Surabhi Ghosh + Olivia Valentine

Surabhi Ghosh resituates the marginalized narratives and visual phenomena that inhabit everyday spaces to the center. Combining the spectacular with the mundane, she transforms materials such as upholstery vinyl and glass beads through repetitive processes of drawing, cutting, and stitching. In doing so, she exposes the contradictions that necessitate constant renegotiation of multiple cultural identities within oneself. Olivia Valentine’s work focuses on the construction of edges and interstitial spaces, stemming from her investigations into the space of the textile edge. She has traced the transition of lace structures from the center of a cloth to its edge and addressed the window as a space of mediation between interior and exterior. Recently refocusing her gaze to the ground, watercolor drawings on cast objects look at patterns in different scales and work in a place between algorithmic thinking and the accidental space of the spill.

Both Ghosh and Valentine use material and metaphor to challenge the composition of constructed spaces. In this exhibition, the two artists investigate their overlapping interest in materialized edges and metaphorical boundaries as defined by visual patterning. The installation of the individual artists’ sculptural textiles and drawings is a collaborative process between the two artists as they respond to the interior architecture of the gallery.

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Surabhi Ghosh is an artist and educator based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her current work investigates the transmission of culture to diasporic people, specifically South Asian immigrants and their descendants in North America, and is supported by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Recently, her work has been exhibited at the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle, FOFA Gallery in Montreal, and SPACE Gallery in Portland, ME. Ghosh received her MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Currently, she is Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of Fibres & Material Practices at Concordia University.
surabhighosh.com

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Olivia Valentine is an interdisciplinary visual artist working primarily in textile construction, drawing, and photography, and in collaboration with composers, architects, and designers. Recent exhibitions include Museum of Arts and Design (New York), the Danish Royal Academy (Copenhagen), and The American Academy in Rome (Italy). Olivia received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is an Assistant Professor of Art and Visual Culture at Iowa State University.
oliviavalentine.net

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Tags: Chicago, Heaven Gallery, Margins Material and Metaphor, Olivia Valentine, Surabhi Ghosh, West Town