My work explores notions of gender, ethnic identity and power. It depicts female subjects in imagined spaces or environments composed of urban exteriors, religious interiors, everyday objects and emotionally charged talismans. These spaces are fantastical elaborations on metropolitan existence and cathedrals that use historically/traditionally powerful iconography and symbolism. Placing these subjects in this context is meant to afford power in a representation style usually reserved for religious icons; thus affording them power without overt sexualization as objects. This process continues for me as I shift mediums and materials. The beginning of this body of work is heavily rooted in drawing and building up surfaces with dry materials and has now shifted to a larger scale, using markers and wet media. As a supplement to this work, I also create etchings and lithographs that correspond to some of the existing pieces. Currently I am questioning the role of everyday routine and objects in the creation and establishment of ceremony. angeladavisfegan.com
Works by Melanie Kasten & Scott Pandel April 12 — May 29, 2011
Melanie Kasten | melaniekasten.com | As a designer, I thoroughly enjoy applying modern ideas to traditional methods and images. Within my work you will find many references to animals and nature combined with man-made items from our everyday life. This work is meant to embody what in this day in age comes naturally to us; riding a bike, potting plants, etc. These things have become part of daily life, or at least my daily life. My goal is to acknowledge and embrace these acts and recognize them within the beauty of nature that surrounds us.
Scott Pandel | ScottPandel.com | This body of work is an introspection into moments I once reveled in, that stand clear in my memory, while the culmination of the surrounding feeling of these moments come to pass in a poignant reminder that these pictures, these moments are all but what is left of the fading memories of a time I once loved.
Works by Matt Hilker and Emilie Bouvet-Boisclair February 20 — April 10, 2011 Opening Photos
Matt Hilker | contact | A Chicago-based artist, Matt Hilker’s work deals with home, family, sci-fi, genetics, Greek mythology, and adventure. Details, pattern and a strong central composition are also common themes throughout.
Emilie Bouvet-Boisclair | emiliebsquared.com | My relationship to art can only begin on a personal level. It is a visual biography of my observation or reactions to the circumstances I encounter in my every day life. I draw inspiration from cultural events and phenomenon as well as societal mores and my own emotion. This being said, I find myself attracted to themes of connect vs disconnect and personal vs intra-personal. Humans cognitively create degrees of separation in order to better organize the physical world. A greater realization of the interconnectedness and humanity is required to move forward as a meaningful society and culture. I enjoy using visual metaphors such as labyrinth design & and symbolic objects such as flowers that have a specific meaning attachment. I express myself in a variety of medium, most often being oils, inks and collage. My most recent piece, ‘Borporate Piciet’ is my interpretation of a corporation symbolized by the idealized female form. It is about the face a corporation shows the public, and how they use their portrayed image as a front to cover up their soullessness and destructive mechanical nature. It was originally conceived as my response to the events last summer of the BP spill. Even while the oil spill in the gulf was occurring, lobbyists were pushing legislation through congress that would allow more risky drilling procedures. Corporations continually use distraction through media outlets in order to mask their true function and endeavors. The oil spill is an example of how corporate irresponsibility directly affects the public- being us. I would like this piece to facilitate conversation about our role and responsibility as citizens of a shared community.
Emilie Bouvet-Boisclair, RemainsMatt Hilker, He Steals FishEmilie Bouvet-Boisclair, Borporate PicietMatt HilkerMatt Hilker, Home on the RoadMatt Hilker
Titles: Run DMC, Alice in Wonderland, Sofa King Emo, Gandhi, Twiggy, My Shirt is NOT Pink, Bettie Page, Andy Warhol, Oscar Wilde, Woody Allen, Allergy Season, 8 Arms to Hold You.
AnyPlace: Part of LIP (Life in Progress) an Art Series Examing ideas of “progress.” October 17—November 7, 2010
LIP was selected to be one of 12 Featured Program Series highlighted for Chicago Artists Month. AnyPlace interprets and explores definitions of “progress” as well as work that critiques or represents thoughts, ideas and visions that reference “progress.”
Matthew AvignoneCJ HungermanBecca BrownAlison GreenFrancisco RosadoJulie SulzenAlicia Forestall BoehmGabe Patti
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Kidney Donor Benefit for Local Artist Larry Green (4-8pm at Cole’s)
Couldn’t make it to the benefit? You can still help! A fund has been set up and donations can be sent to: Larry Green Benefit Fund, c/o Fifth Third Bank, 233 S. Wacker Drive 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60606.
If you are interested in being a donor, please call Alexia Davis, Transplant Coordinator University of Illinois Chicago Medical: 312 996 7308.
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.
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.
