Alice Hargrave and Barbara Diener | Semblance: Unfolded and Brought to Light

Opening Reception: Sunday, September 18, 2022, 3:00-7:00 PM

Artist Talk: Saturday, October 22, 2022, 2:00 PM

Exhibition Dates: September 18 - October 29, 2022

On View: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 1:00 - 5:00 PM

Curated by Laura Husar Garcia

Alice Hargrave | *Tracing Audubon, Mangroves, Great Egrets, Little Blue Herons,* 2020, Pigment print, 35 x 52 inches

The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present a two-person exhibition by Chicago photographers Alice Hargrave and Barbara Diener in our Freeark Gallery, curated by Laura Husar Garcia.

Semblance: Unfolded and Brought to Light explores new ways of storytelling, combining threads from science, nature, past and present. Hargrave incorporates photographic imagery within layered site-specific installations addressing impermanence: environmental insecurity, habitat loss, and species extinctions. Diener challenges the often dual retelling of significant 20th century events, starting in Nazi-era Germany and culminating in the moon landing. Both artists make the invisible visible through their research-based work that prompts us to reflect.

The Riverside Arts Center will host a reception for the artists on Sunday, September 18th, in conjunction with Filter Photo Festival, all attendees are invited to join for art and light refreshments. Located in the heart of historic Riverside, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the RAC includes the Freeark Gallery + Sculpture Garden, The FlexSpace and a variety of studios. We are a 25 minute train ride from Chicago. The exhibition runs through Saturday, October 29th.

-Laura Husar Garcia, Curator

Barbara Diener | *The Huddle, Peenemünde*, *Germany*, 1940/2021, Archival inkjet print, 25 x 33 inches

Alice Hargrave, a photo based artist in Chicago, incorporates sound, video, and photographic imagery within layered site specific installations addressing impermanence: environmental insecurity, habitat loss, and species extinctions. Recently, The Canary in the Lake, exhibition and monograph, revisualizes climate related data from lakes on all seven continents in collaboration with GLEON— Global Lakes Environmental Observation Network.

Hargrave collaborated with The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, to create her project Last Calls, portraits of threatened birds using sound wave patterns of their vocalizations in the wild. Last Calls is widely exhibited, notably in Lianzhou, China and Beacon, NY, winning a 2020 Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Grant as well as the finalist award in 2019. The bird call patterns are also translated into “Haute Couture” garments by Dovima Paris where profits directly benefit the birds. Paradise Wavering Hargrave’s monograph (Daylight 2016) and extensive solo exhibition traveled to multiple venues across the United States.

Hargrave, is included in several permanent collections such as the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago Artist Book Collection, the Ruttenberg Collection, Nuveen, Willis Tower, Hyatt corp. and many private collections. She has exhibited internationally, been reviewed in journals such as Huffington Post, BBC News, and Artnet, and her research led her to artist residencies in the Florida Keys, Montana, and Northern Wisconsin. Hargrave taught full time at Columbia College Chicago, currently she is doing conservation work and is a climate activist.

https://www.alicehargrave.com/

Barbara Diener (b. Germany) received her Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography from the California College of the Arts and Masters in Fine Art in Photography from Columbia College Chicago.

Her work has been exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA, Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, WA, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, Hyde Park Art Center, Hyde Park, IL, David Weinberg Gallery, Chicago, IL, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM, Invisible Dog Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Pingyao Photo Festival, China, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA, Darkroom Gallery, Essex Junction, VT and Project Basho, Philadelphia, PA among others. Diener’s photographs are part of several private and institutional collections including the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

Diener has participated in several highly ambitious and competitive artist residency programs, the Fields Project in Oregon, IL, ACRE in Steuben, WI, and HATCH Projects through the Chicago Artist Coalition. She is a winner of Flash Forward 2013, the recipient of a Follett Fellowship at Columbia College Chicago and was awarded the Albert P. Weisman Award in 2012 and 2013. Additionally, Diener received an Individual Artist Grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Events in 2015, 2018, and 2020. In June 2018 Daylight Books published Diener’s first book Phantom Power and she is working a book of her current project The Rocket’s Red Glare.

Barbara Diener is the Collection Manager in the Department of Photography and Media at the Art Institute of Chicago and teaches photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

http://www.barbaradienerphotography.com

Laura Husar Garcia is a photographer, curator and creative director. Her work has been exhibited widely, including The Barcelona Foto Biennial, The Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography in Prague, Fotofever at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, France, The Polish Museum of America in Chicago, Fotofest Biennial in Houston, Texas, Photo Independent in Los Angeles, California, The Rangefinder Gallery in Chicago and Tilt Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona. She will be presenting work at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts, with Shootapalooza, in September 2022 and the Fermilab Art Gallery in Batavia, Illinois in October 2022.

Garcia is a past winner of the International Julia Margaret Cameron Photography Award and a Photolucida Critical Mass top 200 finalist. Garcia won a 1st place Community Grant from the Illinois Humanities Council and was a recipient of an artist residency at Riverside Arts Center in 2021.

Her photographs have been published in several books, including “America At Home: A Close-up Look at How We Live”, one of the largest collaborative photography projects in publishing history. Her work has also been published in The New York Times, National Geographic Magazine, Newsweek, Slate Magazine, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Le Monde, and more.

Garcia is also the Creative Director of Three Story Media, which she founded with her husband, Alex Garcia. She serves on the Riverside Arts Center exhibition committee and is also the Vice President of the Board of Directors, and an Advisory Board Member of Fresh Lens Chicago, a free youth photography program in Chicago.

https://www.husargarcia.com