North Branch Projects Presents
Triad Myriad
Exhibition Opening & Reception
Saturday, March 24, 2012
6:00 p.m. – 12 Midnight

North Branch Projects
3550 W. Lawrence
Chicago, IL 60625

Chicago, IL – North Branch Projects is pleased to present Triad Myriad, an exhibition of recent work by Katie Chung, Amy Sinclair, and Jon Ten Brink. Triad Myriad came into fruition though the collaboration of three interns at North Branch Projects, a community bookbinding facility in Albany Park. Through the common use of sketchbooks, the artists discovered similarities in their work, including repetition and simple mark-making. Their interest in exploring the relationship between the interpersonal and intrapersonal languages of visual representation led to the formation of this exhibition. The artists will display fragments of their sketchbooks in the bindery, offering viewers a glimpse into their intrapersonal journeys, which in turn will foster interpersonal dialogue with the public.

An artist-led discussion and workshop on bookbinding and the development of sketchbook pages will be held at North Branch Projects on Saturday, March 31, 2012, from 1-3 p.m. Workshops are $10 for participants, with a $5 discount for Albany Park residents. Registration is done through email correspondence at northbranchprojects@gmail.com and payment can be done via PayPal on North Branch Projects’ web site: www.nothbranchprojects.com.

Individual Statements:

Katie Chung: As a student studying graphic design, I am always looking at my work as a problem solving process. In this project however, I was given the freedom to utilize a gallery space with two peers. After discussing general themes we would share, I understood the problem that I needed to solve: how can you produce a piece that has no restrictions but still cohere with your peers’ work? Communicating with the artists veered me towards the direction of exaggerating my styles of mark making. Generally I see mark making, such as mindlessly doodling, as an art form because it is not one of the instinctive human behaviors. However, it is a behavior I chose to adapt as an expressive output. With the work I am showing in Triad Myriad, I wanted to emulate my most frequent non-instinctive behavior by scaling, repetition, and surfacing. By using enlargement and placement I have found how to input the same qualities of a traditional gallery pedestal for my overlooked intuitive mark makings.

Amy Sinclair: The method to which I approach the intaglio technique of printmaking allows for self-reflective work. Through thoughtful intuition, deliberation, and persistence, I build up simple, monotonous forms to achieve a quality that addresses both aesthetics of craft and abstraction. It is important to the conception that my work weaves aesthetics of culturally determined high and low art because of the desire to dismantle the myth of “artist as creative genius”. Creativity is not a spell that is cast uniquely and exclusively on a select few, it is a learned skill, harbored by individuals and collectives to achieve desired goals. A finished print may appear to be complex and disorderly, but the process I take is often simple and repetitive.

Jon Ten Brink: Often times I find myself in a very interesting place. I am physically in the city, but my heart and mind are elsewhere. They have gone off running into the wilderness. Ever since I can remember I have had something in me that seeks an adventure. I can recall being in Badlands National Park as a kid and feeling a sense of freedom once I saw the small clay mountain just next to our campsite. It gave me such joy to climb everything in sight not knowing what was going to be around the next turn. This same thing is still true today. In contrast to this are my past four years of living in the city of Chicago. There is no space to run free, no place to go where people are not, and nothing that is untouched. The conflict between these two places is where much of my art comes from. It gives rise to emotions and feelings that I find difficult to put words to. As a result I sketch, bind, or meditate over these things. Anything from the hardships of the city to the joys of new friendships find themselves being expressed through concepts and images of nature.

The exhibition runs from March 24 through May 5, 2012, at North Branch Projects, located four blocks west of the Kimball Brown Line stop, #81 Lawrence and #82 Kimball Bus lines.
North Branch North Branch is an independently run project space located in Albany Park that serves as a community bookbinding facility. The space provides an outlet for exploring the creative process in a neighborhood where few resources exist for the arts. There are two major components to the space:

The first is an ongoing community binding project that serves as the foundation for all of the work being created. Free to all, these gatherings have participants working on a collaborative hand-made book archive, binding individuals together quite literally in a group workshop setting.

The second is an entrepreneurial venture that funds the majority of the community binding efforts. Various book-making workshops are held in the bindery and custom-made books and related objects are sold in conjunction with the bindery’s goals of promoting art to the general public.

North Branch Projects is an independently run project space located in Albany Park that serves as a community bookbinding facility. The space provides an outlet for exploring the creative process in a neighborhood where few resources exist for the arts. North Branch uses the book arts to expand the creative reach of individuals and encourages dialogue in an inclusive setting. The studio community fosters an open approach to sharing work with new audiences and encourages collaboration and integration.

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Tags: Albany Park, and Jon Ten Brink, Artists are Amy Sinclair, Katie Chung