Katya Grokhovsky: Double Exposure (House Portrait Number 1.)
Opening reception Saturday November 13th, 5pm – 9pm
Exhibition continues through 12/11/10 by appointment

What It Is
1155 Lyman Ave., Oak Park, IL, 60304
www.wot-it-is.com

“Double Exposure: (House Portrait Number 1.)” is a site-specific installation, consisting entirely of photographic images of the interior and exterior of a House and its’ inhabitants, situated inside the House itself. The double layered dynamics of a lived -in environment of a house-gallery are investigated and played with, via the medium of photography. Revealing histories and daily mechanics, treasures, traces and mysteries of artistic life inside the art itself.

Katya Grokhovsky’s practice is a hybrid of diverse disciplines and mediums, the themes of which stem from my experience of life in the East and West, under different political regimes. The Soviet and Post-Soviet mentality, dislocation, longing and embodied memories of “home” intertwine into pressed layers, forming an emotionally charged platform.

Buried recollections of a constant fear of fateful change, the human separation gap and the “otherness” present in my body and mind, are utilized as material. Through proposing a number of models by way of performances, videos, mixed-media installations, sculptures, text and photography, I allow the spectators to examine the various experiences lived through the aftermath of the political and social collapse of a former world superpower and translated in the Western context of a contemporary practice.

Born in the city of Odessa, in Ukraine (former USSR), Katya Grokhovsky came to Melbourne, Australia with her family in 1992. In Ukraine, Katya studies at Odessa Children’s Art School and completes a Diploma of Fine Arts. In Melbourne, 1999 she completed her BA (Honours) in Fashion at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and moves to Europe to travel and work in the fashion industry. In 2007, Grokhovsky completes her second degree, B.F.A (Painting) at Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, from which she graduates with numerous awards, including the prestigious Freedman Travelling Scholarship for Emerging Artists from National Association of Visual Arts, Sydney, Australia. In 2009, Grokhovsky moves to USA, where she is a current MFA (2011) Candidate in Sculpture at School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

http://www.katyagrokhovsky33.blogspot.com/

Maya Mackrandilal

Lauren Carter

Ben Stagl

Samantha Hill

Elise Goldstein

Katya Grokhovsky

Selena Jones

Permission to Work
Lauren Carter, Colleen Coleman, Elise Goldstein, Katya Grokhovsky,
Samantha Hill, Selena Jones, Maya Mackrandilal, Ben Stagl
Opening reception Sat Feb 6th, 3pm – 8pm or by appointment

02/06/10 – 03/06/10

Seek permission to work. Acquire the necessary permits. Establish a remit. Documents to regulate creation. Permission To Work is an exhibition designed to challenge and interrupt pre determined ideas about what defines living space and how art works can negotiate the everyday domestic experience.

For the artist the everyday is to dream and often to dream is to work. So the concept of live / work / display space is a fluid one without clear boundaries, limits or territory. Where does living space start and work place stop? Where does studio end and exhibition space begin?

Permission To Work brings together eight artists and invites them to create an exhibition in the style of Schwitters Merzbau or a Kunsthalle. This exhibition presents a variety of positions / outcomes / projects juxtaposing performance pieces, site specific installations and interventions to create a gesamtkunstwerk or total work of art. By seeking “permission to work” we have granted artistic license to play with the fabric of our home and produce art that re-contextualizes the living area as exhibition space.