West Town, Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village, Kinzie Corridor, Humboldt Park

West Town

Wisconsin

IL • MI • IN

West Loop, Fulton Market, East Garfield Park

West Loop and West Side

Evanston, The North Shore, Northern, Western and Southern Suburbs

Suburbs

Old Town, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Roscoe Village, Bucktown, Wicker Park, Logan Square, Lincoln Square, Ravenswood, Uptown, Edgewater, Andersonville, Rogers Park

North Side

Michigan Avenue, Streeterville, The Gold Coast, The Loop, and South Loop

Michigan Avenue

Pilsen, Bridgeport, Chinatown, plus Hyde Park, Jackson Park/Dorchester, and Bronzeville

South Side

Superior and Franklin streets, West Chicago Ave, and down to Merchandise Mart and the River

River North

ENGAGE Group Show

November 8, 2024 – January 11, 2025Opening Reception: Friday, November 8, from 6-9 pm&nbsp; How do we maintain serenity and peace within when forces outside of us are ambiguous and even tumultuous? How do we feel joy, share love, work, and create in times of uncertainty? What does it mean to “be” when we may feel apprehension about the future. This group show, SoNa Chicago’s first open call for artists, explores how artists interpret and express the idea of&nbsp;lightness and being.&nbsp;The artists selected for the show reflect on time, memories, and what lies ahead.&nbsp;They convey their wonderment at life, nature, spirituality, and our connections to each other. Light streams through the sky, through glass, or from an object. Lightness is interpreted through form, color, and texture. Silence, stillness, and meditation on spaces is conveyed in some of the artwork. Other artists reflect on hardship and how to move through it. The artists make statements with their work that are profoundly positive, and generative. They connect to nature, humanity, and creativity as forces that fill us and can impact society. Questions of what it means to&nbsp;be&nbsp;and how lightness can imbue our consciousness and senses are explored through various media.&nbsp;Exhibiting Artists:&nbsp;&nbsp;Pinar Aral, Sharon Bladholm, Monica J. Brown, reisling dong, Alan Emerson Hicks, Robert Fields, Mirentxu Ganzarain, Glen Gauthier, Markus Giolas, Fletcher Hayes, Anne Hughes, Ethan Hutchinson, Natalie Jackson, Damien James, Kathleen King, Pauline Kochanski, Loralyn Kumlin, Kim Laurel, Beatriz&nbsp;Ledesma, Antwane Lee, Michael Miller, Rosalina Perez, Corinne Peterson, Diane Ponder, Renee Robbins, Tom Robinson, Julian Sarria, Nicholas Sistler, Paul Gerard Somers, Eve Sopala, Gerardo Villarreal, Kathy Weaver, Glenn Wexler

Group Show: Lightness and Being

Closing Reception for Lightness and Being Group Show at&nbsp;SoNa Chicago Contemporary Art Saturday, January 11, 2025, 2–4:00 pm In the Call for the group show we asked artists to submit work related to the theme of Lightness and Being and to submit statements about how their work relates to that theme. We received wonderful submissions and commentary. The submissions are displayed in a notebook at the gallery along with the artwork. The artists reflected on time, memories, and what lies ahead. The work in the show conveys wonderment at life, nature, spirituality, and our connections to each other. Some of the artists reflected on hardship and how to move through it. The work in the show is profoundly positive and generative. The exhibition is on view only through Saturday, Jan 11. See it on Friday, Jan 10 from 5-7 pm, Saturday, Jan 11 from 12-4 pm, with the Closing Reception from 2-4 pm. Refreshments will be served. Image: Gallery View, Lightness and Being Group Show

Closing Reception for Lightness and Being

Conversation with Jake Troyli and Devon Van Houten Maldonado, Executive Director, SkyArt

Closing Talk for Collision Course

moniquemeloche is pleased to present&nbsp;Jake Troyli: Collision Course,&nbsp;the artist's third solo exhibition with the gallery. Taking cues from the technical and compositional elements of Northern Renaissance paintings, Troyli's self-portraiture fuses comic language with social critique as he explores the performance of identity and the commodification of the Black/Brown body.&nbsp;Collision Course centralizes the artist's ongoing investigations within a larger context of the battle, posing questions around the spectacle through micro and macro examinations of conflict.&nbsp;This new series was initiated during a year-long residency as an inaugural Visual Artist Fellow at the Académie des beaux-arts x Cité Internationale des arts program in Paris, France. During this time abroad, Troyli became heavily inspired by the compositions of epic battle and martyr paintings present throughout European museums. In a timely presentation, the works in Collision Course subvert humanity's fixation on conflict and the need to create narratives based on heroism and villainy to define ourselves. This notion of code-switching has been a central theme within the artist's practice, rendered through the steady use of his own avatar engaged in constant cycles of performance.&nbsp;Collision Course&nbsp;presents an expanded cast of characters and symbols to extend further beyond the self-portrait, complicating this hero-villain dynamic and the elasticity of these roles, whereby the figures function as both subject and sacrifice.&nbsp;Grounding the exhibition, a two-part painting analogous to a theatrical backdrop provides a plethora of choreographed chaos. Multiple Troyli figures appear manifold–engaged in a congressional assembly hall, rejoicing in church, protesting near a tent community, manufacturing AR-15 rifles blindfolded, serving champagne at a private Dior party, or voting on whether Kendrick or Drake won, while new figures donning Troyli masks complicate our ability to discern which role is being played. These figures are both police and policed, shooter and target, leader and follower, persecutor and persecuted. Part combative, part cannibalistic, the figures are defined by their opposition. Across moments of martyring throughout the show, questions around what it means to self-mythologize and self-valorize come to light. While we are unsure what is being fought for, it becomes more important that they are fighting. This perpetual collision course speaks to the anxiety of it all. Upon entering the gallery, viewers are greeted by a singular Troyli, nude and exhausted blowing on a bugle, as if to say he's doing this for the thousandth time. Nearby, multiple Troylis are engaged in battle on horseback. Apathetic expressions abound, we wonder who is really at war as our eyes greet the mad gaze of two horses in an enraged clash. Warhorses, and the bugler for that matter, become metaphors for participants in this never-ending confrontation who are neither actively involved nor invested, but whose lives are nevertheless on the line. This idea of impassivity or complicit participation echoes throughout, as we see that no matter which role they're playing, all the figures in the compositions are in their own way implicated in the Orwellian unending battle at the center of the show.&nbsp;Jake Troyli is also on view in Chicago featuring a new permanent mural in Chicago's West Side commissioned by the nonprofit <a href=https://t8j4tqkab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001eyJ5TVKjQE95lqTHVzF13qg3z12WD5kSYhLLwD_Kn0W9usUqlcrj6r7FqCixaqmgGCxa7MrMfSq8ff7c8OX839A_fgS9jziZIkySJGlgpelHQPherPEd4RsdMWPLsrhTv2jsPkScXi5g0krOX6KY6o_J2t6fb4gAg1wrhPOpjktyoymQ2ojJzLGfGaAI0L1n6b-sDxdfNlW2hJYWzM6oDBSze1n0vrJHg9phtR8Ne2-pKaLj5dhKc1Xmo8aDMVlmqRjRCXgBkoKE2jP2YO_9fDKy7ntPTfqQLwyuGUtFY6mpPnI7nUv05ZiSzizG-SZv&amp;c=X3y7gxXUZbEX5jXmA_Er5KK3riH80M4KFiJ0fPYgUe3WdIUGc1MBLA==&amp;ch=LxA7P-hr32Yo9YthMlC7wC_JGfPVuatmrz5m6rduPX0EZ6Xswyh_3Q==>SkyART</a>, as well as a billboard in collaboration with <a href=https://t8j4tqkab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001eyJ5TVKjQE95lqTHVzF13qg3z12WD5kSYhLLwD_Kn0W9usUqlcrj6r7FqCixaqmgvLUZL4tvUoy9y6CvePd1bUiLeBqMnrTndBvIqmas0i9REKR9hV3tjxI3O0cEgks_O1rPEn_VLM1f0dZl0qjcf_-q_a82JjBupg6oSvJHNZfBvhopelYexQ==&amp;c=X3y7gxXUZbEX5jXmA_Er5KK3riH80M4KFiJ0fPYgUe3WdIUGc1MBLA==&amp;ch=LxA7P-hr32Yo9YthMlC7wC_JGfPVuatmrz5m6rduPX0EZ6Xswyh_3Q==>For Freedoms</a>leading up to the election. His work is included in the recently opened group exhibition&nbsp;<a href=https://t8j4tqkab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001eyJ5TVKjQE95lqTHVzF13qg3z12WD5kSYhLLwD_Kn0W9usUqlcrj6r7FqCixaqmgDuPrxehE10PvLcvmXJ9Lc8o1NWtPUSpxC3NVSA5xN-oOC6rHZ5ZciAJfmoMrnjXSTNKksuMkQfzCZ-f4XLeM0COc824YPuo0gc-f41bntr4bwRKEi2W-Bf7ta-jsE6PWVsthIGrjHSxn5cRKoQzDKWOvzKoVZoQVpjhJ7D01CCmZJ8KtePYGbw==&amp;c=X3y7gxXUZbEX5jXmA_Er5KK3riH80M4KFiJ0fPYgUe3WdIUGc1MBLA==&amp;ch=LxA7P-hr32Yo9YthMlC7wC_JGfPVuatmrz5m6rduPX0EZ6Xswyh_3Q==>Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture</a>, curated by Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, Seph Rodney, and Katy Siegel, at SFMoMA, which travels to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, and is accompanied by a scholarly publication.&nbsp;<a href=https://t8j4tqkab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001eyJ5TVKjQE95lqTHVzF13qg3z12WD5kSYhLLwD_Kn0W9usUqlcrj6r7FqCixaqmgTRAFu4ycJlZOXN_cxysaTIlIsbse1SY49sSLuxEKsRsINkUNGDqlczQWjE8rUC2nErlNpibgBtwLZtiNvzBztBHh19lcP2S0X77nHTIoxLaSuvVhK6HKonH2VUo8q4DtPfBJA3Kf3yB7mOQfJvuEV7rwa1caVexjCDqJoOcgPTQhedqz7MTKLKfKFW_JSupQ&amp;c=X3y7gxXUZbEX5jXmA_Er5KK3riH80M4KFiJ0fPYgUe3WdIUGc1MBLA==&amp;ch=LxA7P-hr32Yo9YthMlC7wC_JGfPVuatmrz5m6rduPX0EZ6Xswyh_3Q==>Learn more</a><a href=mailto:Alyssa@moniquemeloche.com>request preview</a>

Jake Troyli: Collision Course

2010 W. Carroll Ave.Let’s&nbsp;Go Home&nbsp;explores&nbsp;the concept of&nbsp;“home”&nbsp;through imagery&nbsp;portraying&nbsp;domestic spaces, loved ones,&nbsp;intimate&nbsp;objects,&nbsp;and homeland—representations&nbsp;that allude&nbsp;to&nbsp;feelings of comfort or familiarity. Guest-curated by Christina Stavros, chief registrar and assistant curator at Intuit,&nbsp;this exhibition features work by Jairo Granados-Cardenas, Wesley Willis, Marvin Young and more.&nbsp;<a href=https://qjxtjxbbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001TJHN4crEzKtWmeQqymDusdyiawAhyUpnqH9xAV4gqVyykL8x7Ae5ixGLMuRZwEhkmYkffkV1rJWWCRfJt1Pav35Ihlw9_OnX7a-r_DBXnzAtUU1ZiKM4319ptsq-ns-uDfSD3tydhhvLLAHQV_Shn2sree2cecPG0Hvwr0foVPW6NLwR36Z0-w==&amp;c=Tl6VWwoCkDT-TdPQpbxtTe4XAGMldVxteoqET0qCGWz9EbTuJMW0Ag==&amp;ch=1oXHA0npZsYo8uz2XyNM8GGnFCJJpVzCLeMWS9VIxU-C1sZ2L9qt0g==>Learn more here</a>.

Let's Go Home

Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to announce the upcoming solo exhibition in Chicago by Eva Jospin, entitled&nbsp;Vanishing Points. The show will be on view from November 15, 2024 to January 25, 2025, and will mark the artist’s second exhibition with the gallery and her first in the U.S.&nbsp; In an age of rapid advancement in virtual and augmented reality, Eva Jospin roots her practice in questioning perspective itself. In her tridimensional sculptures and immersive installations, she activates the illusion of depth to shift direct perception and guide the eye to multiple dimensions within each artwork, transforming sight into a conscious, interiorized process. As she explains,&nbsp;“I try to address the landscape as one we are part of—when nature becomes not just a space we observe but one we are inside of, it transforms into an interior, imagined vision.”&nbsp; While the notion of linear perspective was first theorized in the 15th century by Leon Battista Alberti, Jospin’s practice expands this singularity. In&nbsp;Vanishing Points&nbsp;the artist underscores the impossibility of engaging in her work from a single viewpoint. This is formally evidenced in sculptural scenes that unveil their complexity when observed from varying angles, heights, and distances, conjuring a sense of immersion that evokes the presence and immediacy of a rich landscape that has not been flattened by representation. Enlivened through one’s imagination, the work is further heightened and lived as an internal experience.&nbsp; Vanishing Points&nbsp;is a chapter in the artist’s ongoing inquiry into the observer’s connection to their natural and built environment—a dialogue with resonance to the architectural heritage of Chicago, making this exhibition a fitting debut in the city.&nbsp;

Eva Jospin: Vanishing Points

GRAY is pleased to announce Torkwase Dyson: Of Line and Memory. For the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, Dyson debuts a pair of monumental sculptures, new paintings, and constructions in glass and wood. Of Line and Memory opens at GRAY Chicago with a public reception for the artist on November 8, 2024 and remains on view through January 25, 2025.Torkwase Dyson works across the disciplines of painting, drawing, installation, and sculpture, distilling the spatial and affective residues of diasporic histories to envision new modes of environmental liberation. Dyson approaches her work spatially and architecturally, crafting the gallery environment to holistically shape the viewers’ experience. Through an improvisational process of mindful abstraction, which she calls “Black Compositional Thought,” Dyson seeks to create work that is fluid, abstract, poetic, and open to possibility.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ennouncement.exhibit-e.com/t/y-l-mhuiilt-yduydytjyd-t/" target="_blank">Continue Reading</a>

Torkwase Dyson: Of Line and Memory

ENGAGE Projects is excited to announce Aaron Spangler’s debut exhibition in Chicago, Arcadia. Dreamy and foreboding all at once, the gallery will be filled with his hand-carved reliefs that pull from roots in rural life and culture in northern Minnesota. The shiny black surfaces intertwine scenes of the quotidian with the chimeric: cabins tucked away in the deep woods, a face protruding from a tree trunk, a man working in his garage, an abandoned car. Spangler’s landscapes are intimate and anti-pastoral; no sky in sight underneath the dense tree canopy gives the landscapes a hushed quality. A crucifix cuts its impression in the earth like a shadow underneath a cluster of three trees, a stark allusion to Protestant Christianity which shapes much of the rural Midwest United States. Relying on traditional hand tools and natural light to define his surfaces, Spangler uses iconographic relief to tell the untold stories of rural life. Spangler’s work has been included in group shows including “Working Thought,” The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Takashi Murakami’s “Superflat Collection,” Yokohama, Japan; the two-person “American Gothic” at Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (with Alison Elizabeth Taylor), Winston-Salem, N.C.; “Spectacular of Vernacular” (2011–12), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; “Heartland” (2008–10), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands; and the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago. His work belongs to many public and private collections, including The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hammer Museum, and the Rubell Family Collection, among others. He has received grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2014), McKnight Foundation (2009), Minnesota State Arts Board (1998), and Jerome Foundation (1997). In 2017, Spangler’s first large-scale bronze, Bog Walker, was commissioned by the Walker Art Center’s Sculpture Garden in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Aaron Spangler, In the Canyons of Your Kiss, 2024, carved basswood, black gesso and graphite, 73 x 56¼ x 5½ in.

Ramble Tamble

Kayla Risko,&nbsp;Towards Morning,&nbsp;2024, Oil on canvas, 11 x 13 inches

Kayla Risko: Interiors

Volume Gallery is proud to announce a solo exhibition of subversive and humorous plates by the late Howard Kottler. Kottler collaged with ready-made decals onto mass-produced plates to produce visual double entendres. He received his master’s from Cranbrook Academy and his doctoral degree from Ohio State. He was an influential teacher at the University of Washington from 1964 until 1989. ﻿More about the exhibition&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(137, 137, 137);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ymlpmail3.net/0bbeamujjaoaequmbapayswakajmjew/click.php" target="_blank">here.</a>

Howard Kottler: This is Not a Plate

<a style="color: rgb(51, 102, 153);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://artsoflife.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=676dcf6750de4694fd657fca1&amp;id=e814538e44&amp;e=ed6a12e728" target="_blank">TICKETS NOW ON SALE!</a> Come raise a glass, meet the artists, eat some cake, and be part of a celebration dedicated to art and community. Here's to the next 25 years! Join us as we mark a milestone—our 25th anniversary of championing creativity, vision, and the arts. Longtime supporter and Guest of Honor&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(51, 102, 153);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://artsoflife.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=676dcf6750de4694fd657fca1&amp;id=bb20c9c8dd&amp;e=ed6a12e728" target="_blank">Cindy Shanker</a>&nbsp;will join us to commemorate this special occasion. Not only that - the event will mark the official launch of our debut publication&nbsp;- a book to celebrate the remarkable history of Arts of Life,&nbsp;Circle Contemporary, and the many artists we have supported.&nbsp;It commemorates our first quarter century as an artist collective and working gallery and highlights a select group of artists that exemplify our core values.

Celebrate 25 Years of Arts of Life

The Jackson Junge Gallery is kicking off their 2025 season with DANGEROUSLY WHIMSICAL, an exhibition featuring the digital collages of in-house artist, Kate Harrold. Harrold digitally manipulates and merges her own photography with found images to tell new and unlikely stories. She is often inspired by a single detail, building, or character and enjoys the challenge of removing that element from its environment and creating a whole new space around it. Harrold hopes to share the enjoyment found in the confusion between imagination, manipulation, and reality.

Dangerously Whimsical A Solo Exhibition by Kate Harrold

FOLDS&nbsp;January 17 - March 15, 2025Opening reception: Friday, January 17, 5-8PM Details&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://secristbeach.com/exhibitions/47-folds/" target="_blank">here</a> ARTISTS: Alexandra Barth, Rachael Bos, Robert Burnier, Nick Cave, Tim Doud, Crystal Gregory, Dan Gunn, Harmony Hammond, Cameron Harvey, Mie Kongo, Jo Sandman, Alyson Shotz, Malicke Sidibé, Samantha Thomas and Letha Wilson. The fold&nbsp;forms,&nbsp;informs, and&nbsp;deforms. … With the fold the material transforms itself to contain its subject, allowing access to its content. The fold articulates the art as an object while punctuating its dynamic subject-content. Most importantly, the fold moves us emotionally by the implied and real physicality of its active displacements.* (Chicago)&nbsp;SECRIST | BEACH is&nbsp;pleased to announce our first survey exhibition of 2025,&nbsp;FOLDS.&nbsp;FOLDS&nbsp;brings together a group of artists that formally and conceptually incorporate “folds” into their artworks, highlighting the deceptively simple yet germane moment an inanimate object or thing is - or becomes - expressive. The exhibition includes an intergenerational roster of artists and was curated with the assistance of gallery artist Diana Guerrero-Maciá.&nbsp;FOLDS&nbsp;is presented in conjunction with Guerrero-Maciá's solo exhibition&nbsp;PAINTINGS&nbsp;FOR&nbsp;BIRDS&nbsp;at 1801 W. Hubbard St. from January 17 through March 15, 2025. The concept for&nbsp;FOLDS&nbsp;evolved from Guerrero-Maciá’s early&nbsp;art&nbsp;class experience with the ubiquitous exercise of drawing still lifes that include drapes and folds of fabric in the composition. The difficulty of rendering these elements eventually led to her decision to eliminate drawing altogether and instead use the fabric itself as a medium for drawing and&nbsp;painting. Building on this,&nbsp;FOLDS&nbsp;takes on this deceivingly natural everyday physical moment and inserts a wide range of dual metaphorical implications: hiding/revealing, deformation/reformation, compression/release, flexible/rigid, etcetera. The variety of approaches on view - from sartorial to semiotic - articulate complexities in ways that implore attention while amplifying the mundane into a gesture that evolves into something dynamic.&nbsp; When they appear in or as works of art, the form of the fold both produces and expects degrees of fidelity, resolution, and sentience. Compositionally, folds delineate and generate movement and energy, with a keen sense of suggested&nbsp;accuracy.&nbsp;This sense of volume then renders qualities of resolution, sharpening the image or object as it relates to the body, gravity and weight. The physicality of and by the fold seems to arrest a moment of intimacy somewhere between the depiction of the thing and how the thing is depicted, as if the folds are emotional repositories of narratives of becoming and creating. Where the fold&nbsp;expects&nbsp;a degree of fidelity, resolution, and sentience is the foundational necessity of specific qualities of a fold to represent and define. For the artists in&nbsp;FOLDS, where the form is investigated, interrogated, and appreciated, the symbolic and effective potential for the fold becomes expansive. *Perrone, Jeff. ”Working Through,&nbsp;Fold&nbsp;by&nbsp;Fold”, Artforum, January 1979, pages 44-50.&nbsp; Image: Cameron Harvey, Figure 1: Cor (Rhus Integrifolia), 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 120in x 54 in

FOLDS

January 17 - March 15, 2025&nbsp;Opening reception: Friday, January 17, 5-8PM Details&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://secristbeach.com/exhibitions/46-diana-guerrero-macia-paintings-for-birds/" target="_blank">here</a> Diana Guerrero-Maciá:&nbsp;PAINTINGS FOR BIRDS, marks Chicago-based artist Diana Guerrero-Maciá’s third solo show with SECRIST | BEACH. On view will be a suite of ten new paintings, a series of large works on paper and an installation that includes a sound work created in collaboration with Joseph Adamik.&nbsp;PAINTINGS&nbsp;FOR&nbsp;BIRDS&nbsp;is presented in conjunction with&nbsp;FOLDS, a survey invitational featuring 15 artists at 1801 W. Hubbard St. Both exhibitions open on January 17 and will be on view through March 15, 2025. Guerrero-Maciá’s post-disciplinary approach to image-making embraces the rejection of traditional ideas around the division of artistic disciplines. Instead, techniques from a variety of methodologies are combined to create a flexible approach for new ideas. With a formal approach to abstract concepts from an art historical direction, these works live at the intersection of pictorial space and textile consciousness. In other words, they are artworks that are yes/and, rather than either/or. They are works of art that don’t check a box; they are not&nbsp;&nbsp;quilted nor painted, they are something else in-between, they are new ideas, as Guerrero-Macia calls them: unpainted pictures.&nbsp; This new series of patchwork colorfields evolve from traditional designs that date from the early 19th century quilting techniques: the Nine Patch, Flying Geese and Solmon’s Puzzle. Using this as a template imbued with an art-historically relevant post-painterly abstraction rigor, Guerrero-Maciá’s “paintings” present luscious palettes on seductive tactile surfaces. With a keener eye, viewers will note that the dedicated embrace of abstraction explores the lived experience. This includes ideas around market consumption, sustainability, and the migration of people that are expressed through color and form. Here, the combination of historical standards with contemporary quandaries strongly suggests that the dynamic between yesterday and today is a fluid reminder that tomorrow is daunting yet exciting.&nbsp; In addition to the paintings, on view will be a new series of works on paper and an installation created in collaboration with Joseph Adamik. The works on paper incorporate collage elements of nature, architecture and birds alongside monochromatic abstract shapes implying our symbiotic relationship to the world around us. The installation, titled&nbsp;Pourparler,&nbsp;features randomly generated songs and calls from 15 birds that migrate between the Caribbean &amp; Central America and the Midwest. Emanating from the gallery’s salon space, which mimics a park after dark, the sound’s digitally generated “conversation” starts with one bird at random while others are slowly added to create rhythmic and tonal audio clusters as the bird song intersects. This manipulated yet melodic confabulation between birds coexisting with the artwork on view confirms a dedication to the elusive expansiveness of perception - both the aural and visual.&nbsp; +++ Diana Guerrero-Maciá’s (lives and works in Chicago) practice includes a hybrid investigation of painting, textiles, print &amp; sculptural objects with an interest in sustainable craft practices. Her largely abstract works engage with myth, iconography, symbols, and color. She is most known for her unpainted pictures, poetic abstract paintings constructed from textiles. Guerrero-Maciá is a 2023 Lenore Tawney Fellow, 2021 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellow, and a MacDowell Fellow. Her exhibitions include the Kohler Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Art Pace San Antonio, Elmhurst Art Museum, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago and the Crocker Museum of Art. She is an alumnus of Skowhegan School of Painting &amp; Drawing, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Penland School of Craft, and Villanova University. She has also created multiple public art commissions for the Public Art Fund, NYC, and the City of Chicago. She is a Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Image: SOUTH-SOUTH, 2023, Dye, canvas, deconstructed clothing, &amp; deadstock wool, and button, 57.75 x 49.75 inches

Diana Guerrero-Maciá: PAINTINGS FOR BIRDS

PATRON is proud to announce&nbsp;the other, our first solo exhibition with Chicago based artist Miao Wang (b. 1988). Wang’s materially committed practice honors a human, physical relationship to the passage, and reality of time. Working largely with materials that hold material connections to historical and contemporary Chinese aesthetic traditions, filtered through the Western monochromatic canon, Wang has developed a unique conceptual language of abstraction. In&nbsp;the other, Wang presents four distinct bodies of work, each representing the artist’s relationship, through repeated gesture, to notions of doubling, kindred beings, or, in her words, “an expression, and it's shadow.”&nbsp; Wang’s delicate watercolor paintings are developed through the repetitive physical engagement with sheets of synthetic YUPO paper, water, and pigment. The layers upon layers of nearly translucent washes, capture minute shifts within the physical conditions and environment of the studio, traces of dust, light, temperature and humidity. Documents of the artist’s experience with it and on it, the surfaces’ abstract marks evidence the environmental and physical conditions that impact the creative process, in the way that our bodies bear the residue of our memories and emotions.&nbsp; In the initial gallery, seven of Wang’s red watercolors form a serial grouping. Using layers of the same mixed pigment on mass-produced paper in predetermined sizes, subtle differences emerge across the paintings’ surfaces, calling attention to the minute details of individuality in each, such as the artist’s finger marks along the edges of the paintings, residue of her process. This communion of similarity and difference disperses in the next gallery, where Wang presents a complete grouping of diptychs– two paintings which are intended to be installed together–oppositionally across the gallery from each other. In producing these diptychs, Wang doubles her process, performing the same gesture twice. Each painting is unique, while echoing and negating the other’s uniqueness.&nbsp; the other&nbsp;coalesces with a series of watercolor paintings formed initially by two pooled black watercolor dots. Through a gentle bending of the YUPO paper, each pool runs across the surface into fragmented limb-like markings. Wang’s forms here begin with two fingerprint-like spots which bleed into the otherworldly, and the tenuous, capital “I” of the self. The tension between the self and the other culminates in a pair of monolithic cyanotypes on drywall panels, developed in ​​an outdoor environment by moonlight. Each surface reveals subtle differences of light, shadow, and atmosphere—distinct experiences within our shared cosmic time against the mass-produced world of language and architecture.&nbsp;

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