NATALIE CHEUNG and NATE LEWIS Reviewed in The Washington Post

WASHINGTON POST ~ In the galleries ~ April 21, 2017

 Natalie Cheung: Increments in Time and Nate Lewis: Tensions in Tapestries On view through April 26 at Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave. NW. 202-628-2787. mortonfineart.com.

Natalie Cheung’s “31 Hours,” cyanotype on paper, on view through April 26 at Morton Fine Art. (Natalie Cheung/Courtesy of Morton Fine Art)

To judge by their titles, change must be the subject of Natalie Cheung’s cyanotypes. Each picture in her Morton Fine Art show, “Increments in Time,” is named after a period of as little as one and as many as 76 hours. This is how long it took water to evaporate from the photographic paper, yielding studies in blue, black and white.  The D.C. artist has turned the process, once used for architectural blueprints, into something abstract and unpredictable. Her pictures may resemble Rorschach tests and microscopic views, but all they truly illustrate is the process by which they were made. Their poetry is an accident of chemicals and duration.

Nate Lewis’s “Signals II,” hand-sculpted paper photo print, at Morton Fine Art. (Nate Lewis/Courtesy of Morton Fine Art)

To Nate Lewis, whose “Tensions in Tapestries” also is at Morton, the African American body is a landscape to be transformed. He cuts and scrapes black-and-white photographic portraits, removing pigment while adding patterns and flocked textures. The effect recalls African weaving and skin embellishment, but also reflects the influence of the D.C. artist’s job as an intensive-care nurse, seeking to heal the most damaged. In pieces such as “Funk and Spine,” the surface of a woman’s body is almost entirely remade, yet sinew, bone and essence endure.

– Mark Jenkins

Natalie Cheung: Increments in Time and Nate Lewis: Tensions in Tapestries On view through April 26 at Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave. NW. 202-628-2787. mortonfineart.com.

Increments of Time: New Works by NATALIE CHEUNG

 53 Hours, 2017, 30″x 44″, cyanotype on paper

We are excited to give you a sneak preview of new works by NATALIE CHEUNG from her upcoming solo exhibition Increments in Time.

Increments in Time features Cheung’s cyanotype mappings of evaporation. Cheung’s cyanotypes are reduced to the essential elements of capturing and recording light; light, paper, chemical reaction and chance which hearken back to the scientific roots of the medium. The prints record the transition from liquid to blueprint. The title of each work indicates the hours in which it took water to evaporate completely from the paper. What remains is the aftermath of an event, a map. This work examines the way in which nature perpetually creates patterns, seemingly random and chaotic yet with regularity and repetition.

Natalie was born in Falls Church, Virginia. She received her MFA in Photography from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and her BFA in Photography from the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, DC. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally; she has been profiled in Washington Spaces Magazine and has her work is represented in numerous collections including the Museum of Fine Art Houston and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Cheung has taught at the George Washington University as well as the Corcoran College of Art + Design and Temple University, Tyler School of Art. This marks her second solo exhibition at Morton Fine Art.

You can also see more of Natalie’s available works HERE.

 31 Hours, 2017, 30″x 44″, cyanotype on paper

76 Hours, 2017, 30″x 44″, cyanotype on paper

 1 Hour, 2017, 5″x 7″, cyanotype on paper

2 Hours, 2017, 5″x 7″, cyanotype on paper

 3 Hours (b), 2017, 8″x 9″, cyanotype on paper

 3 Hours, 2017, 8″x 9″, cyanotype on paper

 6 Hours, 2017, 8″x 9″, cyanotype on paper