This is a conversation between Associate Curator, Jeffrey Kenney, and Artist Aimée Beaubien about the exhibition on view August 21 - November 10, 2023 at the Gillespie Gallery of Art on GMU's Fairfax, VA Campus.
Into the Hothouse invites viewers to contemplate the intricate connections between photographic images, the natural world, and the complexities of visual representation through an immersive site-specific installation. Suspended throughout the 2,000 square foot gallery space, the exhibition is a category-defying constellation of dozens of gathered, printed, and hand-made works that model, depict, or present botanical and environmental subject matter including intricately manipulated photographic materials and objects representing leaves, and flowers, vine and web-like textile configurations, and bio-plastic encased dried botanical specimens. Natural forms, technological interventions, and laborious craft techniques abound. The installation is a purposely hybrid environment offering a range of interpretations. Modeling our mixed-up relationship to the natural world, Beaubien’s work cultivates both the pleasure of exploring an enchanted garden while its artificiality gestures toward the tension and confusion at the center of our distorted relationship with the ecological world.