April 6, 2023 - May 20, 2023 —

Come. Hither. Look!

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 6 , 5-8PM
Gallery Hours: By Appointment on Saturdays, 12-3PM.

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"I like to imagine they were the first flowers I saw, over my mother's shoulder, as the pink blanket slipped away from my face and their colors flooded my consciousness. I've heard that early experience can attune the brain to certain stimuli, so that they are processed with greater speed and certainty, so that they can be used again and again, so that we remember."  Robin Wall Kimmerer, Asters and Goldenrod, Braiding Sweetgrass. 

Specialist presents Come. Hither. Look!, an exhibition featuring recent works by Jessica Labatte.

Born of early parenthood, a global pandemic and the green shag carpet and velvet and gold wallpaper of her grandmother’s home, the photographs and assemblage sculptures of Chicago-based artist Jessica Labatte inextricably weave together moments of joy, grief, and curiosity. A childhood spent among the lacy pink objects and carefully arranged treasures of Labatte’s maternal grandmother cultivated an appreciation for the mundane and domestic, a passion Labatte shares with her children through the making of improvisational sculptures, cut paper collages-turned-wallpaper, and the messy scraps of everyday life. The images and objects in Come. Hither. Look! are the results of multiple forms of intergenerational parallel play, from the lovingly worn trinkets of Labatte’s grandmother’s maximalist house, photographed after her passing, to the pom poms, pipe cleaners and polymer clay creations designed to keep small hands busy and learning while at home. Dissolving boundaries between home/artist studio, clutter/careful arrangement, and parent/teacher/artist, Labatte’s work functions as both a collection of intimate familial echoes and a wondrous invitation: Come. Hither. Look!—

Jessica Labatte is an artist that uses photography to investigate light, color, illusion, and paradoxes inherent in photographic representation. She is Associate Professor of Art and Photography Area Coordinator at Northern Illinois University. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL; Elmhurst Art Museum; Hyde Park Art Center; Higher Pictures, NYC; Golden Gallery, and Horton Gallery, NYC and has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum.com, and Chicago Magazine. Labatte received an MFA and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is represented by Western Exhibitions, Chicago, IL.

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