MCC galleries host works by Chicago artist Julie Weber
McHenry County College is hosting an exhibit titled re | process by artist Julie Weber through Sept. 9 in Art Galleries One and Two, inside and outside the library, respectively.
In re | process, Weber works with exhausted spools of thin, transparent polyester-coated with heat-sensitive cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes.
This material forms the basis of the dye-sublimation process behind commercial print labs and was collected by Weber during a time when she worked in a one-hour photo lab. Once expended, the transparent printer ribbons appear as negatives, bearing the delicate tracings of the images they produced.
This body of work is the result of revisiting, repurposing, and reimaging this archive of material byproduct through an oscillation of digital and analogue photographic modalities.
Rather than focusing on clear depiction of the original images left on the ribbon, Weber uses the material to form new images that depict visual cues of their own making, referencing the very processes that created them.
Through methodical application of color, tone, shape, layering, and repetition, photographic material and process are pulled to the fore, where they are inseparable from subject matter.
There will be a reception with the artist from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 8, in the galleries. Weber will give an informal gallery tour at 3:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Weber is a Chicago-based visual artist and educator working conceptually within the framework of photography. She is interested in how images take form and materialize into physical objects.
Predominantly cameraless, her work considers how materials can image themselves by depicting their own process. Her recent solo exhibitions include re | process at The Alice Wilds (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and re | materialize at Seerveld Gallery (Palos Heights, Illinois).
Weber's work has been featured nationally in exhibitions at SF Camerawork (San Francisco, CA), Cressman Center for Visual Arts (Louisville, KY), photo-eye Gallery (Santa Fe, NM), Silver Eye Center for Photography (Pittsburgh, PA), and more.
Her limited-edition artist book, "REMNANTS," was published by Skylark Editions (2017). She received a bachelor of arts degree from Dominican University (2006) and earned her master of fine arts in photography from Columbia College Chicago (2014).
She has taught at Northern Illinois University, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Columbia College Chicago, and currently teaches at Waubonsee Community College and Dominican University.
MCC is at 8900 Route 14 in Crystal Lake. For information, contact Trevor Power, gallery curator, at (815) 455-8785 or tpower@mchenry.edu.
Learn more about Julie Weber by visiting www.julielweber.com.