GRAFT: A collaborative project and exhibition featuring new work by Noelle Allen
Exhibition Dates: Nov. 8 to Nov. 30, 2014
Reception: Nov. 8th from 4-8pm
Comfort Station is proud to announce the latest exhibition of Noelle Allen's work for GRAFT, this November. Conceived as a group show within a solo show, Graft is a curatorial experiment that will also feature work from contributing artists that are influential to, or inspired by, Allen’s artistic practice.
For GRAFT, artist Noelle Allen, together with Chicago curator MK Meador, will explore the concept of grafting and how it relates to a multifaceted art contemporary practice. As a horticultural process, grafting involves taking a sample from one plant to fuse and propagate another. For GRAFT, Allen has assembled and reconceptualized older drawings and photograms that date from earlier in her artistic career before having children and a fulltime teaching commitment. Viewing these moments as pivotal turning points in her practice, Allen’s newly realized drawings are, in one sense, grafts from her own work. By fusing old work with new, Allen is physically and conceptually bridging two very different time periods. With imagery and ideas in her work making reference to flowers, root structures, rhizomes, and other organic materials grafting is a concept that warranted further exploration...
Looking at Allen’s work as artist, educator, mentor and mother, Meador and Allen conceived of a show as a curatorial experiment that would invite artists to participate and further explore the notion of grafting. These selected artists will respond to her most recent drawings by contributing a piece of their own for the exhibit at Comfort Station. By grafting the work from these notable Chicago artists, the exhibition will challenge the dichotomy of solo show versus group show models. The GRAFT project will include and document multiple stages of the collaboration between the artists, eventually resulting in a catalogue with interviews, images, and text. The list of confirmed artists include luminaries in the Chicago arts scene including: Claire Ashley, Karen Azarnia, Aimee Beaubien, Erin Minckley Chlagmo, Anne Harris, Allison Reimus, Melody Saraniti, Tess Farris and also features work from Allen’s mother, Californiabased
artist Christine Remy.
The exhibition is curated by MK Meador for Comfort Station.