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.

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Tags: Aimee Beaubien, Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago, Hannah Hughes, Lilly Lulay, Nicolás Combarro, West Town