April 30 – May 24, 2026

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 2nd, 2pm – 4pm

In Joe’s Lounge

ROSE STARDUST | Art, Wit, and Other Coping Mechanisms

When the world starts to feel absurd, we have art to hold us. This exhibition in Joe’s Lounge moves through a familiar rhythm, from a symbolic morning of hope, to a night marked by doubt, and everything in between. It follows the ways we cope, make sense of things, and keep going, even when nothing quite adds up. Creativity runs through the work as both a lifeline and inquiry. Engaging with art – getting our hands dirty, our minds solving problems – is not just a way to get through. It’s a way of working with what’s unresolved, and looking a little closer, with intention. It’s therapy and escape, all at once. Stardust’s paintings carry a dream-like, contemporary relic quality. Strong shapes sit alongside distressed, shifting atmospheres, built layer upon layer, holding both clarity and erosion at once.

Rose Stardust is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, printmaking, and narrative-based systems. Her work explores creativity as both artifact and mechanism, often taking the form of contemporary relics that appear to originate from unclear timelines. These works balance precision and erosion, structure and intuition, suggesting fragments of a larger system not fully disclosed. Her practice is informed by a background spanning design, material-based work, and creative education, along with early immersion in a non-standard learning environment that shaped her interest in perception, pattern, and non-linear thinking.