Crafting Pragmatics
ANGELA FINNEY, NOEL MERCADO and HOPE WANG
January 13 - February 10, 2024
ENGAGE Projects is excited to announce the opening of Crafting Pragmatics guest curated by Anna Cerniglia of Johalla Projects and featuring the work of Angela Finney, Noel Mercado and Hope Wang. This exhibition expands discourse around utilitarian practices, technology, material culture, and the history of craft with modern outlooks.
Johalla Projects and ENGAGE share a commitment towards arts advocacy, building and strengthening diverse and innovative visual arts representation in public contexts, and enriching the local Chicago arts community. Partnering together for the first time, Crafting Pragmatics is an opportunity for both organizations to further broaden artist access across Chicago’s programming and communities.
Crafting Pragmatics is a space where binaries, such as craft and fine art or functional and decorative, blend and bend into overlapping conversations, innovations, and experimentation. For her Perspectival series, Angela Finney engages with the histories of art, design, and craft to imbue her works with multiple perspectives. Inviting found objects into her work, legacies of material culture vibrate against geometric painted patterns and forms, charging the visual space with an elastic sense of time and context. Steeped in the history of weaving and textile work, Chicago-based artist Hope Wang, fuzes traditional technique with digital technology that provokes a layering of contradictions. Calling forth fleeting moments of the human condition, her compositions are imprints of our ephemeral passings and the impact our gestures can bring forth. Noel Mercado mines iconographies, histories, and spiritualities to re-orient context and awaken contemplation. Anchored in the history of furniture making and embroidery, Mercado interweaves a layered archive of collected moments that become a visual meandering through his inner world and cultural touch points.
Installation Photos: Jonas Mueller-Ahlheim
Johalla Projects and ENGAGE share a commitment towards arts advocacy, building and strengthening diverse and innovative visual arts representation in public contexts, and enriching the local Chicago arts community. Partnering together for the first time, Crafting Pragmatics is an opportunity for both organizations to further broaden artist access across Chicago’s programming and communities.
Crafting Pragmatics is a space where binaries, such as craft and fine art or functional and decorative, blend and bend into overlapping conversations, innovations, and experimentation. For her Perspectival series, Angela Finney engages with the histories of art, design, and craft to imbue her works with multiple perspectives. Inviting found objects into her work, legacies of material culture vibrate against geometric painted patterns and forms, charging the visual space with an elastic sense of time and context. Steeped in the history of weaving and textile work, Chicago-based artist Hope Wang, fuzes traditional technique with digital technology that provokes a layering of contradictions. Calling forth fleeting moments of the human condition, her compositions are imprints of our ephemeral passings and the impact our gestures can bring forth. Noel Mercado mines iconographies, histories, and spiritualities to re-orient context and awaken contemplation. Anchored in the history of furniture making and embroidery, Mercado interweaves a layered archive of collected moments that become a visual meandering through his inner world and cultural touch points.
Installation Photos: Jonas Mueller-Ahlheim
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Perspectival 3, 2023 found wood objects, plywood, acrylic 24 x 16 in 61 x 40.6 cm |
ANGELA FINNEY
Perspectival 4, 2023 found wood objects, plywood, acrylic 19 x 12 in 48.3 x 30.5 cm Perspectival 1, 2023 found wood objects, plywood, acrylic 28 x 15 in 71.1 x 38.1 cm |
Perspectival 2, 2023 found wood objects, plywood, acrylic 25 x 15 x 2 1/4 in 63.5 x 38.1 x 5.7 cm |
HOPE WANG
Peper Rain, 2021 screenprint on nylon and fiberglass mesh, cotton muslin, furniture foam, laminate wood 25 x 19 in 63.5 x 48.3 cm |
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NOEL MERCADO
Longing for Indifference, 2023 canvas, paint, chainstitch embroidery, vinyl, leather 52 x 52 in 132.1 x 132.1 cm |
NOEL MERCADO
Bum A Smoke, 2022 vintage metal Marlboro sign cut in half on two vintage Herman Miller metal stacking bases 36 1/2 x 23 x 14 in 92.7 x 58.4 x 35.6 cm |
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HOPE WANG
throwing a short glance in the sliver between the glass barred against the warm air 6, 2021 cotton and wool on wood frame 27 x 16 in 68.6 x 40.6 cm |
HOPE WANG
throwing a short glance in the sliver between the glass barred against the warm air 3, 2018 cotton, tencel and wool on wood frame 28 x 15 in 71.1 x 38.1 cm |
NOEL MERCADO
I'm Allowed to Waste My Time, 2023 canvas, paint, chainstitch embroidery, vinyl, leather 60 x 40 in 152.4 x 101.6 cm |
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NOEL MERCADO
I'm Allowed to Waste My Time, 2023 canvas, paint, chainstitch embroidery, vinyl, leather 60 x 40 in 152.4 x 101.6 cm |
ANGELA FINNEY
Untitled, 2023 plywood, walnut, acrylic 38 x 43 x 5 1/2 in 96.5 x 109.2 x 14 cm |
HOPE WANG
crimped like the porch steps, 2023 hand-painted cotton 50 x 33 in 127 x 83.8 cm |
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HOPE WANG
crimped like the porch steps, 2023 hand-painted cotton 50 x 33 in 127 x 83.8 cm |
NOEL MERCADO
Resisting My Own Authority, 2023 canvas, paint, chainstitch embroidery, vinyl, leather 48 1/2 x 60 in 123.2 x 152.4 cm |
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HOPE WANG
HOLE #2, 2024 wood, PVC pipe, enamel paint, rubber sealant, screenprint on paper, felt 22 x 10 x 58 1/2 in 55.9 x 25.4 x 148.6 cm |
HOPE WANG
HOLE #1, 2024 wood, PVC pipe, enamel, rubber sealant, screenprint on paper, felt 18 x 10 x 23 in 45.7 x 25.4 x 58.4 cm |
ANGELA FINNEY
Shifted , 2023 mixed media on 120 lb hot pressed paper, deckled edges 30 x 22 in 76.2 x 55.9 cm |
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HOPE WANG
a wavering line pulled taut, 2020 cotton, wool, embossed screenprint on paper 34 x 27 x 2 in 86.4 x 68.6 x 5.1 cm |
HOPE WANG
Soft Rot Heavy Soup, 2016 paper pulp painting, human hair 30 x 22 in 76.2 x 55.9 cm |
HOPE WANG
Stray Storms Soggy Cigar, 2016 paper pulp painting, human hair 30 x 22 in 76.2 x 55.9 cm |
