Selected Exhibition Views
Chicago Gardens, past and present
Curated by Nathan Mason
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs
Chicago Tourism Center: June 5 - August 18, 2009
"If you want to keep young, stay close to Nature." - Jens Jensen, Danish-American landscape architect
Randolph Street in Chicago, with sculptor Richard Hunt's We Will 2005 (left), welded stainless steel, 35 x 8 x 8 ft.
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The Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897.
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Chicago Gardens, Past and Present - Andrew Young statement/wall text
A city is distinguishable not only by its history, population and economy, but in a way by its relationship to Nature. We are, it seems, in some dynamic between an aspiration for a more concrete and comprehensible existence, the concentration and productive cooperation of large numbers of people, and a compulsion to separate from them. In any great metropolis, we also maintain strips and pockets of green, sanctuaries from the very organization that makes a city a center. The garden as refuge, therefore – “into the wild,” as it might be said – is as elusive as it is desirable.
My works are of a familiar medium – collage – and take their imagery and materials directly from our surroundings. The pages are all hand-painted, starting from simple drawing sheets, rice papers and glue. Much of the pigment is mineral in origin, recovered from stones and earth within steps of the studio door. It is the most elementary of art construction (every surface touched by hand) that tries to draw a line to our surroundings, not only by illustration, but in a physical way.
During the Renaissance, artists brought together different aspects of the globe to their encyclopedias, supplementing the known with the imagined, and changing the common into the beautified. As with the elements of my paintings, drawn more from an experience of Nature versus pure representation, the urge to collect and identify fulfills an impulse to unify, to recognize by detecting inherent patterns, and to answer the unknown in limiting variability. However, no plant in nature can grow as perfectly as in an herbarium; no bird is as lovely and approachable as in a catalogue. We are aware that all collections for study are inevitably connected with the separation and disappearance of what is painstakingly catalogued. Similarly, gardens, with their mathematical organization, managed climate, and exotic and cultivated subjects, are as much an expression of our elastic, sometimes idealized relationship with nature as they are a return to anything original. This notion of “original” is a projection of our desire, and gardens, like art objects, become surrogates, hopefully transporting us to something that is missing.
My works are of a familiar medium – collage – and take their imagery and materials directly from our surroundings. The pages are all hand-painted, starting from simple drawing sheets, rice papers and glue. Much of the pigment is mineral in origin, recovered from stones and earth within steps of the studio door. It is the most elementary of art construction (every surface touched by hand) that tries to draw a line to our surroundings, not only by illustration, but in a physical way.
During the Renaissance, artists brought together different aspects of the globe to their encyclopedias, supplementing the known with the imagined, and changing the common into the beautified. As with the elements of my paintings, drawn more from an experience of Nature versus pure representation, the urge to collect and identify fulfills an impulse to unify, to recognize by detecting inherent patterns, and to answer the unknown in limiting variability. However, no plant in nature can grow as perfectly as in an herbarium; no bird is as lovely and approachable as in a catalogue. We are aware that all collections for study are inevitably connected with the separation and disappearance of what is painstakingly catalogued. Similarly, gardens, with their mathematical organization, managed climate, and exotic and cultivated subjects, are as much an expression of our elastic, sometimes idealized relationship with nature as they are a return to anything original. This notion of “original” is a projection of our desire, and gardens, like art objects, become surrogates, hopefully transporting us to something that is missing.
Reflections Stirred series (c-219) 2002, 31 x 23 inches, and Greater and Lesser Lights series (c-208) 2001, 25 x 39
inches, both of hand-painted papers, with Chinese text, stamp and found photographs, on museum board.
inches, both of hand-painted papers, with Chinese text, stamp and found photographs, on museum board.
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City of Chicago Public Art Collection
Proposal watercolors for Promised Treasure, 2005
Chicago Public Library, Budlong Woods Branch
Paint and hand-painted papers on four wood panels, 4 x 13 feet each
I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society
may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There
can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of nature and has his senses still.
may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There
can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of nature and has his senses still.
– Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
Caught by Hand series (c-230) 2002, hand-painted Bristol and
Chinese rice papers on museum board, 26 x 21 inches.
Chinese rice papers on museum board, 26 x 21 inches.
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Fables and Seas series (c-167) 2000 on left, of hand-painted papers on museum board, 22 x 31 inches.
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Chicago sculptor Richard Hunt's We Will 2005 (left).
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