Exhibitions

DELAYS AND INTERRUPTIONS

The Central Collective / 923 N. Central St. January 6, 2017 - January 26, 2017

Brian Hitselberger
Jessie Van der Laan

Delays and Interruptions is a series of collaborative drawings created by artists Brian Hitselberger and Jessie Van der Laan. Brian and Jessie met as graduate students during 2008 collaborative art-making event and were immediately taken with one another’s work and process. In each, they noticed a mutual overlapping of sensibilities—in short, they recognized themselves in one another. Initial grand plans of a large-scale collaborative installation eventually led to the more humble project of creating collaborative diptychs (a form that each artist employs, particularly as a tool to return to between larger projects). Each artist created a series of drawings, which were then mailed to the other who created the second half of the piece in response. The conception for this show occurred over a series of emails, often with gaps of time in between. The project’s title Delays and Interruptions refers to this series of communication as well as the span of time between the artists’ meeting and completion of this project, in which each artist took on new professional and personal challenges: new jobs, solo shows, and parenthood. Shortened spans of studio time, often delayed or interrupted, led way to adapting to new processes of making. These works embrace exploration and experimentation, using a variety of materials and subjects that are intermixed, obscured, layered, and reflected. Each pair creates an intersecting reverie grown from one another’s daydream.