Electric Relaxation

Electric Relaxation is an exhibition featuring artworks by 15 artists who use creative and often unconventional means to explore abstraction through vibrant forms and concepts. In these pieces illuminating colors refresh the soul and emphasize repetitious and multi-layered mark-making techniques, while each share common poetics of visually stimulating characteristics. Like the A Tribe Called Quest song Electric Relaxation, the artworks in this exhibition inspire you to “keep bouncing”!

This exhibition is curated by the artists, educators, and curators Anita Bates and Tom Pyrzewski, who bring a diversity of experience and a unique sensitivity to the artworks of PASC. "It was so difficult to narrow down pieces for Electric Relaxation”, said Anita and Tom, “because almost every artwork displayed so much energy and artistic beauty.”  

This is the second of four exhibitions during a five month run in the PASC Detroit Pop-up Gallery, a gallery for adult artists with developmental disabilities and mental health needs. This gallery has been made possible through a partnership with The Vella Group, an organization that provides strategic and communications services to nonprofits, who has offered PASC their store-front to use during our five month exhibition time frame. It is also partially funded through a grant from The Michigan Arts and Cultural Council, (MACC). This is the first gallery space in Detroit dedicated to supporting artists with developmental disabilities and mental health needs. The PASC Detroit Pop-Up Gallery will run four different exhibits, each with a different curator or curatorial team, through Sept. 30.

Dr. Anita Bates is an artist, curator and educator, and a native of Highland Park, Michigan. She has exhibited in several local and international exhibitions, including the G.R. N’Namdi Gallery; The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History; Querini Stampalia Museum in Venice, Italy; and A Gathering of the Tribes Gallery in New York, NY to name a few. Anita is also a 2019 Kresge Arts Fellow. She is a Fulbright Memorial Fellow in Japanese education, holds a PhD in education, an M.F.A. in painting, and k-12 teaching certificate from Wayne State University. She also received her MA in studio art from Eastern Michigan University. Currently, Mrs. Bates serves as Assistant Professor of Teaching and Program Coordinator for Visual Art Education and the Social Sciences at Wayne State University.

Tom Pyrzewski is an artist, teacher and curator born in Detroit. Since 2010, he has served as the Director of Galleries and Special Programming at WSU, where he has juried, curated, and installed over 200 exhibitions by local, national, and international artists at WSU’s Art Galleries. He has also curated several site-specific installations and performances at external venues, including the Detroit Institute of Arts and the McGregor Memorial Conference Center, WSU.  He founded and manages MOBILE ARTS at WSU, a summer community arts program for youth in partnership with the City of Detroit. And his artwork has been featured in many local and national exhibitions. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Wayne State University (WSU), Detroit in 2017.

PASC was launched in January 2021 as the first progressive art and design studio in Detroit and Wayne County dedicated to supporting adults with developmental disabilities and mental health needs to advance independent artistic practices and individual career paths in the art and design fields. PASC runs three studios in Westland, Detroit and Southgate, Michigan, as well as a virtual art studio program, and we support over 100 artists across Wayne County. PASC is a program of Services to Enhance Potential (STEP) a non-profit service organization, founded in 1972, that provides services and supports for 1300+ individuals with disabilities and mental health issues across Southeastern Michigan.