ALTERATIONS
by Sophia Chai
May 27 – June 13, 2021
Rochester-based artist Sophia Chai presents Alternations, an expansion on her ongoing inquiry into space and perception by means of photography, drawing, painting, and installation. It is comprised of 3 different iterations of what began as a series of site-specific works entitled, Construct, R.
Reception & Artist Talk:
Thursday, June 10, 5 – 7 pm
Artist Statement
Alternations is an expansion on my ongoing inquiry into space and perception by means of photography, drawing, painting, and installation. It is comprised of 3 different iterations of what began as a series of site-specific works entitled, Construct, R.
As you enter the gallery, on the wall to your right, you will see works from Construct, R, each composed of a large photograph mounted on Dibond with a corresponding rectangle painted on the gallery wall. The proportions of the painted rectangles mirror the rectangles depicted in the photographs. Moreover, the overall dimensions of each piece are determined to work as a part for the whole composition on the gallery wall, with its proportions and dimensions demarcating parameters.
While the configurations of Construct, R can be seen as an enlargement, akin to the way a photographic print is an enlargement of a film negative, the new arrangements made for the book pages, as seen on the left wall, in contrast, is a reduction in scale.
On the back wall of the gallery, the door becomes an object, an integral part of Alternations with its prominent placement and its shape of a rectangle.
Alternations invites the viewer to move through the space where one may go back and forth among different choreographies that are held within the rectangles of the walls, photographs, and book pages. A momentary pause in between such back and forths opens up ruptures that reveal and contradict our expectations of pictures and space.
About the Artist
Sophia Chai is a Rochester-based artist who was born in South Korea and immigrated to New York City at the age of fourteen. Chai’s studio practice began with the camera as a constructed site where the phenomenon of light and space unfolds in order to ask the question, What is a photograph really? With her most recent work, Chai has expanded on that inquiry by lifting the lines drawn between photography, painting, and architecture by means of site-specific installation of her photographs. In doing so, questioning all normalized perception through her lens. Chai received her BA in chemistry from the University of Chicago and her MFA in photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Before relocating to Rochester, MN in 2017 from Brooklyn, New York, Chai showed her work in group exhibitions at venues in New York City, including Trestle Projects, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Knockdown Center, A.I.R. Gallery, and TSA Gallery, among others. In addition to a solo exhibition at 106 Green (Brooklyn) in 2016, Chai mounted two solo exhibitions in 2020: Sight Lines at the Rochester Art Center (Minnesota) and Interpolation at Hair + Nails Gallery in Minneapolis. Chai is a 2019 recipient of the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) grant for advancing artists, a 2020 recipient of the Minnesota State Art Board Artist Initiative Grant, and a 2019/2020 MCAD Jerome Fellow. She is one of the three Rochester-based artists selected for an art integration project for Discovery Walk, a new green parkway spanning five city blocks in downtown Rochester.
Sophia Chai is a fiscal year 2020 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Cover image: Composition #8 from the artist’s book, Alternations, 2021. Archival inkjet print on Hanji paper, 9x14 inches.
