The Evanston Art Center (EAC) is proud to present a new exhibition, Drifting Inside Traditions, featuring the work of Yvette Kaiser Smith.

Yvette Kaiser Smith is an artist who uses numbers. Employing sequences from numbers pi or e, she creates wall-based, occasionally ceiling-hung, geometric abstractions, where values of digits direct a composition’s formal structure: placement of line and shape, color relationships, number of elements within a pattern.

Kaiser Smith’s recent mixed-media, fiber-based works drift through multiple art forms in varying degrees. They may allude to painting, drawing, or tapestry. They combine languages of sculpture, embroidery, and weaving.

The global chaos of 2020 forced a shift in Kaiser Smith’s studio practice. In reaction to Covid lockdowns concurrent with widening divisions within our society, she began combining acrylic sheet scraps left over from previous projects with found paper gift bags, later with industrial felts, and incorporating embroidery stitches, using a variety of yarns and threads.

Kaiser Smith explores simple and direct ways of combining polyester and acrylic felts with acrylic sheet scraps, to create cohesive, uniquely interconnected communities, as slow stitching, a traditional craft element found across cultures and time, binds the two together and claims status as a third and equal element of the new body.

In combining dissimilar materials and multiple material and technique languages, this work challenges our
perception of differences. It asks viewers to consider whether we see diversity as a hard difference that
leads to the notion of otherness, or as variation within a unified group, others as part of us.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Yvette Kaiser Smith was born in Soviet-occupied Prague, Czechoslovakia, Yvette Kaiser Smith has resided in Chicago since 1991. She holds a BFA from Southern Methodist University, which includes a fellowship at Yale School
of Art Summer Program, and an MFA in sculpture from the University of Chicago.

Kaiser Smith has exhibited at regional museums, art centers, and university galleries throughout the United States. Exhibitions abroad include U.S. Embassies in Moscow, Ankara, and Abuja; the National Art Museum of China in
Beijing; alternative galleries in London, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, Jena – Germany, and Veliko Tarnovo – Bulgaria; art fairs in Berlin, Luxembourg, and Milan; also Bridges Mathematical Art Exhibitions in Linz and Stockholm.

Kaiser Smith created site-specific commissions for Facebook Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Rosewood Hotel Abu Dhabi and PricewaterhouseCoopers in NYC, among other clients. She has been awarded residencies at Ragdale Foundation and ARV.International in Vishovgrad, Bulgaria.

Yvette Kaiser Smith: Drifting Inside Traditions will be on display in the Fston Art Center’s Second Floor Atrium Gallery from July 16 – August 14, 2022, with an opening reception on Sunday, July 17 from 1-4pm. The exhibition and opening reception are free and open to the public. This project is partially funded by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and EAC’s general membership.

Evanston Art Center, a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization, is dedicated to fostering the appreciation and expression of the arts among diverse audiences. The Art Center offers extensive and innovative instruction in broad areas of artistic endeavor through classes, exhibitions, interactive arts activities, and community outreach initiatives.

Evanston Art Center is located at 1717 Central Street, Evanston, IL. Evanston Art Center Gallery Hours: Monday– Friday, 9am–6pm; Saturday and Sunday, 9am–4pm. First and second floor gallery spaces are accessible. Limited free parking is available. Masks are optional but strongly recommended for students, visitors, and staff.

For more information, please visit us online at www.evanstonartcenter.org or Audrey Avril, Manager of Exhibitions, at 847.475.5300 or aavril@evanstonartcenter.org. Visit the Evanston Art Center on Facebook: www.facebook.com/EvanstonArtCenter/, follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/#!/evartcenter, or on Instagram: @EvanstonArtCenter.

YVETTE KAISER SMITH: DRIFTING INSIDE TRADITIONS

EXHIBITION DATES: July 16 – August 14, 2022
OPENING RECEPTION: Sunday, July 17 from 1-4pm
GALLERY HOURS: Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm; Saturday and Sunday, 9am–4pm

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