Informed by Material presents work on paper from five artists. There is a common focus of single subjects as well as abstraction through the hand. The artists exhibit a result of their practices which respond to the materials used. In never before seen collage works, Richard Hull reuses cut outs from a larger ink drawing animation to form a new work. Additionally we see a reuse of material in Sophia Rauch’s observational drawings of paper bags, which she has recycled and then painted, to then view from a shifted perspective. While Jonah Hoffman turns his attention to specific sites through research, Noel Nissen and Atticus Gordon engage their imagined worlds to create a record of process through mark making. 

While these common materials are often seen in the hierarchy of art making as a preparatory step in an artists’ practice, this exhibition refocuses to see how this work was always intended as the finished product. The inspiration for Informed by Material  was born out of research in the Prints and Drawings collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, where one is confronted with an intense sense of intimacy while viewing works spanning hundreds of years. There is a consistency to how artists approach working on paper that can reveal inner workings of thought unlike any other medium. 

 

Curated by Noel Nissen, special thanks to Josh Dihle

All photos by Chloe Harthan