Marks of Memory

CHICAGO – Hilton Contemporary is pleased to present Cristina Mittermeier: Marks of Memory, a solo exhibition of new works by Cristina Mittermeier, on view from July 22 – September 15 at Hilton Contemporary. The exhibition features a new body of mixed-media collages alongside a selection of limited-edition photographs, expanding Mittermeier’s celebrated visual language through layered, tactile works that reflect on memory, place, and the fragile beauty of the natural world.

Internationally recognized for her powerful photography and unwavering commitment to environmental advocacy, Mittermeier has spent decades documenting the relationship between humanity and the planet’s most vulnerable ecosystems. In Marks of Memory, she turns toward a more intimate and materially driven mode of storytelling, combining photography with hand-worked surfaces, fragments, and layered interventions that evoke the ways memory is accumulated, altered, and preserved over time.

These new collage works extend Mittermeier’s longstanding exploration of our connection to nature while introducing a new physicality to her practice. Built through layers of image, texture, and mark-making, the works reflect both personal remembrance and collective environmental memory—traces of landscapes, coastlines, wildlife, and lived experience that remain with us long after a moment has passed. The result is a body of work that feels both expansive and deeply personal, balancing wonder with urgency.

Coinciding with the exhibition, Mittermeier will also appear in Chicago as an honorary guest speaker at Shedd Aquarium on July 21—a fitting extension of the environmental and conservation themes that have defined her career.

Mittermeier is widely known as one of the leading voices in contemporary conservation photography. A photographer, marine biologist, and co-founder of the conservation organization SeaLegacy, her work has helped shape global conversations around climate change, biodiversity, and ocean protection. Yet even as her images bear witness to the environmental crisis, they are rooted in reverence—an effort to inspire care, responsibility, and a deeper sense of belonging within the natural world.

In Marks of Memory, that sense of reverence takes on new form. The exhibition invites viewers to consider how images function not only as records, but as vessels: carrying emotion, experience, and evidence of what has been loved, witnessed, and at risk of being lost. Together, the collages and photographs offer a meditation on remembrance, stewardship, and the enduring marks left by both nature and human presence.

Hilton Contemporary is owned and administered by CEO and Founder Arica Hilton. 

Hilton, a multi-media artist, poet, writer and patron of the arts, has more than 30 years of experience representing artists around the world, founded Hilton Contemporary in 2012. In recent years the gallery has flourished, seeing tremendous growth and recognition for the caliber of art exhibitions Hilton has brought to Chicago.  

Located in Chicago’s River North Art District and the burgeoning arts district of Bridgeport, Hilton Contemporary specializes in modern and contemporary paintings, works on paper, sculpture and photography, Digital AI and mixed media works. 

Participating in art fairs around the world from Art Dubai, Abu Dhabi Art, Photo London, Art Miami, Intersect Aspen, Intersect Palm Springs,  Hilton Contemporary has established an international presence featuring artists from Northern Europe and the Mediterranean Region, including Turkey, Greece, Italy and the Middle East.  

Hilton Contemporary has earned acclaim for exhibitions of artists Adonis, Ana Castillo, David Yarrow, Paul Nicklen, Cristina Mittermeier, Christian Voigt, Kostis Georgiou, Peter Sorel, Terry O’Neill, Julian Wasser, Lawrence Schiller, Hugh Arnold, among others.