Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville presents The Kármán Line, featuring the work of the 10 artists joining the collective in 2024. 

The Kármán line is a proposed boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space set by the international record-keeping body FAI at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers) above mean sea level. The Kármán line has no particular physical meaning, in that there is no noticeable change in the characteristics of the atmosphere across it, but is important for legal and regulatory purposes, since aircraft and spacecraft are subject to different jurisdictions and legislations.

About the Artists

Mauro Antonio Barreto fuses accident and improvisation, melodrama and anachronism, mumblecore and shoegaze, into portraits of young people that blur the line between fact and fiction. He has presented his work in solo exhibitions at The Java Project (Brooklyn, NY), Random Sample (Nashville, TN), and Spellerberg Projects (Lockhart, TX), and will participate in the Biennale for Visual and Sonic Media düsseldorf photo+ in 2024. He directs Neue Welt, a gallery in Nashville, TN.

Megan Bickel is an artist, writer, and educator working out of Louisville, Kentucky. Her work considers and utilizes various approaches and technologies such as painting, data manipulation, digital collage, database reconfiguration, and poetry. Bickel’s work has been exhibited at the Speed Art Museum (Louisville, KY), University of Chicago Logan Center (Chicago, IL), LADIES ROOM LA (Los Angeles, California), KMAC Museum (Louisville, KY), Georgetown College (Georgetown, KY), QUAPPI Projects (Louisville, KY), and the Art Academy of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, Oh).

Sterling Bowen studied art at UNCC as an undergraduate. His practice concerns itself with the possibilities of abstraction as it relates to the personal, societal and historical value of contemplation, choice and chance, and includes painting, installation work, teaching, curating and writing. He maintains a blog about his practice and those of other creatives which he finds interesting (www.paintingafterartisdead.com). During the day, Sterling works to decarbonize our built infrastructure. He is also a father of two who lives in Raleigh, NC, with his spouse.

Michael Borowski is an artist and educator based in Blacksburg, Virginia. He received an MFA from the University of Michigan and a BFA from the University of New Mexico. He works with an expanded photographic practice to examine queer space and belonging. By combining aspects of fact and fabrication, documentary and science fiction, Borowski constructs histories that were undocumented or actively repressed. His work has been exhibited in national and international venues including Candela Gallery, Virginia; Soho Photo Gallery, New York;  Site:Brooklyn Gallery, New York; The Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Colorado; the Prairie Center for the Arts, Illinois; the Czong Institute of Contemporary Art, Korea; and Espace Projet, Canada. He was awarded a fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for 2022-23, and a grant from The Graham Foundation in 2019. He is currently an Associate Professor at Virginia Tech.

Kiley Brandt is a video artist from North Carolina. In her work, Brandt attempts to inspire empathy through sound, poetry and immersive installation to better communicate dissatisfaction with the current political climate and the uncertain displacement many feel within it. Her research areas include diaspora, adoption, immigration and Mexican/American Border politics. She was a 2019 New Media Caucus: Border Control Presenter in Ann Arbor, Michigan and currently teaches as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art - Digital Media at Clemson University, SC.

John Cummings is currently a Lecturer of Art at Clemson University in Clemson, SC. He was first exposed to atmospheric firing practices at University of Southern Indiana where he earned a B.S. in Studio Art. He completed his MFA at the University of Mississippi where he developed a passion for wood firing. Following graduate school John spent three years in Omaha, NE working as an artist assistant for Jun Kaneko. He began his career in higher education as an Adjunct Professor at UNC-Asheville, where he continued to develop his studio practice. Over his career he has exhibited work both nationally and internationally. His work is currently included in the collections of the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science, the University of Southern Indiana, and among private collectors.

J. Alex Schechter is a sculptor based out of Greenville, SC. Alex holds a BA in Religious studies from Grinnell College and an MFA in Sculpture from The Maryland Institute College of Art. He has shown both Nationally and Internationally, including solo and two person shows at Flux Factory (New York, NY), Peep Projects (Philadelphia, PA), Terrault Contemporary (Baltimore, MD) and Millersville University (Millersville, PA), and group shows with Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), Good Children Gallery (New Orleans, LA), Dodomu Gallery (New York, NY), The Sculptors Alliance (New York, NY), and the Baltimore Creative Alliance (Baltimore, MD). He has created installations for The City of Las Vegas, The Atlanta Beltline (Atlanta, GA), and Mildred’s Lane (Narrowsburg, NY) and has given talks and performances at Bowdoin College, Auburn University, the Walters Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of Pennsylvania.

Schechter is currently an Assistant Professor at Clemson University.

Joseph Smolin is a painter and multimedia artist. He has shown work at Artistry Gallery and Modal among others, and has an exhibition forthcoming at the Metropolitan Arts Council. His duo show with Virginia Russo, Invisible Planet, was created for the main gallery at the Greenville Center for Creative Arts. He co-founded and contributes to the nonprofit art magazine Rattlesnake. When he’s not painting, Smolin takes pride in building community as a curator, live painter, and teacher. He currently lives and works in Greenville, SC.

Leah Smolin is a writer and curator. She serves as Editor-in-Chief of the art magazine Rattlesnake and co-curated the immersive exhibitions Candy Machine and HERE ON OUT. You can read her story “The Hundred Year Period” online in X-R-A-Y Magazine. As a curator, she is interested in performance art, world building, Fluxus, assemblage, art-fashion, maximalism, space-within-a-space, miniature art, text art, and immersive installation.

Michael Webster responds to the social organization of space through site-specific projects, sculpture, and lens-based media. He has participated in residencies at ChaNorth, Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, Elsewhere Living Museum, and Penland School of Craft. He was the runner-up for the 2023 SouthArts Southern Prize and was selected as the South Carolina State Fellow. Exhibitions include the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum, 701 Center for Contemporary Art, Locust Projects, and the LIVLAB Watershed Space at Western Carolina University. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from East Carolina University and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.