What is my work about?
My recent projects attempt to embody the fundamental process of change that is the present moment. The work takes the form of modular, large-scale, woven panels that map walls, floors and entire rooms. Within and across the panels colors mutate, fade and intensify, seeming to hover just above the surfaces of the room like a prism, a landscape or a flickering screen. Simultaneously delineating and destabilizing existing architectures, the work materializes the unseen shifts of light and air as the viewer moves through space.
Artist Statement
I am interested in making works that amplify and describe the physical moment, while simultaneously enacting the unseen, psychic experience of moving through space and time. I am attempting to create a location that shifts restlessly between these exterior and interior modes of perceptual experience.
Using paper, which I screen-print, cut and weave by hand, I create modular panels that are laid directly onto floors, walls and entire rooms, both mapping and modifying the experience of the architecture. I utilize the process of weaving as a meditative and malleable building block, infinitely expandable and modular in its construction. Anni Albers described weaving as a kind of portable architecture, and in my own work the over-under stitch of the paper creates a “fabric” strong enough to be moved and rearranged in different locations, while flexible enough to conform to the contours of any room.
Inherently porous, weaving creates an uneasy equilibrium between presence and absence, material and non-material. In pieces such as Coverer and Waver, woven panels stretch over and across the surfaces of a room, but are also perceptually wedded to them, as the walls and floors are as much of a visual presence as the assembled strips of paper. The interlocking warp and weft of each panel forms a grid, recalling the rigorous, generative language of minimalist and conceptual art. These grids reveal the trace of their making, as the delicate nature of the paper and the vagaries of the hand cause them to wobble at various points.
The colors are printed according to a preordained system, based on the order of the visible color spectrum. The nature of weaving, however, creates complications that cannot be controlled as the colors overlap and interact. Because the material exists in perspectival space, the colors seem to mutate and transform as the viewer moves in and around the pieces.
This perceptual ambiguity allows the work to function as a sort of prism or net or pixilated plane that catches and disperses the molecules of the space. The dissipation of spatial groundedness alters the experience of the room; the white cube of the gallery seems to move, even as the viewer stays in place. In this way the work simultaneously delineates and destabilizes existing architectures, materializing the unseen shifts of light and air.
CV
Education
2000
MFA, Studio Arts, University of Illinois at Chicago
1998
BFA, Painting, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Solo Exhibitions
2014
Coverer, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT (brochure)
Selected Group Exhibitions
2014
Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC (catalog)
Created in Company: An Exhibition of LMCC Residents, Convene, New York, NY
2013
Editions ’13, Lower Eastside Printshop, New York, NY (catalog)
Published by the Artist, International Print Center New York, NY
2012
Textility, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ (catalog)
Published by the Artist, International Print Center New York, NY
Workspace Open Studios, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY
New Prints 2012/Summer, International Print Center New York, NY, selected by Shahzia Sikander
2011
Bronx Calling: The First AIM Biennial, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY (catalog)
Through the Warp, Regina Rex, Queens, NY
Keyed, Lower East Side Printshop, New York, NY
An Exchange with Sol LeWitt, Mass MoCA and Cabinet Magazine, Brooklyn, NY (catalog)
2010
New Prints 2010/Autumn, International Print Center New York, New York, NY (traveled to Visual Arts Center, University of Texas, Austin)
Paper Scope, Lower East Side Printshop, New York, NY
2005
Into the Midst, Mixture Contemporary, Houston, TX, curated by Scott Wolniak
2003
Gilded Lily, 1R Gallery, Chicago, IL
The Stray Show 3 at 1R Gallery, Chicago, IL
Subtle, Not So Subtle, 1R Gallery, Chicago, IL, curated by Kirsten Stoltmann
2001
The Stray Show at Suitable Gallery, Chicago, IL
Hedge, Suitable Gallery, Chicago, IL (solo)
2000
Redo, Standard Gallery, Chicago, IL
Off Site, Great Space, Chicago, IL
Libidinal, TBA Space, Chicago, IL (catalog), curated by Susan Sensemann
The Good Show, Gallery 400, Chicago, IL
1999
New Artists, Union League Club, Chicago, IL
Cross Currents 2, Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow, Scotland (catalog)
1998
Cross Currents 1, I space Gallery, Chicago, IL
New Works, Arts Coalition Gallery, Champaign, IL
Awards and Residencies
2014
Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, The Space Program
2012
Special Editions Residency, Lower Eastside Printshop, New York, NY
2011
Workspace Residency Program, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), New York
Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) Program, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY
2000
University Fellowship for Graduate Study, University of Illinois at Chicago
1999
Navona Fellowship for Graduate Study, University of Illinois at Chicago
Visual Arts Scholarship, Union League Civic and Arts Foundation, Chicago, IL
1998
Mary C. McLellan Scholarship for Independent Study, University of Illinois at Champaign
Allie D. Hughston-Enochs Scholarship in Art, University of Illinois at Champaign
Visiting Artist and Lectures
2014
Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT (in conjunction with Coverer)
2012
State University of New York, Purchase, School of Art and Design (Visiting Artist)
New York University, Steinhardt School of Art (Visiting Artist)
Visual Arts Center of New Jersey (in conjunction with Textility)
2011
The Bronx Museum of the Arts (in conjunction with The First AIM Biennial)
Bibliography
2014
Ehrenberg, Erica. Coverer, Hartford, CT: Real Art Ways (brochure)
2013
Cullen, Deborah. Editions ’13, New York, NY: Lower Eastside Printshop. (catalog)
2012
Birmingham, Mary. Textility, Summit, NJ: Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. (catalog)
2011
Goings On About Town. The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The New Yorker, August 15, 2011, p.15.
Hiemstra, Graham, Through the Warp, coolhunting.com, June 8, 2011
Northcross, Wayne and Ruiz, Jose. Bronx Calling: The First AIM Biennial.
Bronx, New York: The Bronx Museum of the Arts. (catalog)
Basha, Regine. An Exchange with Sol Lewitt. Brooklyn, NY: Cabinet Books. (catalog)
2000
Gitlen, Laurel. Redo at Standard Gallery, Ten by Ten, Vol. 1 no. 2, p.47.
Sensemann, Susan. Libidinal. Chicago, IL: Contemporary Arts Council. (catalog)
1998
Spector, Buzz. Cross Currents. Chicago, IL and Glasgow Scotland:I space Gallery. (catalog)