On View:March 20 - April 24, 2009

Exhibition hours: Wednesday through Saturday from 12 to 6 p.m.

Opening reception for the artists: Friday, March 20, 2009, 7 to 9pm

Artist Talk with Lynn Cazabon, Hadieh Shafie, and Tory Wright
Saturday, April 18th, 4pm
Free with refreshments provided

In honor of Women’s History Month, Civilian presents two exhibitions featuring works from four female artists who archive, transform, and re-mediate forgotten or discarded imagery into new forms. In Women’s Work, the artists intervene upon seemingly insignificant material such as discarded motion picture film, cosmetic advertisements, and ordinary paper to create captivating, whirling forms and sculptures. Though formally and conceptually distinct, each project comments on change, the passage of time, and what is preserved versus left behind.

Lynn Cazabon exhibits work from the Enoch Pratt Library series of the ongoing project Discard (2001 - present) where the artist intervenes upon motion picture film discarded by public institutions (libraries, schools, archives). A memento mori to the recently obsolete medium of film, Discard, according to Lynn, “is a kind of shadow archive, reflecting that which has been omitted…the inaccessibility of the full contents of the films in these images is relative to their new position on the outskirts of culture.” Each print is like a drawing made from film, displaying a particular personality and form. Lynn’s work was recently on view in “The Archive’s Shadow” at The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland in College Park. Other recent solo exhibitions include “Uncultivated” at Schroeder Romero, project gallery, New York, NY; “Marseille/Baltimore” at Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD; and “Discard” at the Courthouse Gallery, Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY. She was a Trawick Prize Finalist in 2008, and has received numerous international awards for her photography and new media work including the Jentel Foundation Artist Residency Fellowship, Baltimore City Arts & Humanities Individual Artist Grant, and the Future of the Present Project Grant from Franklin Furnace Archive in New York, NY. She has been in residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE and The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH, among others. Cazabon received a prestigious Core Fellowship from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and was Smithsonian Graduate Fellowship from the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC. She is currently Associate Professor of Art, Photography at University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Born in Tehran, Iran, Hadieh Shafie grew up in New York and now resides in Baltimore, MD. A visual and performance artist, much of Hadieh’s work evolves through process, repetition and time. For Women’s Work, Hadieh exhibits boxes containing thousands of strips of paper densely rolled into scrolls, all repeating one single word for love in Farsi, “eshghe.” The boxes are closely huddled mediations on a single thought. In Hadieh’s words, “concentric forms of text and material also take direct inspiration from the dance of the whirling dervish and the turn on axis in search of ascendance by forgetting the body.” Hadieh holds MFA degrees from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the Pratt Institute. Recent solo exhibitions include EXODUS at The Carriage House and “The Little Black Fishes” at School 33 Art Center in Baltimore, MD; “Taste” at UMBC; and “September Promises” at Pratt. She has received numerous awards an honors including the 2008 Individual Artist Grant from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation Grant in 1995-1996.

Tory Wright (Raleigh, NC) makes sculptural forms from Duratrans light box advertisements and fragrance campaign posters seen within department stores. According to the artist, “by cutting away imagery pulled from luxury item advertising I reveal a new conversation with broad references to the female form. Gucci links, William Morris, art nouveau, tears and textiles intertwine as they overtake the seduction of these advertisements within a consumer culture. Ultimately commenting upon the American lust for material gratification.” A member of Team Lump in Raleigh, NC, Tory recently finished her MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD. Recent exhibitions include “Pleasure Seeker” at Lump Gallery Projects in Raleigh, NC; “Body Politic” at Branch Gallery, Durham, NC; “Sloppy Slobbering Monster” at The Bank, Kansas City, MS; and “Baby Girl Put It On Me” at Space 1026 in Philadelphia, PA. As part of the Team Lump Collective her work has been on exhibit at Space Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA; Cinders Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Bemis Underground, Omaha, NE; and DC Arts Center, Washington, DC.



"sometime yesterday, or maybe the day before"
New Work by Noelle K. Tan

Through pioneering and now obsolete photographic techniques, for her second solo exhibition with Civilian Noelle has culled thousands of negatives and printed works from pictures she has taken throughout her life starting at age 12. Demonstrating her skill and knowledge of classic photographic processes, she has created cyanotype & Van Dyke Brown collaged photographs that convey a dreamy and personal interior landscape. According to the artist, she is not seeking to convey specific memories or experiences, rather “the feeling or impression or sense or fluidity from conscious to subconscious mind through image topography.” Noelle K. Tan earned her BFA from New York University and her MFA from California Institute of the Arts. Her work is widely collected and in permanent collections such as the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, the Albright-Knox Gallery, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, and the Corcoran Museum. She received the prestigious Creative Capital grant in 2005.

For more information or high-resolution images, please contact the gallery.



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March 20 - April 24, 2009

Opening Reception: Friday, March 20, 2009, 7 - 9pm

Artist Talk with Lynn Cazabon, Hadieh Shafie, and Tory Wright
Saturday, April 18th, 4pm
Free with refreshments provided

In honor of Women’s History Month, Civilian presents two
exhibitions featuring works of four female artists who archive, transform, and re-mediate forgotten or discarded imagery into new forms: Women's Work, with Lynn Cazabon, Hadieh Shafie, and Tory Wright; and "sometime yesterday, or maybe the day before", new work from Noelle K. Tan.