detail: Contact, 2019, cut-up inkjet prints, paracord, carabiners, blue lights on fabric cord, three-ring binder
Hold Sway: Ellen Hanson + Aimée Beaubien
Friday March 15th to April 28th, 2019
Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL
Hold Sway brings together two artists working with overlapping perspectives in paint and photography. Ellen Hanson’s paintings reveal partial views on free-standing intersecting canvases. Inspired by paintings on folding screens, these works emphasize the illusion of the image. Hanson's multi-paneled paintings reveal intimate moments while at other angles their built-in barriers conceal, underscoring the nature of privacy. Aimée Beaubien draws parallels between photographs and landmasses in states of flux. Photos cascade and plates shift in a fractured landscape shaped by subterranean forces. At the core of this photo-based installation is a chance encounter with a three-ring binder of 35mm black and white contact sheets dating from the early 1970’s. Guided by the photographs of Inger Helene Boasson, Beaubien builds bridges between past and future via the visual records of two women, unknown to one another.
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Aimée Beaubien is an artist living and working in Chicago. Her cut-up photographic collages, photo-based sculptures and installations explore collapses in time, space and place, while engaging the complexities of visual perception. Solo and two-person exhibitions include oqbo galerie, Berlin, Germany; Gallery UNO Projektraum, Berlin, Germany; Virus Art Gallery, Rome, Italy; SIM, Reykjavik, Iceland; The Pitch Project, Milwaukee, WI; BOX 13 Artspace, Houston, TX; Johalla Projects, Chicago, IL; TWIN KITTENS, Atlanta, GA; and Demo Projects, Springfield, IL. Group exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; Bikini Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA; Lubeznik Center for the Arts, Michigan City, IN; and UCRC Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA. Her work has been reviewed in publications such as Art in America, Art on Paper, and Art Papers. Beaubien is an Assistant Professor of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL where she received her MFA in 1993.
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Ellen R Hanson is a midwest based painter traveling between Chicago, IL and Gresham, WI. Her works are about feeling exposed, vulnerable. About watching and being watched. She received her BA from Bennington College in 2014. Her two person exhibitions include Miishkooki (Skokie) and Friendzone (Chicago). She has most recently participated in group shows at Happy Gallery (Chicago), Elephant Room Gallery (Chicago), Heaven Gallery (Chicago) and Produce Model Gallery (Chicago).