New Formations

New Formations January 17 — March 7, 2020

All About Photo article about "New Formations" at Catherine Edelman Gallery

CATHERINE EDELMAN GALLERY OPENS THE WINTER SEASON
WITH A DYNAMIC GROUP SHOW, NEW FORMATIONS

Catherine Edelman Gallery is pleased to debut the work of international photographers Nicolás Combarro, Hannah Hughes and Lilly Lulay, alongside well-known Chicagoan, Aimée Beaubien, in New Formations. The show opens January 17 and runs through March 7, 2020. There will be an opening reception Friday, January 17 from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m. Select artists will be in attendance.

It is widely understood that the sheer quantity of photographs in our digital culture are growing exponentially. In response, more and more artists are exploring unique ways of working with photographic images. New Formations features works by four artists who are reinventing how photography is used to represent a place, object or memory. Sourcing images from a variety of archives, these artists cut, collage, weave and paint to reconstruct photographic prints. As the works become more complex, memories are fragmented, places are deconstructed, and objects are recontextualized. Situated between photography and sculpture, the works in the exhibition go beyond the content of a singular image, introducing a new visual language.

Aimée Beaubien (b. 1966, Fort Campbell, KY) is strongly influenced by her great grandmother, art history and gardens. To bring these aspects together, she weaves photographs, drapes brightly colored rope and suspends old photography books in large site-specific installations that emulate plant growth. Nicolás Combarro (b. 1979, A Coruña, Spain) paints, collages and draws on architectural photographs in his series, Spontaneous Architecture, in an effort to isolate geometric forms within structures. By focusing on these shapes, he bridges the gap between architecture and fundamental forms found in art. Hannah Hughes’ (b. 1975, Essex, United Kingdom) new series, Mirror Image, focuses on the overlooked and in-between spaces surrounding subjects found in glossy magazines. By cutting repetitive shapes from these sources, she produces small fragments of paper that is then layered, creating photographic sculptures. These new formations invert the significance of the original object while magnifying the beauty of color and form. In Lilly Lulay’s (b. 1985, Frankfurt, Germany) series Mindscapes, she creates a shattered perspective of a place by cutting and collaging found images. These works are made in response to the quantity of photographs made in cities and public spaces and the resulting collective memory they create.

New Formations includes one-of-a-kind collages, painted photographs, a large-scale site-specific installation, and video works. Together, the images reference sculpture, painting, architecture and the natural world through the visual exploration of the photograph as material.

AIMÈE BEAUBIEN

Aimée Beaubien is an artist living and working in Chicago. Her cut-up photographic collages, photo-based sculptures and installations explore collapses in time, space and place, while meditating on notions of collecting and collections. Solo and two-person exhibitions include oqbo galerie, Berlin, Germany; Gallery UNO Projektraum, Berlin, Germany; Virus Art Gallery, Rome, Italy; SIM, Reykjavik, Iceland; The Pitch Project, Milwaukee, WI; BOX 13 Artspace, Houston, TX; Johalla Projects, Chicago, IL; TWIN KITTENS, Atlanta, GA; and Demo Projects, Springfield, IL. Group exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; Bikini Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA; Lubeznik Center for the Arts, Michigan City, IN; and UCRC Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA. Her work has been reviewed in publications such as Art in America, Art on Paper, and Art Papers. Beaubien is an Assistant Professor of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL where she received her MFA in 1993.

NICOLÁS COMBARRO

Nicolás Combarro has had solo exhibitions in museums and galleries, including the Maison Européene de la Photographie (Paris), Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (Santiago de Compostela, Spain), Caixaforum (Barcelona& Madrid), Solo Galerie (Paris), Taché Gallery (Barcelona), Kawhoon Gallery (Seoul), and Pablo Gallery (Manila). Combarro’s commissioned projects include Self construction and wild growth for the Manila Biennale, Resistance Architecture I for the Spanish Embassy in Paris and Resistance Architecture II in México DF, and Born separated for the 42 International Artist Show in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. He has received grants from the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome, Laureat de la Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, as well as prizes such as the Comunidad de Madrid Prize (SUMMA), Saab Price in Photoespaña, and the Enaire Prize. He has published seven books, including Interventions (Maison Européenne de la Photographie/RM) and Spontaneous Architecture (Fundación la Caixa).

HANNAH HUGHES

Hannah Hughes (b. 1975) graduated from the University of Brighton in 1997. She has exhibited in the UK and internationally and her work has been included in the exhibitions: 'Shapely', CSA Space, (Vancouver, BC, 2011); ‘In The Future We Will All Be Modern’, Arcadia Missa, London (2014); ‘A5’, LUBOMIROV EASTON/ Platform Projects at Art Athina in Athens (2014 & 2015); 'Where One Form Began Another Ended', The Bakery Gallery, Vancouver (2016); and 'These Fingers Read Sideways', Fettes College, Edinburgh, (2018). Her work was included in the group exhibition 'Concealer' at Copeland Gallery, London as part of the 2018 Peckham 24 Festival, curated by Tom Lovelace; ‘The Momentum’ at Angus-Hughes Gallery, London, curated by Saturation Point; and ‘A Romance of Many Dimensions’ at Sid Motion Gallery in 2018. She exhibited at the 2019 Format Festival, Derby in the exhibition ‘The Office of Revised Futures’. Her work is included in an experimental publication curated by Rodrigo Orrantia titled 'Material Immaterial' launching in 2019. Her work has been published in the FT Weekend Magazine, AnOther.com, the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Journal and the British Journal of Photography.

LILLY LULAY

Born 1985 in Frankfurt, Lilly Lulay studied photography, sculpture and media sociology in Germany and France. Her works examine photography as a cultural tool that forms an integral part of daily life. Perfectly aware of today’s overproduction of images Lulay uses photographs solely as a raw material. Applying a variety of techniques, that range from laser cutting to embroidery, from installation to collage Lilly Lulay turns photographs info palpable objects. With her work she investigates on the influence that photographic media have (had) on social behavior and mechanisms of individual and collective perception. In 2012, Lilly Lulay received the Deutsche Börse-HfG photography prize, in 2013 the Künstlerhilfe Frankfurt working stipend. After her diploma in 2015 she did residencies in Istanbul, Hendaye and Santiago de Chile. 2017 she won the Olympus recommended fellowship in cooperation with Foam Amsterdam, Deichtorhallen Hamburg and Fotografie Forum Frankfurt. In 2018 she was selected for the Foam Talents programme and in 2019 she received a scholarship from Stiftung Kunstfonds. Lulay's works have been shown at Benaki Museum Athens, Goethe Institut Paris, Museum für Konkrete Kunst Ingolstadt, George Eastman Museum Rochester NY, Fondazione Fotografia di Modena, Visual Voice Gallery Montreal, and Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Frankfurt among other venues. Her works form part of public collections such as George Eastman Museum, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Art Collection DZ Bank and Artothèque's in Pessac, Peau and Limoge.

Aimée Beaubien’s Hothouse Picture-Cyclopedia, 2019 is a site-specific installation. Commissions are available. Prices range from $5000-$110,000, depending on the size and density of the installation.

Nicolas Combarro’s Spontaneous Architecture images are available as 12 x 17” pigment prints with acrylic paint or pigment prints with pen made in editions of 7 + 1AP for $1000.

Hannah Hughes Flatland Series images are available as unique 4 x 3” cut paper collages for $1500 framed. Sizes vary slightly.

Lilly Lulay’s Mindscape images are unique photographic collages available for $1700. Sizes vary. United Colors of Venice is 26¾ x 40¼” framed cut photographs made in an edition of 3 for $4200.

Sizes and prices vary. Please call: (312) 266-2350 for prices of specific pieces.
Prices are print only unless otherwise indicated.

Colorful merging of dozens of random elements and patterns — Aimée Beaubien
*Hothouse Picture-Cyclopedia*, 2019