Apparatus is pleased to present Body Doubles, an exhibition of work by Chicago based artists Holly Murkerson and Sarah Reynolds. As in cinema, where the reproducibility of both the media and look of a specific actor/body can create single distinct character, both Murkerson and Reynolds’s respective practices utilize techniques and materials that engage the possibilities of reproduction for creating singular and discreet forms. While each artist works directly from their own bodies, the succession of fragmented limbs and appendages do not necessarily proliferate the image of a specific body, but rather proffer the contemplation and consideration of a broader figure: a kind of generalized or expanded corpus whose inhabitation is formed and enacted upon by a collective network of bodies. In this capacity, we are all body doubles, acting both remotely and together from myriad distances, angles, and close-ups, collectively developing a broader character for whom we ourselves can never full know, through gesture and its reproduction. Through two bodies of work that emphasize the generative abilities of the body and modes of being through iterative and reproducible forms: Murkerson’s photographs and Reynolds’s sculptures look to offer a way in which our own figuration is constituted, shared, split, unified, acted upon and re-enacted in turn. Through haptic explorations of the figure, each artist’s work seeks to extend corporeality to a horizon where it oscillates between the familiar and strange, revealing that even one’s own body is an object always withdrawing from reach.

Holly Murkerson (b. 1982, Lakeland, FL) lives in Chicago, Illinois where she received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Murkerson is the recipient of a 2018 DCASE Individual Artist Grant, and has attended residencies at Ox-bow School of Art, the Ragdale Foundation, and Harold Arts. Recent exhibitions include Adds Donna; Roots and Culture; So Weit, die Zukunft [SWDZ], Vienna, Austria; Rockford University; Columbia College, Chicago; Andrew Rafacz; Columbia University, New York; and Julius Caesar. Murkerson is a member of the artist-run gallery and collective, Adds Donna.

Sarah H. Reynolds (b. 1987) is a Chicago-based, interdisciplinary artist who received her BA from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She uses metal, latex, urethane, plaster, clay, and photography as mediums to cast and document her own body. The process of creating multiple iterations from the same reference results in a body of work that is abstracted, yet mimetic and allows for new meanings and interpretations to unfold. Her work has been exhibited in Chicago, NYC, Brooklyn and Miami, at venues such as Comfort Station, Apparatus Projects, Lithium Gallery, The Overlook Place, University Club of Chicago, Elastic Arts, LATITUDE, Cheim & Read, StoreFront at Ten Eyck, Judith Charles Gallery, Theodore:Art, Front Room, and the National YoungArts Foundation.

Apparatus Projects is located in a dining room in Lincoln Square and is open by appointment only. Please ring the blue buzzer or call/text 219.241.6303 for entry.

To set up an appointment email us at apparatusprojects.chi@gmail.com or direct message us on Instagram @_apparatus_projects_.

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Tags: Apparatus Projects, Body Doubles, Chicago, Holly Murkerson, Lincoln Square, Sarah Reynolds