Out of Body
New works by Mary Hill, Joseph Madrigal, and Lauren Ruth
Curated by Kate Sierzputowski

Out of Body presents three artists who utilize the forms and fetishization of the human body, both directly and indirectly, to create narratives that push past the literal into a more suggestive, metaphysical space. Each of these artists incorporates differently scaled versions of familiar anatomies as a starting point to connect to their larger, respective concerns.

Mary Hill imbeds appendage and obelisk-like shapes into her sculptures to investigate ideas of societally skewed power and law. Worn carpet creates a muted field behind a drooping silicone-cast object as scented wax figures in scents such as “Dream” and “Sunset” stand erect beneath glass. This translucent weight attempts to crush the wax figures bound by its oppression, while an air of failed nostalgia haunts the nearby fleshy, flaccid object.

Joseph Madrigal’s narrative-imbued sculptures are ones that suggest domesticity and play. Focusing on ceramic processes, Madrigal interrogates the imagined spaces of the human body in either action or consequence, presenting pieces that escape their traditional roles in either the body or home.

Lauren Ruth builds interactive sculptures that playfully engage a public audience in a private moment, stretching the scale of particular bodily attributes. Through grand gestures and the replication of enlarged forms, Ruth seeks to imitate what is innately human, encouraging the audience to communicate with the disembodied parts through participatory actions rather than passive observation.

Artist Bios:

Mary Hill is an artist living and working in Los Angeles. Her work uses the sculptural languages of Modernism and Minimalism to grapple with differing configurations of bodies and power. She has exhibited with Underdonk in Brooklyn, Vox Populi in Philadelphia, and with the Torrance Art Museum, Commonwealth & Council, Vacancy, and the Hammer Museum in LA. Hill has participated in residencies at the Shandaken Project, ACRE, Anderson Ranch, and Ox-Bow. She holds an MFA from CalArts, attended the Mountain School of Arts, and is currently a Fellow at the Art and Law Program in NYC.

Joseph Madrigal currently lives in Decorah, Iowa and is an Assistant Professor of Art at Luther College teaching courses in both ceramics and sculpture. He received his B.F.A. from Miami University of Ohio concentrating in both painting and ceramics and received his M.F.A in ceramics from Illinois State University. Madrigal’s work centers on clay while extending into other materials and processes including common construction materials such as plywood, insulation foam, plastics, along with domestic processes and materials like knitting and yarn and found utilitarian objects. Creating sculpture and installation with material and object sensitivity, Madrigal’s work occupies the imaginative space between the lived body and the spaces and objects encountered therein.

Lauren Ruth is a multidisciplinary artist and Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the California State University, Chico. Ruth has exhibited at venues including the Corcoran College of Art + Design, the Delaware Contemporary, Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville, Coop Gallery in Nashville, and Root Division in San Francisco. Ruth’s artistic collaboration, The Shaft, has performed across the country at venues including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Soap Factory in Minneapolis, and the Koban Project in Baltimore. Ruth has been an artist in residence at ACRE Projects, Cannonball, Oxbow, and the Recycled Artist in Residency. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BA in Studio Art from Dartmouth College.

Curator Bio:

Kate Sierzputowski is a freelance writer and curator based in Chicago. Fascinated by artists’ studio processes, she founded the website INSIDE\WITHIN to physically explore and archive the creative spaces of Chicago’s emerging and established artists. In addition to running INSIDE\WITHIN, Kate also contributes art writing to Hyperallergic, Colossal, and the Chicago Reader, is a co-director of the artist-run space Julius Caesar, is a 2017-2018 ACRE curatorial fellow, and regularly collaborates with Mary Eleanor Wallace at her space Tusk.

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition) was founded in 2010 with the ambition to provide the arts community with an affordable, cooperative, and dialogue-oriented residency program. The residency itself takes place each summer in rural southwest Wisconsin and brings together artists from across disciplines and levels of experience to create a regenerative community of cultural producers. Over the course of the following year ACRE endeavors to further support its residents by providing venues for exhibitions, idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.

ACRE Projects welcomes all gender expressions and features gender neutral bathrooms. ACRE’s space is ADA Accessible. Please contact Kate Bowen (exhibitions@acreresidency.org) if you require additional accessibility information.

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Tags: ACRE, Chicago, Joseph Madrigal, KATE SIERZPUTOWSKI, Lauren Ruth, Lower West Side, Mary Hill, Out of Body