Tracy Kostenbader |tracykostenbader.com | A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she is an artist who also has been an activist, a book conservator, a worker-bee, small time publisher, designer, occasional thinker and so many other things. But, the things that compel her are making art, organizing events, working with people, and supporting the issues she cares about. She’s made Logan Square her home for over 20 years and is actively involved in creating venue and space for area artists. Work, home, community, and politics inspire her to make images, both electronic and through prints, drawings and paintings. Her interest in a more humane world has played a part in what she chooses to make work about. Elevating the ordinary with an occasional bit of humor, her work is also often a celebration of the everyday. She’s spent a couple decades dedicated to supporting social justice campaigns through utilizing her visual and technical skills to contribute solid assistance to a variety projects. Tracy also has helped launch and promote different artists organizations and events and, for the last 3 years, she has been one of the key organizers of art galleries at the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival. She is an active AnySquared member and continues to collaborate with other artists.
*Gutter* part of the South End Featured Exhibitions for the 2010 Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival
July 17–August 20, 2010
A group exhibition of works that are the visual embodiment of the physical and mental gutter. Gutter is a multiple media exhibition that will encompass drawing, painting, printmaking, video, sound, djs and bands. Curated by Cheri Basak, Anne-Katrin Elliot,and Rebekah Brown.
Image Above by Jennifer Cronin
Exhibiting Artists | Kern Street Gallery/Chad Allen, Cheri Basak, Wayne Bertola, Max Brown, Mio Brown, Stephanie Christian, Alexandria Cmaylo, Jennifer Cronin, Ben Diaz, Anne-Katrin Elliot, Elisa Harkins, Alan Hobscheid, Tracy Kostenbader, Hanna Mutsch, Beth Otero, Gabe Patti, Katina Petsas, Mark Porter
The South End Galleries of the 2010 Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival and the 2011 MAAF Galleries and arts activities were organized by AnySquared Projects.
Mendy Newman, Iris Iris Pasic and Julia Rochholz explore ethereal spaces, grotesque beauty and higher paths through a cosmic dance of painting, drawing and assemblage.
Julia Rochholz | juliarochholz.com | Statement | I like to think of my recent works as portals: thresholds to a new wave of thought surrounding the beloved wall hanging. Negative spaces moving us through, beyond and back home again. I have found a great joy in the assemblage of these pieces. Sewing worn scraps of fabric and findings together makes a new, more dimensional surface, one with seams pulled taut and textures varying. Here the surfaces seem to feel anguish and joy simultaneously. All these pieces represent my realities, my struggles and epiphanies, doubts, truths and facades. Each piece is the result of a long process of thought, layering and experimentation. In this way they truly represent personal exploration on many levels. I like things a little grungy and disorderly. I think this adds to the complexity, balance & intrigue of each piece. My hope is to create a highly captivating body of work that shows care, complexity, mystery and a grotesque beauty, reflecting the varying facets of the world itself. | Bio | Julia Rocholz is a local artist who is also involved in organizing art events around the Logan Square neighborhood and beyond. She studied studio arts at UW-Madison and currently curates exhibitions at New Wave Coffee.
Iris Iris PasicIris Iris Pasic
Iris Iris Pasic | myspace.com/irisirisis | Bio | Iris Iris Pasic born in Sarajevo, Bosnia, former Yugoslavia on June Second 1978. She began to draw shortly thereafter, as soon as she was able to functionally grip a pencil. | Statement | My childhood was filled with innumerable wonders and adventures and places and volumes of strange fairytales. I was privileged with lots of games of all sorts, sometimes with toys and sometimes with mud and rocks and my mother’s clothes, with lots of friends of course. I came to the United States in 1991 with my parents and brother for a visit. One day I saw my school on the news with grenade holes in its sides…so by grace we have resided in Glenview ever since. The American way was a shock to my being, everything about my new home was strange and not anything like what I saw on “The Goonies”. Junior high and high school were experiences of a very different kind of education, ones that drove me into the loving arms of punk rock and the like… Art school, on the other hand, was a very conducive and productive experience that opened me to worlds of possibilities and new ways of thinking and making art. I attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received my BFA in 2002. While at SAIC, I studied printmaking, photography, and video among other media and subjects. I also became very interested in and involved with various social and political justice issues which greatly influenced the content of my art at that time. But some things cannot be learned in school so I hit the road via freight train in search of adventure and other creative and passionate folk with whom to change the world, making lots of art along the way and leaving it there. My travels took me along many paths and to many places where my mind was expanded in unimaginable ways and where I met some of those people. And then the winds of change blew me back home to Illinois where I’ve been inspired to seek my lessons along higher paths and by which I intend to find my way. So here I find myself constantly compelled to arrange and rearrange pieces of a puzzle that just keeps getting bigger in every possible direction, and to make lots of pictures.
Mendy Newman | mendynewman@yahoo.com| Bio | Mendy Newman, educator, painter and illustrator of Dallas, Texas origin, now resides in Chicago. She is collaborating together with artist Iris Iris Pasic on two summer community mural projects in Logan Square and Avondale. She graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002 with a BFA emphasis in fiber and material studies and painting. She studied landscape painting and figure drawing with Graham Nickson at the New York Studio School in the summer of 2008. She uses line, pattern and color to describe rhythmic dance in wonder and awe of the greater cosmic dance. Mendy Newman is a high school field hockey and soccer coach, and elementary bilingual art educator.
Justus Roe | http://justusroe.com | Statement | City space is a pervasive influence. It is a constant motivation in producing art; a center reference of my ideology. This ideology interplays between self-imposed urban myths, while being encompassed by a simultaneous nostalgia and distain for historical Chicago. The interest is in continuing to translate ideas about this evolving environment. To invent representations of shifting physical urban landscapes and the psychological environments they create through audio, video and painting. | Bio | Chicago native Justus Roe approaches life and art as a renaissance man. Coming of age in Uptown, Justus was very involved in graffiti and DJ’ing. Although retired early from graffiti, Justus continued to purse visual arts studying at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and Syracuse University in Florence Italy receiving his BFA in 1999 and MFA in Arts and Media from Columbia. From1999- 2006 Justus was commissioned to paint the massive alley entranceway to Chicago’s Club Neo. His extensive international travel through Europe, South America and Japan has inspired artwork capturing the ever-evolving physical and psychological metropolitan landscapes. He is a founding member of the group Royce and DJ’s under the name DJ White Lightning. Justus is also a co- founder of one the world’s most innovative record labels out of Chicago, Galapagos4. He has been involved in engineering, producing and art direction for the labels forty plus releases including Typical Cats, Qwel, Mestizo, Robust, Royce and Denizen Kane. He has also been a part of several world tours with Galapagos4. In addition to his work with Galapagos4, he currently works as an arts administrator for the Chicago Public Schools Gallery37 Advanced Arts Education Program, providing advanced arts training for CPS juniors and seniors.
Andre’ Corbin | http://andreprime.com | Bio | Andre’ Corbin was born and raised in Chicago, yet the majority of his free time as a child was spent in nature. There was an empty lot across the street from his house and he would go there everyday to play and explore. He would look under rocks for insects and watch them for hours everyday. Andre’ also grew plants and raised animals. He always attempted to recreate the world outside in a fish tank filled with dirt, plants, and small creatures. Whenever He wasn’t playing with bugs or growing plants, Andre’ was playing videogames, watching cartoons, or playing with action figures. He pretty much continued those hobbies until college. Then he was introduced to the world of Japanese animation. He also began reading fables and folklore from Europe, Asia, Africa, and Japan. The music Andre’ listens to greatly influences the course of his creations. It always tends to be circular, digital, and very obscure. Andre’s works are a culmination of music, emotion, nature, machinery, technology, animation, architecture, sacred symbols, old folklore, and ancient magic. But at the end of the day he just likes to draw what he thinks looks cool.
the key to the golden path, 2010, acrylic and cardboard on window, 32” x 37”
lewis lain utilizes ‘resonant’ materials such as glass (rehab windows) and cardboard to paint a multi-layered story he observes through old windows—textural artistic urban recycling.
Squaring meticulous executions of figurative subjects within a juxtaposition of abstract yet balanced landscapes, McMorrow’s artwork cultivates a timely and fresh reconciliation of conceptual insights, contemporary design, and classical integrity.”
Inspired by Magical Realism and Pop Surrealism and working mostly with oil paint, I create a disjointed world, part fairy tale, part nightmare, where it’s inhabitants are damaged yet hopeful.
