Artist Talk: Corey Postiglione and Kathie Shaw

We are thrilled to welcome our community into our galleries for an in person artist talk with Corey Postiglione and Kathie Shaw in conjunction with their

current exhibition, Abstraction as Metaphor, which is now on view through June 20th. Moderated by UIMA curator Dr. Adrienne Kochman, this talk provides the opportunity to view the exhibition while also gaining context into the works and insight into the artists’ processes.

In this informal artist talk, Postiglione and Shaw will use props, such as tools from their shared studio, to give the audience a glimpse into how their works are created and the concepts that fuel them. From what it’s like to share a studio space to the metaphorical meanings of their abstract works, the discussion will cover a breadth of topics and will also welcome questions from the audience.

The works in Abstraction as Metaphor are not only about itself and the sheer formal optical experience uncomplicated by any outside issues. Postiglione and Shaw’s use of abstract imagery readily embraces issues such as themes of globalization and the resultant dynamics of societal, cultural, and environmental degradation. All of this metaphoric content is represented in the language of abstract art.

Postiglione and Shaw have been fortunate to share a studio, where they interact around ideas, techniques and motivations. Although different stylistically, the consequences of a shared space are essential to both artists.

The artist talk will be recorded in its entirety and will be posted to the UIMA YouTube page after the event.

About Corey Postiglione:
Corey Postiglione was born and raised in Chicago. He received his BFA in Studio Arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MA in Art History and Critical Theory from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

Since the 1970s Corey has exhibited professionally with over twenty solo exhibitions, and numerous group shows at such institutions as The Art Institute of Chicago; the Chicago Cultural Center; Jan Cicero Gallery, Chicago, IL; Printworks Gallery, Chicago, IL; The Beverly Arts Center, Beverly, IL; the Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL; and Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL. He has shown internationally in Glasgow, Scotland, Karlsruhe and Munich, Germany, and Vaishali, India.

He was honored with a retrospective exhibition of his works on paper at the Evanston Art Center in January 2008, and a retrospective of his paintings at the Koehnline Museum of Art, Des Plaines, IL, in February 2010. His work is represented in many corporate and private collections. He has been an active member of the American Abstract Artists in New York since 2000 and has exhibited many times with the group.

In addition to his career as a practicing artist, his critical writing has been published in Artforum, The New Art Examiner, Dialogue, and C-Magazine (Toronto). He has curated numerous exhibitions and contributed essays to many exhibition catalogues. He was a founding member of the Chicago Art Critics Association. He has taught at the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Illinois Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the Evanston Art Center. He was a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Design at Columbia College Chicago from 1990 to 2015, where he taught Art History and Critical Theory as well as studio arts. He retired in 2015 and is currently Professor Emeritus.

The artist is represented by Springboard Arts, Chicago, IL., Space Gallery, Denver, CO, and Westbrook Modern Gallery, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA. More of his work can be seen on these gallery websites, or at coreypostiglione.com. The artist is also listed on Wikipedia.

About Kathie Shaw:
Kathie Shaw was born and raised in rural central Pennsylvania. After receiving a BFA with an emphasis on photography from Pennsylvania State University, she traveled to Europe for six months, visiting the countries of Western Europe and Scandinavia mostly camping out of the back of a VW station wagon. Shortly after returning to the States, she moved to Chicago where she received her Master of Fine Art in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Eventually, after a number of years working in what was then known as the Oriental Department at the Art Institute of Chicago and at Jan Cicero Gallery, she decided to pursue a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Illinois Chicago. During her time at UIC, she traveled to Japan on a National Science Foundation Summer Institute Fellowship where she researched Japanese architectural strategies to mitigate seismic activity, which is very prevalent in Japan. As part of the Rome Program at UIC, she also studied abroad in Rome and Basel, Switzerland. In addition to notable scholarships like the Carol Phelan Fellowship and a Woman’s Architectural League of Chicago Scholarship, she received an American Institute of Architects student award for the design of an Alzheimer’s Daycare Center. Upon graduating she began her study of Buddhist philosophy, ongoing to this day, as taught predominantly within the Drikung Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism.

Her training in architecture has informed both her painting and photography. Her painting process has often relied heavily on chance followed by choosing or accentuating what chance has initially laid down. The results sometimes resemble plans, maps, topography, or landscapes and sometimes they become more abstract, moving closer to simply emphasizing the liquid quality of the paint medium itself. The impetus for her paintings often comes from current events related to the changing climate. Her titles often refer to the world of meteorology and to current unprecedented weather events. In 2020 Covid 19 provided the impetus for a series of Crayola Crayon drawings entitled Chaos, and 2021 has seen another shift in emphasis toward geometry, though these small paintings often also reference landscape and the built environment.