Yasmine Chatila, whose controversial series Stolen Moments made headlines in New York and internationally, has temporarily set her surveillance equipment aside and picked up more traditional means for creating art. Her new series of collages is a more introverted body of work-an exercise in free association that provides the viewer with a voyeuristic window into her mind, deliberately turning the tables on herself. Edelman Arts is pleased to present Reveries and Delusions on view from June 2 to July 29, 2011 at our 136 East 74th street gallery. 

The collages are sourced from current and vintage periodicals and illuminate Chatila's feelings on religion, war, pop culture and the environment. A collage taken from a 1960s National Geographic embodies the naЇveté of that era. Illustrated, romanticized food products are juxtaposed with a fertilizer plant built contemporaneously in a barren and desolate rural reality. Somewhat obscured and ominous, the plant is nestled in the background of the cartoon-like country landscape. Yet another collage juxtaposes a figurine of the Virgin Mary seemingly diving headfirst into a cleverly concealed pink donut hole.  The final images rendered are scanned and digitally reworked and printed as photographs.

Yasmine Chatila was born in 1974 in Cairo.  She received her MFA from Columbia University in New York, and is the recipient of numerous awards including a Columbia fellowship and Tag Heuer grant.  Her work has been shown at numerous institutions in the U.S. and Europe, including the Centre Pompidou (Paris), El Museo Reina Sofia (Spain), the KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), and the John Michael Kohler Art Center (Wisconsin, USA). Her work was recently included in New York: A Photographer's City edited by Marla Hamburg Kennedy and published by Rizzoli. 

Opening Reception: Thursday June 2   6-8 pm

RSVP: info@edelemanarts.com