Yvette Kaiser-Smith: On seeing: one point
@ Ignition Project Space
3839 W Grand Ave, Chicago, IL 60651
Opening Saturday, April 6th, from 6PM - 9PM
On view through Saturday, April 27th
Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1958, Yvette Kaiser Smith currently lives in Chicago. Her 1990 BFA with a focus in sculpture and photography from Southern Methodist University in Dallas includes the Yale Norfolk Summer Program. A full-time artist since receiving an MFA in sculpture in 1994 from University of Chicago, exhibitions abroad include: U.S. Embassies in Moscow, Ankara, and Abuja; National Art Museum of China in Beijing; alternative galleries in London, Rome, Berlin, and Jena Germany; and the 2010 Berliner Liste art fair. Working with art consulting firms, galleries, and individual clients to create site-specific commissions since 2005, recent public commissions include: Facebook Chicago; Eastman Chemical Company, Kingsport, TN; San Diego Manchester Hyatt; and University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Lincoln Hall. Awards include Illinois Arts Council’s Artist Fellowship Award, Governor’s International Arts Exchange Grant, City of Chicago CAAP Grants, and 2018 Chicago DCASE IAP Grant.
From the artist:
Sitting in rush hour traffic, often just before entering or many times within an underpass, I began noticing Chicago’s geometry, and then framing geometric abstraction in square and rectangular formats from the driver’s seat of my truck. As an extension of this ongoing series dubbed Random Acts of Urban Geometry, I developed an obsession with Lake Street and the extreme vanishing point anchored by the elevated Green Line tracks.
Probably because, as an artist, I have had processed hundreds if not thousands of 35mm slides, photographs as records of inventory, and that the iPhone image files limit scale of possible print, and that I am currently working with laser-cut acrylic, reference to film, slide mounts and/or negative carriers became the starting point of presentation for this project. As artists, no matter where we go (within our studio practice) there we are. As sculptor, I needed to push these, just over the line, into the realm of sculptural objects, not simply framed photographs. As artist, I always gravitate towards transparency. I transitioned from translucent crocheted fiberglass, to drawings on matte and clear Dura-Lar, to laser-cut translucent or transparent acrylic sheet, to presenting photographic images on clear acrylic and transparency film.
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Tags: Chicago, Ignition project space, Illinois, On seeing: one point, West Town, Yvette Kaiser Smith
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