecting on their own experiences. The Muffled Siren hopes that his Wall Scabs can evoke a state of regression that allows each spectator to travel internally.

About The Muffled Siren:

The Muffled Siren is the stage name of rock 'n' roll musician, performer, songwriter, and visual artist, Gavin Taylor. His shows are high-energy theatrical spectacles with glam rock sensibilities. The Muffled Siren began painting during a four-year period of depersonalization. This strange period of time was a direct result of the back-to-back deaths of his beloved aunt and muse of a grandmother. He set out to write a rock 'n' roll fantasia about what could've been, the outcome was a rock musical entitled The Nursing Home Milkshake. During its conception, Taylor painted as a way to escape writer's block. After the completion of the initial writing for The Nursing Home Milkshake, Taylor's depersonalization quickly subsided. He hopes to bring the same sort of closure and comfort that his work gave him to the masses.

The opening reception will be Friday, June 13 from 6:00 to 9:00 and the exhibition will stay up until Thursday, June 26.

Join us second Friday for a truly fantastic sculpture experience courtesy of Oklahoma’s own Nick Lillard.

The Wizard’s Rabble brings together life lessons through familiar animals and recognizable mythical characters. Some of these figures are grounded in the tangible, such as cats and jackrabbits, while others—wizards, dragons, and aliens—allow for more stylized, abstract interpretations. Regardless of the subject, all the characters emerge from the presence of voids and are defined by directional, expressive metal lines that detail and energize each form.

Themes of anxiety, fear, and calmness surface through these figures, engaging with concepts like redemption, violence, and the very act of existence. Each piece leaves much of the narrative to the viewer’s imagination, yet hints of meaning are embedded in the context surrounding each character. Ultimately, it is through their interaction with space that these beings define their own existence.

— Nick Lillard, 2025

Opening runs 6:00 to 9:00 on April 11 | Show is free to the public