Chicago Artists Coalition is pleased to present Analogues, a HATCH Projects exhibition featuring work by Hannah Givler, Erika Råberg, and Woomin Kim, curated by Brett Swinney.

Analogues explores the augmented, subjective experience. An analogue refers to something similar in function but of dissimilar evolutionary origin. Analogues seeks to present those tangential interactions as examples of a collectively inspired, yet often insulated, creative process. Each artistic technique featured in the show takes from the common vocabulary of being, instantiating, nonetheless, a distinct language.

While the subjective is often defined by context, Analogues introduces a sense of displacement that amplifies the necessity of the artist's role. Hannah Givler's instinctive sculptures investigate the phenomenological experience between space, objects, and systems of value. Woomin Kim’s remade objects become testimonials to haptic memory. Erika Råberg creates still narratives that unveil the tension within family bonds. The show challenges the stillness of meaning as the artworks come together embedded with a wide variety of connotations. The dialogue shaped by these works illustrates the amplitude of the creative process, with Givler’s response to touch and tone, Kim’s relishing in contact and memory, and Råberg’s celebration of sight and sound. Although independent from each other, they maintain compelling conversations, endlessly creating fractals within the relationships, both between artists, their work, and the world at large.

ARTIST BIOS

Hannah Givler received a BFA in sculpture from The Ohio State University, and an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago. She was resident artist at Umoja Arts Center in Arusha Tanzania, Vermont Studio Center, Visitor Center Artist Camp, and 8550 Ohio. Her work has been exhibited in the US and internationally including: The Banff Center for the Arts, The Cultural Center in Arusha Tanzania, Fourth Ward Gallery, Logan Exhibitions, Southside Hub of Production, and Hyperlink Exhibitions in Chicago, The Mills Gallery in Iowa, and Helen Day Art Center in Vermont. Hannah Givler’s studio practice is based between the south side of Chicago and the University of Iowa, where she teaches sculpture.

Erika Råberg is dedicated to an image-making practice that embodies a way of being in the world, one of careful observation, presence, and openness to change. She grew up in a house of musicians and learned first to understand through music. As a visual artist, she works to develop varied photographic gestures towards visualizing intimacy and distance, and to explore modes of nonverbal communication through sound and its resonant bodies. Råberg recently completed a short film in collaboration with her father, who left the farm in rural Sweden that has been in the family since the 1600s, in order to pursue a life as a jazz musician in the United States. Råberg earned her MFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BA in American Literature from Oberlin College.

Woomin Kim works with the edge of things, where they meet with the world. In her recent works, she treated the surface of daily objects around her by sanding them with sandpaper or covering them with thin layers of translucent materials such as paraffin or silk. By creating the alien landscape out of mundane surroundings, she tried to break her habitual perception and reveal the gap between what things are and her subjective understanding of them. She earned her BFA (2010) from Seoul Nationality University and MFA (2015) from School of Art Institute of Chicago. She received an Emerging Artists Grant Program Finalist Award from Joan Mitchell Foundation (2015) and a Fellowship Award from Vermont Studio Center (2015).

Curator Bio

Born on the northwest side of Chicago, Brett Swinney graduated from Columbia College with a B.A. in Photography 2004, to then work in the commercial photography industry for several years. During that time, he started to investigate ways to develop cultural projects that aimed to provide wider access to the production and presentation of art to new audiences, leading to the formation of Anysquared Projects. Projects produced through Anysquared include the "Cinema Minima Film Residency," "Post Post Post Modernism," and a variety of gallery shows and community art events. After attaining a Masters in Arts Administration & Policy, (SAIC 2014) his present focal point is to develop his creative practices while exploring alternative organizational models as a means to encourage collaboration and activism within the arts.