Let The Right One In is a group exhibition featuring painting, sculpture, and photography by seven artists currently living and working in Baltimore.Two years ago, CPM opened in a row house in Bolton Hill, Baltimore and entered into the creative life of this city.Let The Right One In is taken from a 2008 Swedish Vampire film and refers to the idea that the threshold of a house serves as a barrier that a vampire cannot cross without an invitation. In the context of an art exhibition, this title calls attention to the bonds at the thresholds between the artist, the gallery, and the community.

In times of increasing transience and alienation, it matters who we count upon to uphold these borders of familiarity and trust. The seven artists in the show have been connected to the gallery by people who have been involved with the arts community in Baltimore for years or decades.

The exhibited works focus on the figure: abstracted body parts constructed from yoga mats; anthropomorphic paintings of trees and flowers that allude to human sexuality; densely detailed paintings of African deities; depictions of spirit animals; surrealist self portraits and romantic portraits of loved ones; tintypes using 19th century photographic technology to capture the likeness of city residents; and a photorealistic painting of a local barbershop that incorporates found objects, sound, and lighting elements that relate to the cultural activity in that space.

Collectively, the works thematize the tension between the familiar and the uncanny, external presentation and internal condition.

Artist Bios:Sanah Brown-Bowers (b.1978) is a self-taught artist whose work focuses primarily on portraits of the Black American experience. Sanah centers her nuclear family to tell stories of Black joy and nostalgic experiences from the 1980’s, that bind together pop art, fantasy and her whimsical mind. Her acrylic and oil paintings are often displayed within family alters that that include found artifacts related to her subjects. Her paintings honor loving relatives and legacies that have been lost through the stripping away of identity due to enslavement. Sanah Brown-Bowers uses symbolism to restore hope to a race of people whose history has been forgotten and needs restoration and affirmation. Sanah’s work has received several awards and honors such as 1st place for the McKinney Black History Art Competition in February 2022, a Scholarship from the Priscilla Art Club of Dallas, and Best of Show at the Lenora Rolla Heritage Center Museum in Fort Worth, TX. In 2020, Sanah was selected for a solo show at the Bert Long Jr. Gallery at the Houston Museum of African American Culture. Sanah also has a mural company that she operates with her husband Reginal Bowers, they recently completed a Ray Charles mural for the Blues Alley project in Deep Ellum, Texas honoring musicians.

Oletha DeVane (b.1950) is a multidisciplinary artist who explores diverse political, social identities and cultural interpretations. She has exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Museum of the Bible in NY, Museum of the Americas in DC, The Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore, The Dixon Gallery/Garden, Memphis, TN and the Baltimore Museum of Art, and her work is in permanent museum collections. She has served on several boards including Maryland Art Place, School 33, Wide Angle Youth Media, Creative Alliance and The Build Haiti Foundation. She was the Program Director for the Maryland State Arts Council’s Individual Artist (1979-92) and Visual Arts programs (1990-92). Ms. DeVane, was the Director of Tuttle Gallery and former head of visual arts at McDonogh School in Owings Mills, MD. In 2007, she was a recipient of the Rollins/ Luetkemeyer Chair for Distinguish Teaching. Ms. DeVane is also the recipient of 2017 Rubys Grant, two Art Matters grants 2017/2019, a Trawick Prize 2019 and the Anonymous Was a Woman Grant in 2021. She has recently been commissioned for the Memorial to Those Enslaved and Freed at McDonogh School as well as the Lexington Market Public Artwork in Baltimore.

Dave Eassa (b.1991) is a visual artist and cultural worker living and working in Baltimore, MD and San Diego, CA. His paintings and sculpture allow the viewer space for personal reflection and encourage a broader look outward at the shared human experience. Recent exhibitions include: Cody Gallery, Arlington, VA; The Shed Space, Baltimore, MD; SPACE Gallery Portland, ME; Little Berlin, Philadelphia, PA; Good Mother Gallery, Oakland, CA; Signal, Brooklyn, NY; LVL3 Chicago, IL; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; and Reh Kunst, Berlin, Germany. His public sculpture is on view in Johnson City, TN, and the Harwood Community Garden in Baltimore. He has been an artist in residence at Space Gallery in Portland, ME and ACRE in Steuben, WI and at 7Hills in Amman, Jordan during the summer of 2021. He was an Open Society Institute Baltimore Community Fellow from 2015-2017, where he founded Free Space, a program which brings the arts to the MD Prison system. He currently is the Director of Public Engagement at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where he established a branch of the Museum in Lexington Market, the nation’s oldest continuously operating public market. In 2018, he was selected as one of 50 Young Cultural Innovators from across the globe for the YCI Fellowship at the Salzburg Global Seminar in Salzburg, Austria.

Alex Ebstein (b.1985) is an artist and curator born in New Haven, CT and currently based in Baltimore, MD. She received her MFA from Towson University in 2015 and her BA in Studio Art from Goucher College in 2007. Her work borrows materials used in gym equipment, yoga and dance studios, and DIY construction projects to examine the tropes of self-help, wellness, the white cube and boutique fitness trends. These aestheticized spaces imply the patronage of an elite clientele, projecting health, fitness and art as an often cost-prohibitive commodity. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Dream Sellers at Victori + Mo, Synthetic Dawn at De Novo Gallery in Washington, DC, Alex Ebstein & Karen Gelardi at Steel House Projects in Rockland, Maine, Cut, Copy, Paste; It’s Not What You Think at Terrault Gallery in Baltimore, Form/Fit at Cuevas Tilleard, New York, and Stefano Caligari + Alex Ebstein at Frutta Gallery in Rome, Italy. Ebstein is the founder and director of three galleries in Baltimore since 2009; Nudashank, Phoebe, and Resort. Ebstein was the Director of Exhibitions and Curator at Goucher College from 2018 – 2022 and recently joined the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation as the Senior Program Manager of the Rubys Artist Grants.

Martin Mbuguah (b.2001) also known as TOSKAGO was born in Ol'Kalou, Kenya, raised in Indiana, and currently lives and works in Baltimore, MD, where he studies painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art (2024). Born to a family of farmers and laborers, Martin’s formative years were characterized by a deep sense of anxiety due to rising tribal tensions and growing financial instability. Martin and his family won the coveted “green card lottery” and were offered the chance to move to the United States. After arriving in the states he attempted to reconcile his inherited Kikuyu culture with his new adopted culture in the U.S., where he began to acclimate to his new racial identity as a “black man.” Martin's work is a dialog on the nature of identity and the human condition. Taking from his ancestral Kikuyu practice of storytelling he constructs narratives through painting and film in order to illustrate themes of race, violence, and addiction. Private and public collections include: the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the St. Claire Collection, the Sherman Collection, and the Timmons Collection. He was a recipient of the Gold Award from the National YoungArts Foundation, as well as a semifinalist for 2020 U.S. Presidential Scholars.

Elena Volkova (b.1975) is a Ukrainian-born interdisciplinary artist, educator, and curator, whose creative practice uses historic and contemporary photographic techniques to explore complex themes of domesticity, liminality, and subjective experience. Volkova has been a fellow at Hamiltonian Artists, and exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Elena received several recognitions and awards in support of her creative practice, including Janis Meyer Traveling Fellowship, Corcoran Women’s Committee Grant, MD State Arts Council Creativity Grant, and Baltimore Municipal Art Society Travel Prize. Volkova has been a social practice resident artist at Maryland Center for History and Culture, Anacostia Arts Center, and Maker General among others. Volkova resides in Baltimore, MD and teaches Photography at Stevenson University.

Andersen Woof (b.1989), was born in China, and lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. Originally trained in landscape architecture (RISD), Andersen is fascinated by the emotional impact of physical spaces. Within his work, Andersen constantly looks for ambiguous and absurd narratives that reflect the complexities of humanity, and he investigates what it means for people to live simultaneously with joy and pain. As an Asian and gay immigrant living in the US, Andersen’s practice is strongly influenced by his personal life experiences as he explores themes of solitude, relationships, fear, violence, and desire. Andersen currently has a group exhibition “The Minotaur’s Daydream” (curated by Anthony Cudahy) with Semiose (Paris, France), and previous exhibitions include 1969 Gallery (New York, NY), Acappella Gallery (Naples, Italy), Fortnight Institute (New York, NY), Mothflower, and more. Andersen is a grant finalist of the Hopper Prize, and his work has been featured in ArtMaze Magazine, Booooooom, and Mepaintsme, among others.