My work is based on memories of real and imagined landscapes that are precarious yet beautiful. By playing with scale, line, imagery, and diverse materials, I create drawings, paintings and large-scale installations that map out and emphasize the subtle and quirky...
[more]My work is based on memories of real and imagined landscapes that are precarious yet beautiful. By playing with scale, line, imagery, and diverse materials, I create drawings, paintings and large-scale installations that map out and emphasize the subtle and quirky topologies of urban spaces: they are shifty, unstable, and ambiguous, and reflect the physical, emotional, and socio-political charged spaces we live in. For me, the process of collecting, documenting and interpreting material culture is significant in creating work that is not just an end product in itself but can promote the continuous interpretation of ideas and the interconnectedness of people, places and things. I use drawing as the basis for this conceptual framework, which allows me to move freely between 2-D and 3-D works and create relational systems that examine the concept of time, history and memory while questioning both individual and shared spaces. These spaces consider the dynamic yet fragile relationship we have with the natural and man-made architectural forms that surround us. My travels continue to inform my work, where a shift in location, in emotion, in activity, gives rise to new ways of looking and interpreting.
Gisela received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her BA in Anthropology & Studio Art from Dartmouth College. Exhibitions include the Chicago Cultural Center, Gallery 400-UIC, Thomas McCormick, Bucket Rider Gallery, Polvo, 3Arts Gallery, NIU Gallery, Betty Rymer and several group shows in Chicago, IL, Kansas City, MO, Washington, DC, and Ecuador. She is a recipient of the 2004 Richard Driehaus Emerging Artist Award and a 2005 Illinois Arts Council Finalist Award in Visual Art. In 2005 and 2006, she received MacDowell Colony Artist Fellowships to complete new work. She was recently nominated for a 2006 Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Sculptors and Painters and has upcoming solo exhibitions in 2007 at Bucket Rider Gallery and NEIU Gallery, both in Chicago. This summer, with the support of the Illinois Arts Council's Governor's International Exchange Grant, Gisela will be in residence at the Can Serrat International Residency in Spain. Gisela is an artist, educator and arts administrator in Chicago.
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