2022
REVERIE
IMI HWANGBO
Opening Reception 6 PM - 9 PM, Saturday, Sept 17, 2022
SEPT 17, 2022 – NOV 20, 2022
“Reverie” is an encompassing solo exhibition that presents Imi Hwangbo’s work in Constructed Drawing from the past twenty years. This show includes several of the artist’s large-scale works in hand-cut paper, and premieres her new work in Constructed Prints. Hwangbo creates three-dimensional drawings made with multiple layers of paper than are printed, cut, and layered in such quantity that sculptural forms are created. Trained as a sculptor, the artist uses the medium of paper as both a picture plane and a physical material that can be cut and shaped to convey an experience of light and shadow.
Based on decorative patterns from Korean decorative arts, Hwangbo’s work draws imagery from traditional wrapping cloths and the ornamentation of Buddhist temples. Many of her geometric patterns and floral motifs recall folk beliefs in a living and powerful landscape. The iconography features flowers, animals, and aspects of the natural landscape that are associated with protection from harm and desires for health, longevity, and fertility.
Evocative of the decorative arts, her Constructed Drawings are designed to be alluring to the eye and highly crafted over the entire surface. These works are sculptural reliefs that use perspective drawing to evoke a sense of deep space that exists in the viewer’s perception. Made with up to thirty layers of paper, the constructed drawings embody an optical illusion that suggests a moment where the real and the imagined intersect. These works are primarily cut by hand, a labor-intensive process which the artist describes as challenging, yet also meditative.
Her newest work is a series of Constructed Prints that combines a printed image with a cut paper relief element. This new work begins with a hand-made drawing in pencil that evolves slowly over a period of several months. Graphite is layered to create rich darks, and the outer perimeter is created with tiny, pointillistic marks. Gradually, an image develops that evokes an illusion of great depth, which is then transformed into a print. The hand-drawn image is contrasted with an elaborate cut paper pattern that is mounted to the surface of the print. The patterns, which resemble a floating field of flowers, are drawn from Korean decorative arts. Seen against an illusionistic image of space, the floating patterns create a drawing with light and shadow.
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FRAGMENTS, ENCOUNTERS AND REPRESENTATIONS
JOSÉ CARLOS TEIXEIRA
Opening Reception 6 PM - 9 PM, Friday, May 6, 2022
MAY 6, 2022 – AUG 26, 2022
Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the exhibition opening of Fragments. Encounters and Representations featuring video, installation and text-based works of José Carlos Teixeira.
With an emphasis on empathy and thoughtfulness, José Carlos Teixeira has created an immersive exhibition that amplifies the connections between the viewer and the story-telling participants in the videos. As an act of listening, his projects reveal intimate portraits of those suffering physical or psychological displacement: from the refugee experience to mental illness. He states “Turbulence and uncertainty seem to be upon un. In the aftermath of a lingering and isolating pandemic, and in the midst of war with massive displacement and loss, I feel these works from recent years are poignant as we reflect on our personal struggles, collective challenges, and shared humanity.”
José Carlos Teixeira is a visual artist, filmmaker, researcher, and educator.
Born in Portugal, in 1977, he holds a master’s degree from UCLA, and a BFA from the University of Porto. His work – in video-essay, documentary, installation, and photography – has been exhibited internationally in venues such as LACE, Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), UnionDocs, Anthology Film Archives (NY), MOCA, The Sculpture Center (Cleveland), Württembergischer Kunstverein (Stuttgart), DAZ, Rosalux (Berlin), 104 Cent Quatre (Paris), Hélio Oiticica Art Center (Rio de Janeiro), S.P. Cultural Center (São Paulo), Oriente Foundation (Macao), FCC, Museu da Cidade, Carpe Diem, Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon), Museu FBAUP, Galeria do Palácio, MausHábitos (Porto), and at the Instituto Camões Cultural Centers (Praia, Luanda, Maputo, Brasília), to name a few. Recent solo shows at MAAT (Lisbon), SPACES (Cleveland), and MMoCA (Madison). His films have been screened in various festivals: LIDF, Eindhoven Film Festival, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, Currents: New Media Festival, The Artists Forum Festival of the Moving Image, AIFVF, among others, and included in the media libraries of HotDocs and Visions du Réel. Teixeira has been the recipient of a Fulbright/FCC Grant, Fundação Gulbenkian/FLAD, Efroymson Fellowship, Best Documentary/Jurors Award at the AFFEST 2019 (NY), SMHAF Experimental Film Award 2019 (Glasgow), FUSO Jury Prize 2011, and the 2005 EDP New Artists Prize nomination. Teixeira was also an artist-in-residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude (Germany), Townhouse Gallery (Cairo), MacDowell, 18th Street Arts Center, and the Headlands Center for the Arts (USA). He has taught at ESAD.cr, in Portugal, and in the USA as Champney Visiting Professor at CWRU and CIA in Cleveland, and at UW-Madison.
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Hawthorn Contemporary
706 South 5th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53204 USA
Opening Reception Hours: 6 PM - 9 PM Friday, December 3, 2021
Regular Daytime Hours: 11 AM - 4 PM Friday, Saturday
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SEERS, CRAFTSMEN
SCOTT ESPESETH + COLIN MATTHES
MARCH 5, 2022 – APRIL 23, 2022
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Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the exhibition opening of Seers, Craftsmen featuring the works by Scott Espeseth (Madison, WI) and Colin Matthes (Milwaukee, WI).
With distinctly different outcomes, Espeseth and Matthes capture their lives and moments of clarity through the cathartic act of drawing. In this sprawling installation of works on paper, Seers, Craftsmen will feature the artists' recent drawings in pencil, watercolor, pen, and ink. As part of the reception, viewers will be invited to play a game and win a specially priced drawing from Colin Matthes.
Scott Espeseth earned an MFA in printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he worked with storied print artists such as Frances Myers and Warrington Colescott. His work has since evolved to focus mainly on drawing, usually with commonplace media such as graphite pencils and ballpoint pen. His drawings have been described as “clairvoyant,” often depicting familiar spaces charged with a sense of dark presence, or other instances where planes of existence clash: the future sending messages to the past, memory intruding upon the present, or the subconscious bleeding into consciousness. He has exhibited nationally, including solo exhibitions at the James Watrous Gallery of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, and Alcove Gallery in New York, NY, and numerous national and international group shows.
Colin Matthes, Wisconsin, USA, grew up on a farm on the outskirts of a village with three bars, a post office, and the world’s greatest junk parade. Installing electric at small-town county fairs, wiring trailer parks, and using photocopy machines formed the way he makes things and views the world.
Hawthorn Contemporary, located in the historic Walker’s Point neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is an art venue dedicated to presenting experimental and exploratory contemporary art.
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Hawthorn Contemporary
706 South 5th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53204 USA
Opening Reception Hours: 6 PM - 9 PM Friday, December 3, 2021
Regular Daytime Hours: 11 AM - 4 PM Friday, Saturday
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BAND, BOND, BEND AND BIND
SURABHI GHOSH
December 3, 2021 – February 25, 2022
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Band, Bond, Bend, and Bind is a site-specific installation project created by Ghosh in response to the interior architecture of Hawthorn Contemporary. Grounded in feminist critique, the work acts as a material metaphor for the accretive strategies used to transmit, maintain, and reinforce nationalist ideology across time and space. A complex of beaded strands and cloth ties cordons off a bounded space, barring access to the center through the tensile arrangement of materials.
Surabhi Ghosh is an artist and educator based in Montreal, Quebec. Using repetitive actions like stitching, cutting, and beading, Ghosh exploits the tensions and imperfections in handmade patterns to give material and spatial form to cyclical narratives of pride and shame. Incorporating her experiences as a North American descendant of South Asian ancestors, her recent work investigates the transmission of cultural identity and nationalist ideology to and from the diaspora.
Ghosh is Associate Professor of Fibres & Material Practices in the Department of Studio Arts at Concordia University. Recent projects have been exhibited at the Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle, and Heaven Gallery in Chicago. Upcoming solo exhibitions will take place at Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, P. E. I., and the Maison des arts de Laval, Quebec.
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Hawthorn Contemporary, located in the historic Walker’s Point neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is an art venue dedicated to presenting experimental and exploratory contemporary art.
​
Hawthorn Contemporary
706 South 5th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53204 USA
Opening Reception Hours: 6 PM - 9 PM Friday, December 3, 2021
Regular Daytime Hours: 11 AM - 4 PM Friday, Saturday
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