Artist Reception: Of Time & Place

These are dynamic times! Due to Covid 19, The Art Center Highland Park Galleries had to adjust our exhibits to accommodate a changing schedule. This kind of fluidity has distorted our perspectives and shaken our foundation, inspiring the theme, ​Of Time & Place​. The work explores how the pandemic has changed our perspectives of how we pass time, where we quarantine, and with whom with create bubbles of contact. The galleries have been adjusted to adhere to spacial restrictions, defying the confines of our usual gallery places. As a result, the juror, Victoria Marchio, was able to include outdoor works and installations.

Many of the pieces in the exhibit suggests a fleeting, ungrounded and fragmented shift in our notions of shelter and time, while others reflect the ‘bubbles’ in both literal and symbolic ways. While the ​shelter in place​ may have lifted, the altered sense of life post-pandemic has continued to alter perceptions. Time has moved both quickly and slowly. There exists an uncertainty, however, at the same time, there remains a constant in the reality of a global shared experience. The individual experiences can be different, but the international existence of a shared experience becomes the history that shapes who we are as a culture. It is incumbent on artists to reflect our responses to our situations that help us form meaning.

The exhibit will also have a virtual component.

Guest juror and feature artist, Victoria Marchio
Congratulations to the following artists: Michael Banning, Alice Becker, Stephen Butzlaff, Jack Chernyakova-Itskovich, Vanessa Filley, Nona C. Flores, Katherine Gibson, Carol Hammerman, Merrilee Hepler, Deborah Hirshfield, Marilyn Hollander, Doina Iacob, Sebastien Johnson, Lisa Kinzelberg, Jill Kolker, Jamie Kost, Boruch Lev, Terry Luc, Raymond McKenzie, Daniel Oliver, Sandra Perlow, Kenneth Probst, Molly Rivera, Kathryn Rodrigues, Verna Todd, Paul Waters, Aaron Wilder, Sunny Yeung, Lisa Youngdahl, Samantha Younis.

Juror bio: Victoria Marchio from Highland Park, IL, is an award-winning published photographer. Her commercial art degree helps merge her love for photography, graphic design, and painting. The photo-transfer work is inspired by Picasso, Warhol and Rauschenberg. Through her use of personal photographs, her powerful statements reflect on the common themes from death, loss to personal development and growth. “I look at this type of artistic form as experimental, which allows me to focus on creating bold works showcasing my current emotions and beliefs.” She honors the “happy mistakes and surprises” that emerge out of the medium. She has participated in several solo art shows & group gallery exhibitions around the Chicago area.

A not-for-profit visual arts organization since 1960, The Art Center Highland Park, located at 1957 Sheridan Road, Highland Park, provides arts education to Highland Park and its surrounding communities, assuring access to the arts for all ages and cultural interests. This vigorous community-centered organization inspires everyone from tots through seniors to achieve and transform their world through more than 450 art classes offered annually in photography, oil and acrylic painting, watercolor, pastel, mixed media painting, ceramics, jewelry making, metalsmithing, digital arts, fiber art, mosaics, assemblage and more.