The work of Catie Newell, assistant professor of architecture, is featured in a solo exhibition, entitled Overnight, at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Overnight includes photographs from her recent Rome Prize project as well as new photography from the series Nightly, featuring nighttime images of Detroit streetscapes and interiors, alongside a site-specific sculptural installation commissioned by UMMA. Opening June 11, the show continues until November 6, 2016 and is in the Stenn Gallery.
Her investigations combine architectural research, material studies, and art experiments, a strategy that has come to define her career, and focus on the tactile, sensory qualities of the materials we use to build things: their texture, density, or malleability. The most important element in her formal vocabulary is light, not only as a “material” in its own right, but also as a condition. Varying in strength, form, and duration, light constructs architecture as a situational experience rather than a fixed space. Newell’s fascination with light is a fascination with darkness. Through urban interventions, installations, and photographs, she investigates how darkness creates alternate environments, with unseen geographies, untold histories, and secret identities.
As part of the exhibition, join for a panel discussion and a celebration of the night on October 23 at 3pm.