What It Takes To Stay
Hayley Peisher
Lindsey J. Richards
Katelina Coyle
11 April – 3 May 2026
Saturdays 12 – 5 pm
or by appointment
Opening Party: April 18th, 5 – 8 pm
What It Takes To Stay brings together three artists navigating an ever-changing world, each focusing on what it means to remain resilient in the face of uncertainty. Through distinct approaches to identity, the work creates raw, evocative imagery that reflects the complexities of chronic illness, memory of place & time, queerness and systemic constraints. The exhibition embraces these themes while also reminding us of the ephemeral nature of our existence and the importance of stepping into the present moment.
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Hayley Peisher (b. 2000, Phelps, NY) is an artist whose large-scale paintings and prints draw from lived experiences with chronic illness and disability, foregrounding gaps in care and treatment within the American healthcare system. Hayley’s self portrait alongside her piece titled It's Heaven up there?, captures the threshold between the conscious and the unconscious, life and death. Exploring what is last seen when one receives sedatives, losing complete control of the body and mind leaving it vulnerable.
Lindsey J. Richards’s (b. 2000, Syracuse NY) practice combines painting and installation to create immersive, atmospheric environments that transport viewers into darkened, yet contemplative spaces. Her work engages landscapes shaped by unsettled memory and psychological haunting. In What It Takes To Stay, her work unfolds as a gestural, atmospheric landscape. Incorporating natural foraged materials into the paint medium, she extends the painted surface beyond the canvas and into the viewer’s physical environment. Themes of chaos, decay and the unknown operate as persistent spatial forces, shaping perception and embodiment while evoking an awareness of our impermanence.
Katelina Coyle (b. 2001, Phoenix, Arizona) is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in relief painting, sculpture, and installation. Her current work explores queerness, migrant identity, xenofeminism, and desire, creating vibrant, immersive worlds populated by adorned and distorted forms that devalue conventional notions of the natural and social order. Through bright, playful colors and three-dimensional interventions, Coyle invites viewers to step inside her utopian spaces, encouraging fun, vulnerability, connection, and solidarity among marginalized communities. Coyle’s large-scale sculptural wall installation, The Rift, decorated with mirrors and slugs invites viewers to interact with the work and view themself in a realm of freedom and whimsy, breaking from the familiar.
This exhibition is presented by Syracuse University’s LA Turner Semester Residency Program and made possible through the generous support of Marylin’s Turner Ginsburg Klaus & Chuck Klaus and Syracuse University’s School of Art.
Syracuse University’s L.A. Turner Semester Residency Program is a semester- long career development opportunity for MFA Graduate Students in the School of Art to come to Los Angeles to live and work for a semester. Designed specifically to develop and employ essential professional practices in the arts, this program aims to serve as the critical bridge between academia and a professional career as an artist.