SOFT SPOT
Meg Howton, Bethany Moody, Shori Sims
September 12–27, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, September 12, 5–7 pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, September 27, 3 pm
Ground Floor Contemporary is thrilled to present Soft Spot, an exhibition of new works by Meg Howton, Bethany Moody, and Shori Sims.
Meg Howton is a mixed-media artist with a background in ceramics. Her work challenges conventional notions of beauty through unconventional means, employing both found and crafted materials to create sculptures that evoke comfort and explore visually tactile experiences. The interplay of color and texture in Howton’s sculptures achieves a harmonious visual coherence that draws viewers into a compelling sensory experience. Howton holds a BFA in Ceramics and Photography from the University of Alabama and completed a post-baccalaureate program at the University of Florida before earning her MFA in Ceramics from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Currently based in Tuscaloosa, Howton serves as an Instructor of Ceramics at The University of Alabama.
Bethany Moody (she/they) is an educator and interdisciplinary artist who processes locally sourced, reclaimed textile materials primarily through craft-based sculptural methods. Through forms that recall bodies, toys, tools, and fixtures, Moody troubles the binaries of surplus/waste, labor/pleasure, fluidity/rigidity, and function/form. Born and raised in central Alabama, Moody received her BFA from the University of Montevallo and her MFA from the University at Buffalo, SUNY. The Gadsden Museum of Art, The Old Bailey Gallery, and COOP Gallery have recently held solo exhibitions of their work. In addition to other grants and awards, Moody is the recipient of the 2025 Individual Artist Fellowship in Craft from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Currently, Moody is an Instructor of Foundations at The University of Alabama.
Shori Sims is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Birmingham, AL. Their work interrogates our increasingly tectonic identities, dreams as alternative spaces to make meaning, the slippage between human and cyborg carnalities under capitalism, and the body as a vessel that carries many selves. Driven by a desire for understanding, Sims’ videos and multimedia installations utilize objects as symbolic vessels that support storytelling, unlocking unique mental associations when placed in relationship to one another and the moving image. Sims received their BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in Sculpture. Recent and forthcoming exhibitions of Sims’ work have taken place both nationally and internationally, including at Warbling gallery (London), RUN Gallery (Toronto), and more recently at the University of Northern Michigan and NADA LES in the US.
Image: Shori Sims, Untitled (Blue Portrait), 2022, single-channel video