NORTH MANHEIM TWP. — A genre-spanning art exhibition that “unpacks the anxiety in the beautiful” will be on display at Cabin Contemporary, an art gallery outside of Schuylkill Haven.
Cabin Contemporary — a small shed along Manheim Road that rotates art exhibits throughout the year — is set to open for the season with a new collection called “Content Contact,” which will run April 6 to May 18.
An ambitious and challenging collection, “Content Contact” features unnerving portraits of bikini-clad girls, an animated poem, abstract acrylic paintings and a series of paper-and-wire sculptures. Multiple mediums, themes and styles — made by local and international artists — are represented in 10 works that, as the curator puts it, form a “delicate darkness.”
Alternatively, the works suggest an “uncanny warmth with a drafty hole in the conceptual fabric where the angst gets in,” said gallery owner Lance Rautzhan.
Cabin Contemporary in North Manheim Twp., pictured Monday, March 31, 2025. An exhibit called “Content Contact” will run April 6-May 18 at Cabin Contemporary. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR)
All of the artwork in “Content Contact” will be up for sale starting Sunday. An opening reception will be held from 2 to 8 p.m., with three of the artists in attendance. Light refreshments will be provided at the BYOB event.
Rautzhan, a multidisciplinary artist and educator, established Cabin Contemporary in June 2022. The project space focuses on installation, new media, painting and outsider art, with an emphasis on certain art styles and artists not typically shown in the region, according to Rautzhan.
Art styles
The strange, apprehensive mood conveyed in “Content Contact” is perhaps best shown in Marissa Graziano’s paintings “Ellie,” “Charlotte” and “Harper,” which portray three young girls with mysterious, solemn expressions.
“These are beautiful paintings, but there’s something eerie, something uncanny about (the girls) that’s not quite right,” Rautzhan said.
Meanwhile, local artist Maria Stabio has contributed two colorful, epic-abstract paintings called “Creation Myth (02)” and “Crack & Sky (07).” Stabio is the owner of Bischoff Inn, a former furniture factory in Tamaqua that she converted into a boutique hotel and artist residency.
“(These paintings) are all about connecting with my family and heritage — my mom is from the Philippines,” Stabio said. “So, that’s what the general overall subject matter is, but each painting has a little more specific content to it.”
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Various pieces of art hang on display at Cabin Contemporary in North Manheim Twp., Monday, March 31, 2025. The exhibition called “Content Contact” will open April 6. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR)
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Marissa Craziano’s “Charlottte” looks out into the space at Cabin Contemporary, Monday, March 31, 2025. An exhibit including “Charlotte” will begin April 6. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR)
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Jill Odegaard’s “Interiors and Edges” made of wire and handmade paper neatly fits into the corner at Cabin Contemporary in North Manheim Twp., Monday, March 31, 2025. An exhibit featuring the work will open April 6. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR)
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Maria Stabio’s “Creation Myth (02)” hangs on the wall at Cabin Contemporary in North Manheim Twp., Monday, March 31, 2025. “Creation Myth (02)” will be included in an exhibit opening April 6 at the Contemporary Cabin. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR)
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Lance Rautzhan, owner of Cabin Contemporary, speaks about an upcoming exhibit called “Content Contact,” pictured Monday, March 31, 2025. The exhibit will open April 6. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR)
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Various pieces of art hang on display at Cabin Contemporary in North Manheim Twp., Monday, March 31, 2025. The exhibition called “Content Contact” will open April 6. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR)
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In “Creation Myth,” Stabio explores Philippine “creation myths” of people who are born fully formed from eggs and from stalks of bamboo.
Lee Gingold, a Melbourne-based filmmaker and animator, explores the nuances of language and love in “Words of Love,” a three-minute animated poem he created in 2021.
In the video, Gingold explains that since the word “love” encompasses innumerable meanings and situations, he set out to coin new words describing different kinds of love. These include “kachottle,” or the love for a cat or a dragon; “abloabla,” a love that feels peaceful and calm; “sol-fiffy,” the act of loving oneself; and “fo-fofilou,” the love that forgives and forgets.
The video ends with a redefinition of love itself — in Gingold’s view, the word means a love of every living creature on Earth, whether human, animal, insect or plant.
Rautzhan sees the video as a sly commentary on society’s constant struggle to express itself and communicate in the face of the vast possibilities of language.
“It’s about love and carries a very positive message, but there’s also something in it,” he said. “You’re gonna take a concept that’s so big like that, and have to break it down with brand new words just because you can’t figure it out. That, to me, is the dark side of it. We can’t figure out how to welcome each other, so we’ve got to make up other words about what it’s like to do it in different ways.”
Jill Odegaard, a professor and the chair of the art department at Cedar Crest College, created a series of handmade paper and wire structures called “Traced,” “Traces” and “Interiors and Edges.”
Rautzhan describes the pieces as “systematic yet irregular,” exploring a dialogue between edges and interiors and reminding viewers of “the fragility of our psychic and physical, individual and social structures.”
Having curated more than a dozen collections at Cabin Contemporary since it first opened in summer 2022, Rautzhan said he is proud of — and a little surprised — by everything he’s been able to accomplish at the gallery.
Rautzhan plans to follow up “Content Contact” with three more exhibitions this year.
He noted that in addition to locals, the gallery regularly draws visitors from across the region and from outside Pennsylvania.
“My hope from the beginning,” he said, “was to get some people to come here and see something different — without traveling to New York or Philadelphia or Boston, or anywhere.”
Prices for the artwork in “Content Contact” range from $75 to $3,800. The price for Gingold’s “Words of Love” will be available on request.
Cabin Contemporary is open by appointment only; to contact the gallery, email cabincontemporary@gmail.com.
For more updates, check out the gallery’s Instagram page @cabin_contemporary or visit www.cabincontemporary.art.