Clutch Gallery is pleased to present SUMMER IDYLL by Judith Brotman. SUMMER IDYLL acts as a loose-leaf book, a fiber installation, and a series of drawings all at once. For this work, Brotman has created a series of notes and abstract blueprints for potential machines that are intended to serve various (un)reasonable functions in life. Viewers are invited to flip through these handwritten, hand-painted, and stitched-on works as if Clutch were a file drawer housing a well-stored archive. Each of these self-directive notes starts with the mantra “I will build a machine that” and develops into a lyrical statement where form swerves away from function. The pieces together act as a poetic homily on the impractical imagination combined with the real-world implications of object making. SUMMER IDYLL runs through November 3, 2011.
Judith Brotman is a mixed-media sculpture installation artist who has exhibited widely in Chicago and throughout the U.S. Solo shows include Hampshire College Art Gallery in Amherst, MA; the DeVos Museum at Northern Michigan University; and Threewalls, MN Gallery, and the Chicago Cultural Center—all in Chicago. Group exhibitions include the Smart Museum of Art; Hyde Park Art Center; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Illinois State Museum; and the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston. Brotman’s work is included in the Drawing Center’s artist registry and on Re-title.com. Her work is in numerous private collections and in the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection. Brotman currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and previously taught at the University of Chicago’s Midway Studios as a Harper/Schmidt Fellow. Brotman received her BFA and MFA (Fiber &Material Studies) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.