Fashion Outlets of Chicago today announced a new rotation exhibition as part of THE COLLECTION: Where Art Meets Fashion, its multifaceted contemporary art program, featuring sculptural works by celebrated Puerto Rican artist Ivelisse Jiménez. Now on view, Fading Through Gradations will fill THE COLLECTION’s three rotating exhibition cases on Level Two of the shopping center with vibrant three-dimensional works through May 2023.

Playing upon the experience of color and its afterimage as an element that produces constant change for our eyes, Jiménez’s works speak to the transformative space of process and the transitory merging of traces. In each piece, semitransparent panels of bright color interact with the space in a composition that creates visual movement linking inside and outside, allowing a variety of perspectives for each individual piece.

“I’m thrilled for the opportunity to showcase this work at Fashion Outlets of Chicago and join the ranks of such a unique and exciting program,” said Jiménez. “In this time of confusion and uncertainty, it’s important that we ground and reaffirm ourselves through art, and my work continues to build from this uncertainty as we strive to construct and ascribe meaning to the human experience.”

Each work is created from reused or relocated parts, using the resilience of plastic and the luminosity of color as a lens that reveals contradictory aspects of experience that render the visible chasm between perception and understanding.

Characterized by visual commentary on change and the construction of meaning in dialogue with the inhabited space, Jiménez’s works can be found throughtout the United States, Europe, The Americas and Puerto Rico at a variety of museums, galleries, biennals, art fairs and other institutions. Her work has been featured at the Museo del Barrio Biennale NYC, Prague Biennale, Cuenca Biennale and ARCO project rooms in Spain, among others. Awards include The Joan Mitchell Award for Painters and Sculptors and The Adolph Gottlieb Foundation Grant. Collections include Museo del Barrio NYC, Bronx Museum NY and Museo de Puerto Rico, San Juan, where she is exhibiting her work currently.

Fading Through Gradations

More rose than crimson, Colored vinyl and plastics, enamel paint, gulul powder

Was all red, Colored vinyl and plastics, enamel paint, gulul powder

The smooth green is gone, Colored vinyl and plastics, enamel paint, gulul powder

About Ivelisse Jiménez

Ivelisse Jiménez’s (b. 1966 S.J., Puerto Rico) installations and assemblages present visual propositions regarding change and the construction of meaning in dialogue with the inhabited space. Her work has been exhibited in the United States, Europe, The Americas and Puerto Rico at museums, galleries, biennials, art fairs and other institutions. She has been part of the Museo del Barrio Biennale NYC, Prague Biennale, Cuenca Biennale and ARCO project rooms in Spain, among others. Awards include The Joan Mitchell Award for Painters and Sculptors and The Adolf Gottlieb Foundation Grant. Collections include Museo del Barrio NYC, Bronx Museum NY and Museo de Puerto Rico, San Juan where she is exhibiting her work currently.

Jiménez has a BA in Humanities from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras and MFA in Studio Arts from New York University. After living and working in NY for 20 years, she now has her residence and studio in Puerto Rico.

Images courtesy of James Prinz Photography