Travelogue
Lauren Simkin Berke

GALLERY II

Lauren Simkin Berke, *The Gardens* (detail), 2021, Watercolor and ink, 8 1/2 x 11 inches.

February 11–March 12, 2023

Opening reception: Saturday, February 11 from 6–8pm

A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Travelogue, an exhibition by Alum Member Lauren Simkin Berke. Berke will be showing a new body of mixed media work on paper, in both flat and folded forms. The materials and processes used include ink, watercolor, wax pastel, pencil, block printing, cyanotype, and accordion, flip book, and tunnel book forms. This is Berke's fifth solo show at A.I.R. Gallery.

This series began in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, during months of quarantine followed by months of limited outside excursions. The series follows two people as they travel, at first to known places, and then to places created from the artist's imagination. Posed, as people often do, for the camera, these figures appear the same throughout, as the environments around them change. It seems they are having a grand adventure.

Travelogue is about the capacity of the human mind to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It is about finding a way to travel the world while a pandemic has us all stuck in one place. Through their journey, we do not get a clear picture of who this couple is, and this ambiguity allows for them to stand for both the artist and the viewer, and as such, we get to travel with them.

Lauren Simkin Berke is based in Brooklyn. They received an M.F.A. in Illustration as Visual Essay from the School of Visual Arts in 2003, and a B.A. in Anthropology from Cornell University in 2001. Berke works as a freelance illustrator, and teaches in the MFA Illustration program at FIT, the BFA Comics and Illustration program at SVA, and the BFA Illustration program at Parsons. For more on the artist visit www.simkinberke.com.

View the Press Release here.

View Lauren Simkin Berke’s page here.

Public Program:

TRAVELOGUE: AN IMPROVISATIONAL DRAWING WORKSHOP

Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 1 PM

A.I.R. Gallery 155 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Learn more here.