Edelman Projects Presents: Fred Stonehouse / Tim Tate May 6 — July 9, 2011

Edelman Projects Presents is a new initiative at CEG that will showcase work we really love that is outside the photographic medium.

Fred StoneHouse
Wisconsin based artists Fred Stonehouse is well known to Chicagoans for his eccentric paintings of crying animals, morphed creatures and tomato-head people. In his newest series, he introduces us to the story of Marsh Baby, a character which haunts the waters of Stonehouse’s wetlands. As the artist states:

I have re-imagined the marsh as the center of a world in which primal dramas are played out.  “Marshland” is a mysterious and murky zone where the intricacies of the human mind and personal psychologies are made manifest in a range of characters drawn from extant folklore and myth, and from the waking dream of the marsh itself.

In Found we see a human head, its face comprised of crying eyes, atop an eagles body splayed before the approaching waters; In Marsh Diver we see an anthropomorphic being rising from the waters with fish in his mouth; In Lost we see a red faced human octopus, swallowing its own tentacles. In Stonehouse’s world, creatures mutate into unknown souls trying to find their way through the weeds. It is a magical world which forces us to suspend our belief in reality and enter a world of fantasy where humans and animals are not who they seem.

Tim Tate
Tim Tate is the co-founder of the Washington Glass School located in Mt. Ranier, MD, where he creates electronic reliquaries – hybrid works which combine cast glass, found objects and videos. His newest series tackles 21st c. Sideshows, and features an eco-mutant, a woman with two left feet, and a yoga strongman.

In A Man with No Heart (But Still with a Burning Desire) the top finial shows a cast glass hand holding a cast glass human heart. Inside the vitrine is a sideshow poster and people standing before a man holding a door, which opens into his chest, showing a video of a flickering flame; In Man with a Devil on his Back the top finial has a devil sitting atop a man’s head. Inside the globe a man is plagued by a devil who is trying to distract him, while the video shows a man continually trying to catch the devil looking over his shoulder. Tim Tate creates cultural specimens entombed in glass, preserving a history which is both amusing yet foreboding.