‘Fields of Snakes’ opens at Standard Space, exploring collaboration and transformation

Artist and Standard Space founder Theo Coulombe and Eve Biddle, artist and co-executive director of The Wassaic Project, share a fascination with land, body and transformation. Their recent collaboration is culminating in “Fields of Snakes,” opening at Standard Space in Sharon on Nov. 8.

The exhibit features new large-format landscapes by Coulombe alongside a collaborative body of work: photographs of Biddle’s ceramic sculptures placed within the very landscapes Coulombe captures.

Collaboration is central to both artists’ creative lives. Coulombe opened Standard Space in 2017 after decades in Brooklyn’s photography scene and has built the gallery into a space known for its collaborative spirit and sharp curatorial eye. For Biddle, collaboration is practically a medium in itself.

“I love his work,” Biddle said of Coulombe. “It’s so fun to collaborate with someone who thinks about the same things — about land and our physical relationship with land, and our body and looking and appreciating our local beautiful landscape.”

For Coulombe, the process of working with his 8x10 Deardorff camera — a slow, meditative tool — shapes both the work and his relationship to his subjects.

“You become part of the camera,” he writes in his artist statement. “You use a dark cloth and look at the ground glass on the back of — not through — the camera. You become an interior of the eye. You’re upside down and backward… the composition and the groundlessness is the canvas.”

That attentiveness to the natural world complements Biddle’s sculptural practice, which often explores the body and transformation through form and myth.

“The snake is really a symbol of resiliency,” she explained, “our ability to let things go in our lives — to still be the same people but shed what we don’t need. It’s more a metaphor for death and our contemporary experience as humans in our landscape.”

To create the work in Fields of Snakes, Biddle handed her sculptures to Coulombe with complete trust.

“It was all Theo,” she said. “I lent him the pieces and was like, ‘go nuts.’ That’s one of the fun things about collaborating successfully — really leaning into the expertise and skill set of the people you’re collaborating with.”

This show marks Biddle’s first exhibition at Standard Space. “I’ve been a huge admirer of Theo’s program,” she says. “There’s been wonderful overlap between his program and the Wassaic Project. He’s been really open and kind about those connections.”

For both artists, collaboration is a natural extension of how they move through the art world. Biddle describes her practice — from co-founding the Wassaic Project to making ceramics, curating, and building community — as “a big radical collaboration.”

“I don’t love working alone,” she said. “It’s important as creatives to recognize what drains us and what feeds us.”

And because no opening at Standard Space is complete without a touch of community celebration, there will also be a dance party after the opening at Le Gamin.

“We’ll have some purchasable wares as well,” said Coulombe, “like t-shirts, ceramics, and jewelry.”

Coulombe was referring to Biddle’s new limited-edition merch release. T-shirts and sweatshirts will be available only at Standard Space on opening day. They will be available later at the Wassaic Project Winter Wonderland Market which takes place the first two weekends in December.

Fields of Snakes is the 58th exhibition at Standard Space, but in many ways it is a new chapter — a show about reciprocity, risk and the creative ecosystems that emerge when artists trust one another.

As Biddle put it: “I really believe in bringing my full self to whatever I’m doing… and this show feels like a natural extension of that.”