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ELISE RASMUSSEN

the beautiful

Night Gallery is pleased to announce the beautiful, an exhibition of new work by Elise Rasmussen, presented in conjunction with PST Art: Art & Science Collide and made possible in part by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Puffin Foundation. This is the artist’s debut solo exhibition at Night Gallery and follows the gallery’s screening of the artist’s 2020 film, The Year Without a Summer, and her participation in Blue State, a formative group exhibition in 2018.

Installation view of Elise Rasmussen's "the beautiful" at Night Gallery

Elise Rasmussen, the beautiful, installation view, 2024

A collage of two photographs - one with a sunset at the beach and the other of foggy mountain tops overlapping against black velvet in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen, sunset & smoke, 2024

Detail of Elise Rasmussen's "sunset & smoke", 2024

Elise Rasmussen, sunset & smoke, 2024

Installation view of Elise Rasmussen's "the beautiful" at Night Gallery

Elise Rasmussen, the beautiful, installation view, 2024

Grief permeates Elise Rasmussen’s solo show the beautiful. Her photographs, shot on medium-format film in and around national parks of the American West, respond both to climate change and to the narrative of stolen land that cannot be uncoupled from the origin stories of our national parks. Rasmussen captures sites of creativity, preservation, climate emergency, and imperialist violence. How to reconcile the undeniable beauty of the landscapes, evidenced in Rasmussen’s photographs, with America’s fraught past—and present? In this suite, Rasmussen offers an elegy both cultural and ecological, macro and micro, as she depicts a changing western landscape.

A photograph of a valley of barren trees in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen, last breaths (Sequoias), 2024

Installation view of Elise Rasmussen's "the beautiful" at Night Gallery

Elise Rasmussen, the beautiful, installation view, 2024

Many of the photographs include images of fire, an apt visual metaphor for this series, with its evocations of cremation and funeral pyres. Rasmussen traveled by car throughout the West with her terrier Clementine, making regular stops to shoot at national parks and adjacent BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. She camped just outside the parks’ limits so that she could light unrestricted campfires before bedding down; two photographs shown here capture flames dwarfed by twilit desert skies. Fire also figures in works like last breaths (Sequoias) (2024), which depicts the struggling gasps of a tree in the aftermath of the 2021 KNP Complex Fire, which decimated California’s Sequoia National Forest.

A photograph of Clementine the terrier on a green hill surrounded by wildflowers with a mountainous valley in the background mounted in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen, oh my darling (Wyoming), 2024

Installation view of Elise Rasmussen's "the beautiful" at Night Gallery

Elise Rasmussen, the beautiful, installation view, 2024

A photograph of the artist's silhouette against a tree trunk in a forest mounted in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen, tree of life (the Winds), 2024

Installation view of Elise Rasmussen's "the beautiful" at Night Gallery

Elise Rasmussen, the beautiful, installation view, 2024

During her road trip, Rasmussen hit iconic “photo-ops” such as the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone Park and Robert Smithson’s famed land artwork Spiral Jetty on the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. These sites are so frequently photographed that they are seared into the “American” consciousness, but Rasmussen expertly presents them from new vantages, in some instances using collage to create continuous landscapes.

A photograph of a campfire near "Spiral Jetty" with fireworks going off in the background.

Elise Rasmussen, the 4th (Spiral Jetty), 2024

Installation view of Elise Rasmussen's "the beautiful" at Night Gallery

Elise Rasmussen, the beautiful, installation view, 2024

A rectangular box with a video projection playing inside of the Old Faithful geyser erupting in Yellowstone National Park.

Elise Rasmussen, Old Faithful, 2024

 

 

Installation view of Elise Rasmussen's "the beautiful" at Night Gallery

Elise Rasmussen, the beautiful, installation view, 2024

A collage of three photographs of a campfire in a green valley with red light leaks overlapping against a green velvet background.

Elise Rasmussen, Montana, 2024

Installation view of Elise Rasmussen's "the beautiful" at Night Gallery

Elise Rasmussen, the beautiful, installation view, 2024

Although Rasmussen's work advocates for preservation, it also acknowledges another truth: We constantly lose what we once believed to be constant. We can never fully protect or restore it, only acknowledge its fleeting gorgeousness.

—Cat Kron

A collage of two photographs of mossy trees and a floor of ferns overlapping against a wooden background.

Elise Rasmussen, in the Cascades (Pacific Spirit), 2024

Detail of "in the Cascades (Pacific Spirit), 2024

Elise Rasmussen, in the Cascades (Pacific Spirit), 2024

Elise Rasmussen is a research-based artist working with lens-based media. She has exhibited, performed and screened her work internationally including venues such as the Brooklyn Museum, the Queens Museum, the Bronx Museum & Pioneer Works (New York), Night Gallery & JOAN (Los Angeles), the University of Queensland Art Museum & Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane), Belvedere 21 (Vienna), Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE), Dazibao & Skol (Montreal), the Art Gallery of Alberta & Latitude 53 (Edmonton), the Doris McCarthy Gallery & Gallery 44 (Toronto). Her work is a part of private and institutional collections, most notably LACMA (Los Angeles) and the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago). Elise received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on a Merit Scholarship and has been an artist at a number of residencies including the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin), La Becque (Switzerland), the Nirox Foundation (South Africa), LMCC (New York), SOMA (Mexico City), the Banff Centre (Banff, Alberta) and she was a 2016 Fellow in the Art & Law Program (New York). Elise has been written about in publications such as Artforum, ArtReview, Art in America, BOMB Magazine, and the New Inquiry, and has received grants and awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, NYFA/NYSCA, the Puffin Foundation, and the American Austrian Foundation. Born in Edmonton, Canada (Treaty Six, Amiskwacîwâskahikan), Elise currently resides in Los Angeles, California (Tovaangar, the traditional lands of the Gabrielino-Tongva Peoples).

A collage of two photographs - one with a sunset at the beach and the other of foggy mountain tops overlapping against black velvet in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen

sunset & smoke, 2024

archival pigment prints mounted on velvet in walnut frame

26 1/2 x 36 in (67.3 x 91.4 cm)

Inquire
A photograph of a valley of barren trees in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen

last breaths (Sequoias), 2024

archival pigment print, walnut frame

50 3/4 x 38 3/4 in (128.9 x 98.4 cm)

Ed. of 2 + 2 A.P. (#1/2)

A photograph of Clementine the terrier on a green hill surrounded by wildflowers with a mountainous valley in the background mounted in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen

oh my darling (Wyoming), 2024

archival pigment print, walnut frame

40 3/4 x 30 3/4 in (103.5 x 78.1 cm)

Ed. of 2 + 2 A.P. (#1/2)

Inquire
A photograph of the artist's silhouette against a tree trunk in a forest mounted in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen

tree of life (the Winds), 2024

archival pigment print, walnut frame

40 3/4 x 30 3/4 in (103.5 x 78.1 cm)

Ed. of 2 + 2 A.P. (#1/2)

Inquire
A photograph of a campfire near "Spiral Jetty" with fireworks going off in the background.

Elise Rasmussen

the 4th (Spiral Jetty), 2024 

archival pigment print, walnut frame

60 3/4 x 49 in (154.3 x 124.46 cm)

Ed. of 2 + 2 A.P. (#1/2)

Inquire
A still from a video shot on 16mm of Old Faithful geyser erupting.

Elise Rasmussen

Old Faithful, 2024

16mm film transferred to 4K

92 minute, looping

Ed. of 2 + 2 A.P. (#1/2)

Inquire
A collage of three photographs of a campfire in a green valley with red light leaks overlapping against a green velvet background.

Elise Rasmussen

Montana, 2024

archival pigment prints mounted on velvet in walnut frame

27 1/4 x 36 3/4 in (69.2 x 93.3 cm)

Inquire
A collage of two photographs of mossy trees and a floor of ferns overlapping against a wooden background.

Elise Rasmussen

in the Cascades (Pacific Spirit), 2024

archival pigment prints mounted on walnut in walnut frame

32 x 27 1/2 in (81.3 x 69.8 cm)

Inquire
A collage of two photographs - one with a sunset at the beach and the other of foggy mountain tops overlapping against black velvet in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen

sunset & smoke, 2024

archival pigment prints mounted on velvet in walnut frame

26 1/2 x 36 in (67.3 x 91.4 cm)

A photograph of a valley of barren trees in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen

last breaths (Sequoias), 2024

archival pigment print, walnut frame

50 3/4 x 38 3/4 in (128.9 x 98.4 cm)

Ed. of 2 + 2 A.P. (#1/2)

A photograph of Clementine the terrier on a green hill surrounded by wildflowers with a mountainous valley in the background mounted in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen

oh my darling (Wyoming), 2024

archival pigment print, walnut frame

40 3/4 x 30 3/4 in (103.5 x 78.1 cm)

Ed. of 2 + 2 A.P. (#1/2)

A photograph of the artist's silhouette against a tree trunk in a forest mounted in a walnut frame.

Elise Rasmussen

tree of life (the Winds), 2024

archival pigment print, walnut frame

40 3/4 x 30 3/4 in (103.5 x 78.1 cm)

Ed. of 2 + 2 A.P. (#1/2)

A photograph of a campfire near "Spiral Jetty" with fireworks going off in the background.

Elise Rasmussen

the 4th (Spiral Jetty), 2024 

archival pigment print, walnut frame

60 3/4 x 49 in (154.3 x 124.46 cm)

Ed. of 2 + 2 A.P. (#1/2)

A still from a video shot on 16mm of Old Faithful geyser erupting.

Elise Rasmussen

Old Faithful, 2024

16mm film transferred to 4K

92 minute, looping

Ed. of 2 + 2 A.P. (#1/2)

A collage of three photographs of a campfire in a green valley with red light leaks overlapping against a green velvet background.

Elise Rasmussen

Montana, 2024

archival pigment prints mounted on velvet in walnut frame

27 1/4 x 36 3/4 in (69.2 x 93.3 cm)

A collage of two photographs of mossy trees and a floor of ferns overlapping against a wooden background.

Elise Rasmussen

in the Cascades (Pacific Spirit), 2024

archival pigment prints mounted on walnut in walnut frame

32 x 27 1/2 in (81.3 x 69.8 cm)