The Height Below
Elizabeth McCarthy, Soo Shin

“The body is our general medium for having a world.” - Maurice Merleau-Ponty
How do we move forward in the world where there is no definite answer or direction ahead? Often we have to reason and grasp at reality through the debris of our own darkness in which we cannot see our path. The exhibition The Height Below presents Chicago-based artists Liz McCarthy and Soo Shin’s recent works that explore the fear of uncertainty, and the struggle in having faith in something we cannot prove. This collection works reference body and ritual as mediums in search for small epiphanies in the unknown path ahead of them.

Liz McCarthy is an artist and arts organizer based out of Chicago. Her work combines photography, sculpture, and performance to explore our psychological framing of experience. She regularly shows work throughout the Midwest, most recently at the Comfort Station in Chicago. She has participated in residencies such as Atlantic Center for the Arts, ACRE, and High Concept Laboratories, and has been honored with fellowship support from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Illinois Arts Council, and Chicago’s Department of Tourism.

Soo Shin was born in Seoul, Korea and currently lives and works in Chicago. She holds an MFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago. She is interested in the uncertainty in having faith in the unknown and turns the psychological struggle into physical experience through the latency of body in her sculpture, painting, and drawing. Her work has been shown in various locations in the states as well as abroad.