Even before the sun wakes, a pair of hands has already begun shaping the day. A Hundred and One Before Sunrise reflects on the quiet, persistent labor of women—work that often unfolds before it is noticed, named, or applauded. The exhibition brings together ceramic sculptures by Jamie Bauza and textured, meditative canvases by Nicole Asares to explore the evolving roles of women within the community: as caretakers, creators, thinkers, and anchors of everyday life.
Historically perceived as home-shapers—nurturers, educators, healers, organizers—women have long carried both expectation and responsibility. While gender dynamics continue to shift, this exhibition emphasizes how women also reshape socio-cultural spaces, often through small, cumulative acts rather than grand gestures. The title gestures toward this unseen labor: the “hundred and one” tasks completed before sunrise, before the world begins to ask anything more.
Jamie Bauza’s ceramic works appear as intimate, playful figures and sets—each one a tribute to the many roles women inhabit and shed across contexts. Drawing from lived relationships and self-reflection, Bauza resists the idea of a singular, fixed purpose. Instead, her sculptures celebrate multiplicity: friends, caregivers, companions, colleagues, overthinkers, and joy-seekers coexisting within one body, one life. These characters suggest that identity is fluid, situational, and deeply relational.
In contrast yet in dialogue, Nicole Asares’ canvases unfold as densely textured, zen-like doodles mapping the interior and exterior rhythms of womanhood. Her works depict everyday rituals and life stages— moments of solitude, care, movement, and pause—layered into communal visual narratives. Each painting honors both individuality and shared experience, portraying womanhood as a collective tapestry of resilience, tenderness, and strength.
Together, Bauza and Asares offer a portrait of women not as singular archetypes, but as dynamic forces already shaping the world—quietly, persistently, and long before sunrise.
