Freeark GALLERY & sculpture garden exhibitions
Riva Lehrer: Exquisite Radical | September 4 - October 15, 2016
September 4 – October 15, 2016
Opening Reception: Sunday, September 4, 3 ‐ 6pm
Closing Reception & Artist Talk with Riva Lehrer and Anne Harris Saturday October 15, 2-5pm
Reading and Artist Talk begins at 3pm
Exhibition curated by Anne Harris
Full-color exhibition catalogue with an essay by Anne Harris available for purchase
The RAC is pleased to present Riva Lehrer’s solo exhibition Exquisite Radical. Riva Lehrer’s figurative paintings and drawings challenge conventional notions of beauty. She exquisitely depicts bodies we are told not to look at, certainly not to stare at—not to see. She does this through portraiture, which traditionally focuses on unique individuals deemed worthy of being “the stars of their own lives.” (1)
Riva Lehrer, “66 Degrees,” 2016. 24″ x 36”, acrylic on wood panel.
Born with spina bifida, Riva was told in art school that “bodies like yours are not acceptable subject matter for art.” (2) She has gone on to radicalize that which is labeled deformed, forcing us to see a new beauty through her anti-normal lens. With this, we’re given emotional intensity, insight, empathy, dignity and intelligence, all wrapped in fantastical narratives and the seductive luxury of rendered illusion. — Anne Harris
About the Artist
Riva Lehrer is a Chicago-based artist, writer and activist for the disabled. Her paintings and drawings have been exhibited at museums such as the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. She’s been the recipient of awards such as The Carol J. Gill Award for Disability Culture, The Wynn Newhouse Award for Artists of Excellence, and a 3Arts Residency Fellowship at the University of Illinois.
Riva’s writing grapples with topics ranging from beauty to feminism to disability culture, as exemplified in essays such as “Golem Girl Gets Lucky,” published in Sex and Disability. She has created and been the subject of documentary films such as The Paper Mirror, which follows her collaboration with the graphic novelist Alison Bechdel. Her TEDx talk, “Valuable Bodies,” outlines her evolution as an artist, and describes a primary challenge in her work—to replace pity with empathy, persuading the able-bodied to relate as protagonists to the disabled.
This exhibition is free and open to the public.
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and sponsorship from the Riverside Township.
(1) Riva Lehrer, “Valuable Bodies,” TEDxGrandRapids, June 30, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjAzDqDRyK4
(2) Ibid.
Purchase Riva Lehrer Exhibition Catalogue
The Riverside Art Center’s “Riva Lehrer: Exquisite Radical” catalogue is available bundled with a copy of the 2004 catalogue “Riva Lehrer: Circle Stories,” or can be purchased individually. A limited number of “Exquisite Radical” catalogues signed by Riva Lehrer and Anne Harris are also available while supplies last – first come, first served.
Please click on the link below to read an essay by Anne Harris and to preview “Riva Lehrer: Exquisite Radical”.
Thank you for purchasing an exhibition catalogue! All proceeds from the purchase of this catalogue provide direct support to the Riverside Arts Center’s programs.
Annual Members Exhibition 2016
Selected works from the 2016 RAC Members Exhibition:
Michelle Wasson, “Compression”
Paul D’Amato, Untitled (Rave)
Mark Zapf, “Patrick”
Sandra Ragan, “Ed’s Window”
Jen Kryczka, “Magic Dust”
June 26-July 23, 2016
Reception: Sunday, June 26, 3-6pm
Once a year, the Riverside Arts Center showcases the work of our students and members in our Freeark Gallery and FlexSpace. We look forward to this event every summer as an opportunity to highlight the creations of our talented supporters. We hope you’ll join us for the opening celebration on Sunday, June 26, from 3-6pm.
Jennifer Taylor — RAC Spotlight: Listen Hear
May 21 – June 18, 2016
Reception: Sunday, May 22, 3 ‐ 6pm
Curated by Anne Harris
Jennifer Taylor, Woman of the Sea, 2013, oil on canvas, 18 x 24”
The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present Jennifer Taylor’s exhibition Listen Hear. This is part of our annual RAC Spotlight series that showcases a member of the Riverside Arts Center community.
Jennifer Taylor, The Wedding, 2003, oil on canvas, 36 x 72”
About the ArtistJennifer Taylor is one of the original founders of the Riverside Arts Center and served as Vice President of RAC’s Board of Directors for its first nineteen years. Jennifer is a self-taught artist, known for her inventive narrative paintings and beautiful hand painted furniture. She is the owner of the Painted Board Studio, which originated in Riverside but is now part of her newly opened studio and gallery, Beach Art Studios, located in the Miller Beach neighborhood of Gary, Indiana. You may also be familiar with Jennifer as an actress. She’s had a long and varied career. At one point a regular on the soap opera The Edge of Night, she has recently had recurring roles in such television series as Empire and Prison Break, and played the role of Dinah in the Den Theater’s acclaimed production of The Quality of Life.
Information about Beach Art Studios and Painted Board Studio can be found here:
www.BeachArtStudios.com
Charley Krebs: Black and White and Blues All Over
May 21 – June 18, 2016
Reception: Sunday, May 22, 3 ‐ 6pm
Curated by Kim Piotrowski
Charley Krebs has been the cartoonist for Chicago Jazz Magazine (CJM) since its first issue in 2004. His regular feature alternates between traditional one-panel jokes to half-page collage cartoons presenting an illustrated study of Chicago and its prominent music forms, jazz and blues.
Black & White and Blues All Over is the sequel to Krebs’ 2008 RAC career retrospective exhibit, Black & White and Read All Over. This collection of his work in RAC’s FlexSpace Gallery brings together cartoons drawn for CJM’s annual Chicago Bluesfest issue, along with a few other CJM cartoons and those from other print or online entities.
Charley was the editorial cartoonist for the Suburban LIFE Newspapers organization from 1979 to 2006, at times creating 5 cartoons a week for newspapers serving 75 communities. This work was recognized with 17 state and national journalism awards, including the top designation for the years 1997 and 2001 by the Illinois Press Association. He also was the first art director and cartoonist for New City. Along with a great number of other print publications, his work has been more recently featured online for AOL Patch and The Chicago Progressive.
He is a self-taught cartoonist originally from the west side of Chicago – copying characters from the Mickey Mouse Club and story books and then onto his school days emulating the comic books and comic strips of the 1960s. In the 1970s, Charley was the cartoonist (and editor-in-chief) of both his high school and college student newspapers in Cicero. In the 1980s and ’90s, he was an art director in the educational international travel marketplace. He has been a working artist and resident of the Village of Riverside since 1985. In addition to his ongoing work for Chicago Jazz Magazine, Charley is a top-tier staff cartoonist and illustrator for McKinsey & Company Worldwide.
Music themes have been prominent in his work for a long time: his first cartoon sale was a drawing of the Beatles in 1965 to his cousin Jimmy for a nickel.
AP ART 2016
Riverside Brookfield High School
March 4 – April 2, 2016
Reception: Friday, March 4, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Riverside Brookfield High School, in conjunction with RAC, presents AP Art 2016. Now in its seventh year, this annual group exhibition features artwork created by the current class of talented high school AP art students. A variety of mixed-media work including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and more will be on display.
Andrejana Misic, Senior
Participating Artists:
Rumaldo Delacerda, Sara Difatta, Benjamin Gembara, Kaileen Gilhooly, Nicholas Hamera, Claire Hejna, Grace Hodgden, Ayleen Huerta, Suzana Jukic, Joshua Lemont, Anika Marchan, Julia McCarthy, Andrejana Misic, Alana Novak, Nathan Perez, Erin Rookus, Elizabeth Rowley, Brianna Spinelli, Katelyn Storage, Zachary Straka, Emma Strand, Emily Temmer, Stephanie Vasquez, Daniel Wass
Judith Raphael and Tony Phillips
JUDITH RAPHAEL AND TONY PHILLIPS
THE CONVERSATION: TWOSOME
January 31– February 27, 2016
Artist Talk and Closing Reception: Saturday, February 27, 2:30 – 5:00 p.m.
Artist Talk Moderated by Susanna Coffey
Curated by Anne Harris
Essay on The Conversation: Twosome
Judith Raphael, Surveying the Universe, 26 x 41”, acrylic on panel, 2013
Tony Phillips, A Family, 41.5 x 29.5”, pastel on paper, 1980
RAC is pleased to present Judith Raphael and Tony Phillips in Twosome. Both artists are fixtures in Chicago and have been exhibiting since the early 1960’s. This is the third exhibition in our series called The Conversation, featuring two artists who together have some form of creative discourse.
Judith and Tony have been married for thirty-five years. Their home and shared studio are fashioned from an old warehouse in Pilsen they had the prescience to buy in 1985. Both artists depict parts of stories—specific moments and grand events—through exquisitely crafted figurative paintings and drawings. Tony’s pieces are dark. Trains and planes plunge through twilight, women morph into sphinxes and trees, goats have cat’s eyes, lightning strikes, and the artist’s surrogate appears repeatedly—soft, naked and mortal. In contrast, Judith’s girls and boys (often her grandchildren) are brightly illuminated. They float on bicycles and parachutes, hurtle through the sky with jetpacks, tell secrets, run races, and release Pandora’s pestilence into the universe while remaining utterly unplagued. Together, their work bookends us between old and young, and fear and fearlessness.
–Anne Harris
About the Artists
Judith Raphael received her BFA from the University of Mississippi, and her MA from Northwestern University, where she studied with Ted Halkin. Her work has been seen locally and nationally at such venues as The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; The Frye Museum, Seattle, WA; and the Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY. Awards received include the Adolph & Clara Obrig Prize from The National Academy Museum, a Rockefeller Foundation Resident Fellowship in Bellagio, Italy, and also grants from the NEA and the Illinois Arts Council. She taught for decades at both SAIC and Moraine Valley Community College, retiring in 2002. Her most recent solo exhibition was in 2015, titled Coming into Bloom, at Elmhurst College.
Tony Phillips received his BA from Trinity College, Hartford, CT and his BFA and MFA from Yale University. His work has been shown locally and nationally at venues ranging from The Art Institute of Chicago to The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA; The National Academy Museum, New York; The Islip Art Museum, Long Island, NY; and Lyons Weir and Marianne Deson Galleries, Chicago. He’s received numerous awards including the Jacob and Bessie Levy Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago, multiple NEA Fellowships and Illinois Arts Council Grants, as well multiple residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell. He began teaching at SAIC in 1969, where he retired in 2001 as chair of the painting department. He still teaches a course there now as Professor Emeritus. Presently, Tony’s work is on exhibit at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Surrealism: the Conjured Life.
Bob Faust: Betweens
BETWEENS
BOB FAUST
November 21, 2015 — January 16, 2016
Reception: Saturday, December 5, 2015, 3— 6pm
Left: Innocence/Experience, 2015. insulation sheathing, muslin and rubber. 30″ x 48″ x 2”
Right: OK, 2015. Cedar. 78″ x 78″ x 32”
The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present the solo exhibition Betweens, featuring new work by Bob Faust.
In this moment, we each stand at the polar extreme of our own innocence. Between these two points lie our struggles and strengths — our fragility, fears and faith. In this exhibition Faust explores this calcified accumulation of “betweens” that keep us standing upright — through a conceptual lens somewhere between art and design.
About the Artist
By exploiting his experience as a typographer through materiality, Bob Faust creates visual, visceral and contextual art experiences across myriad mediums and media. He is the principal and creative director for Faust, a cultural branding and communications studio as well as the studio/special projects director for artist Nick Cave where he collaborates on both exhibition design and performance works. Faust has been recognized nationally and internationally for his creativity and clarity through many prestigious collections, exhibitions and publications such as the Society of Typographic Arts Archive, Expo Chicago, DSGN CHGO, Communication Arts, Print and and the London Creative Competition.
Surface Tension: Lindsey Hook and Altoon Sultan | November 16, 2014 - January 10, 2015
Lindsey Hook + Altoon Sultan
Surface Tension
Curated by Anne Harris
November 16, 2014 – January 10, 2015
Reception: Sunday, November 16, 3 – 6pm
Click here to read the exhibition essay written by Anne Harris
The Riverside Arts Center Freeark Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition Surface Tension, with paintings and fiber pieces by Lindsey Hook and Altoon Sultan. Both artists move fluently between these disciplines, creating meticulously crafted work that walks the refined line between depiction and abstraction.
Although separated geographically and generationally Hook and Sultan share many common threads. Both work from home, observing and responding to their surroundings. Each builds through repetitive mark making–the layering, stitching, looping and twisting of drawing materials, paint, or fibers to create slowly seen, contemplative, compressed spaces. These push against precise surfaces–from the eggshell matte of Sultan’s tempera, to Hook’s soft knitting or the visual velvet of her repetitively layered ink writing, to the tight rough knobby-ness of Sultan’s small hooked constructions. They are all tensile experiences–shallow worlds that are pressurized and reflective. This work is intimate and playfully subtle. It deserves slow viewing. Take your time.
–Anne Harris
SHIFT: Felecia Chizuko Carlisle + Jeroen Nelemans
SHIFT
FELECIA CHIZUKO CARLISLE + JEROEN NELEMANS
October 10 – November 14, 2015
Reception: Saturday, October 10, 3 – 6pm
Curated by Karen Azarnia
left: Felecia Chizuko Carlisle, Variations on a Theme, 2015, Video projection still, Dimensions variable
right: Jeroen Nelemans, Homage to the Cube, 2014, Custom made light box, polarizing filters, cellophane, 9” x 9” x 1”
RAC is pleased to present a two-person exhibition featuring Felecia Chizuko Carlisle and Jeroen Nelemans. Miami-based artist Carlisle will present a single-channel video projection entitled Variations on a Theme, along with works from Chicago-based artist Neleman’s ongoing light box series Homage to the Cube. Engaging art historical references, Nelemans looks to Josef Albers and Carlisle culls from Performing Space by Ilke De Vries and Barbara Kasten’s Constructs series. Deconstructing contemporary digital media, both artists mine formal elements of light, geometry, and color with mesmerizing results, to challenge notions of perception and the act of looking.
About the Artists
Felecia Chizuko Carlisle, a native Floridian, has lived and worked in Miami, FL since 2009. She received her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute New Genres department in 2006. She is an artist and museum educator. Her projects cross the disciplines of performance, installation, sound, sculpture, photography, video and public works. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include USF Contemporary Art Museum(Tampa, FL), Locust Projects (Miami, FL), Vizcaya Museum and Gardens(Miami, FL), Riverside Arts Center(Chicago,IL) and Fountainhead Residency(Miami, FL). She is represented by Emerson Dorsch where she has had two solo exhibitions. In 2015 she was awarded a Wavemaker Grant via Andy Warhol Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Art Emergency Grant and a commission from Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places.
Jeroen Nelemans (1974) was born in the Netherlands and currently resides in Chicago. Some of his recent shows include the Mission gallery in Chicago, Aspect/Ratio gallery in Chicago, the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, the de la Cruz Collection Contemporary Space in Miami, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Greece, Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois, the Nice&Fit gallery in Berlin and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids.
His work has also been screened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, the Banff Center in Canada, Gallery 400 in Chicago, as well as the Werkleitz Centre for Media Art, Halle, Germany, the Magmart International VideoArt Festival in Napoli, the Dublin Electronic Arts Festival in Ireland and the Kortfilm festival in Copenhagen as well as the 25th Festival Les Instant Video in Marseille France. Nelemans received a Full Merit Scholarship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and finished his MFA in 2007. He was a resident at the Jentel residency, Vermont Studio Center.
Paola Cabal + (f)utility projects
PAOLA CABAL
CRESCENT
Sculpture Garden:
(f)utility projects
August 30 – October 3, 2015
Closing Reception: Saturday, October 3, 1 – 3pm
Curated by Karen Azarnia
Exhibition catalog essays by Annie Morse and Karen Azarnia
PRESS:
“Paola Cabal: Crescent” listed in the Chicago Tribune as a top 10 exhibition to see this fall: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-chicago-fall-art-preview-agnes-varca-art-institute-20150904-column.htmlCabal interview, the Contreras-Gabriel Project: https://thecontrerasgabrielproject.wordpress.com/author/thecontrerasgabrielproject/#jp-carousel-2685
“Crescent” in ARTnews: http://www.artnews.com/2015/09/18/expochicago2015/
Paola Cabal, On-site research image, 2015, digital photograph
The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to host Paola Cabal as an artist-in-residence this August, in preparation for her anticipated exhibition Crescent. Cabal’s work focuses on documenting the passage of light through space, over a specific span of time. Cabal will utilize the residency to complete a site-specific installation in response to the arc of daily rhythms of the Freeark Gallery: the natural light entering the physical architecture of the space, the train which travels at regular intervals behind the gallery, and the Des Plaines River which flows nearby.
While Cabal’s previous work has primarily documented sunlight, the installation at RAC will feature a response to moonlight. On the recent evening of July 31 – August 1, the artist spent the night in the gallery documenting the light of a rare “blue moon” as it illuminated the gallery walls. As she states, “the secrets and surprises of a space only reveal themselves once time and attention have been committed.” Her work is a result of slow and methodical observation, a finely honed act of looking. Cabal’s painterly gesture of “fixing light” highlights the contradiction of this poetic yet futile act of labor. It becomes a catalyst for self-reflection on our own fleeting passage through time and space.
–Karen Azarnia
(f)utility projects, On-site research study, 2015, digital photograph with rendering
What purpose does an open, outdoor space situated behind a gallery serve, if not as a respite from the attentive requisites of the gallery space itself? In our upcoming intervention, (ƒ)utility projects (a collaborative comprised of Paola Cabal, Michael Genge, and Chris Grieshaber) seek to elevate the natural elements of the back yard of the Riverside Art Center to “Art Object” status by selectively positioning white “gallery walls” between and around the landscaping and trees already located there. Partly a response to recent endeavors elsewhere that seek to position “nature” in a gallery setting, and partly an attempt to create a different kind of visual dialogue in a hybrid, natural/built environment, (ƒ)utility projects looks forward to formalizing this heretofore casual space, in this way linking it intimately to the freeark gallery while also positing it as a visually compelling place unto itself.
– (ƒ)utility projects
Mind Body Object
RAC Spotlight: Instructors Shawn Vincent and Heather Hug
May 16 – June 13, 2015
RAC Freeark Gallery
Reception: Saturday, May 16, 6 – 9pm
Watch the artist interview here:
https://vimeo.com/127679644
This exhibit is a series of installations and pieces that reflect the nuances and effects of every day life. Our lifestyles and activities have filled our existence with an abundance. This show represents the struggle to keep up with ourselves, our people and our world. We are in the process of building and collecting what makes us who we are; every object we touch, every cell that breathes life into us…..they are essential to our human condition. Taking a closer look at all the elements in our life can enable us to see the beauty in chaos, the beauty in imperfection. -Shawn and Heather
Present Paintings
Gwendolyn Zabicki
May 8 – June 13, 2015
RAC FlexSpace
Reception: Friday, May 8, 7 – 9pm
It is a rare and exciting opportunity to see a painting next to its subject, to witness the choices, edits, and improvisations that were made by the artist. The time that went into each painting is visible and the steps of its creation can be pieced together by the viewer.Each present painting is a gift, so why not treat them as such by giving them away? Lewis Hyde wrote in The Gift, “When a part of the self is given away, community appears.” My hope is that this act will allow us, the artist and the viewer, to bypass the transactional, commercial nature of art and instead connect in a more personal way. So often while viewing art, the first thing you read after the title of a painting is the price. The idea that these paintings cannot be purchased adds to their value.A present is brought to a party as a gesture of goodwill. It represents the inexpressible and invisible value of relationships between people– “the parts of the self” we offer to those we love. At the core of all my work is the fear that plagues many Millennials: the fear of missing out (on potential friends, on experiences). A party is an antidote to that fear. It is a celebration between friends of what we do have, of our time together.
Naturally, attendance at the reception is very important to the theme and completion of this exhibition. See you there. – Gwendolyn Zabicki
About Gwendolyn Zabicki:
Gwendolyn Zabicki is a painter from Chicago. She earned her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005 and her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2012. Her work has shown at Comfort Station, The Hyde Park Art Center, Gallery 400, Northern Illinois University, and The Bauhaus¬ Universität in Weimar, Germany. She is the founder of the South Logan Arts Coalition and the pop-up exhibition space, Frogman Gallery. Currently, she teaches painting at the Hyde Park Art Center. Learn more at www.gwendolynzabicki.com
AP Art 2015
AP Art 2015
Riverside Brookfield High School
February 27 – March 28, 2015
Reception: Friday, February 27, 6 ‐ 8pm
Riverside Brookfield High School, in conjunction with RAC, presents AP Art 2015. This annual group exhibition features artwork created by the current class of talented high school AP art students. A variety of mixed‐media work including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and more will be on display.
Participating artists include: Lucia Adami, Becca Alejandre, Brigitte Barney, Parley Belsey, Alex Concepcion, Diego Diaz De Leon, Elizabeth Dimonte, Nic Hamera, Taylor Klein, Vinney Lamanna, Fiona Larson, Andreja Misic, Lauren Parker, Kylie Payne, Diamanda Pedroza, Jessica Potter, Peter Pribyl Piedinock, Nick Quarino, Veronica Sanchez, Zach Temmer, Vytas Walz
ALL IN
Participating Artists: Diana Gabriel, Magalie Guerin, Alexander Herzog, John Phillips, Melody Saraniti, Christopher Smith, Scott Stack
January 25 – February 21, 2015
Reception: Sunday, January 25, 3 ‐ 6pm
Curated by Karen Azarnia
The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present All In, a group exhibition featuring artists who share a love for painting and a reverence for abstraction. With an insistence on the haptic qualities of the hand-made object, the work included in this exhibition ranges from the imperfections of the loose gesture to the precision of hard-edge abstraction. Throughout all, the fundamental elements of line and shape present an entry point that strikes a balance between intellectual and emotional intelligence.
Working within a set range of parameters, ranging from conceptual, to process-based or the performative action of mark and gesture, each artist commits themselves to fully mine and explore a particular avenue of formal inquiry. With rigorous practices, in which nuanced variations function to generate richly complex iterations, the insistence on the basic use of line and shape creates provocative visual relationships and a shared lyricism. The simplicity of these basic formal elements can be deceptive; there is risk and the danger of failure. The greater the risk, the greater the reward.
-Karen Azarnia
Sabina Ott: Ornament
Curated by Anne Harris
November 23 – January 11, 2014
Reception: Saturday, November 23, 5 – 8pm
With guest artists: Phyllis Bramson, Susanne Doremus, Matthew Girson, Michelle Grabner, Dan Gunn, Joe Jeffers, Anna Kunz, Michelle Wasson
Talk + Publication: A conversation between Sabina Ott and Michelle Grabner
Sunday, December 8, 3 – 6pm with talk at 4pm
Click here to read the essay written by Anne Harris on the work of Sabina Ott
Preview the exhibition catalogue for Sabina Ott: Ornament
The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present Sabina Ott’s solo exhibition, Ornament, featuring Ott’s rococo constructions. With the aesthetic of a magpie, Ott creates a playful, glittering mash-up whose apparent free-for-all disguises tension, intelligence and a sophisticated conversation with the history of painted space. Embedded in this show are small works by leading Chicago artists; pieces selected by Ott that will literally and figuratively be reflected in Ott’s work. In her catalog essay, artist/curator Anne Harris writes that Ott’s current sculptural assemblages function as “condensed universes” or gravitational “white holes”:
“….they pull us in by bouncing light back. They attract us by winking. These lumpy objects dangle from ceilings and walls, or perhaps jut upward from the floor, studded with twinkly bits and shards of mirror (and occasional plant life) pressed into a mass made of, essentially, spray foam. They have the gravity of small things, akin to the moons of mars, which are potato shaped because they lack the mass needed to become round. They pull their stuff inward awkwardly, having yet to learn the lesson of the rotund, that one must reach a certain heft to become a true sphere.”
Sabina Ott is known for her broad range of work—from painting to installation to sculpture—and her central role in the art world as teacher, administrator, and recently as the founder of the exhibition space Terrain, which invites artists to create installations and performances using the exterior of her Oak Park home. She earned both her BFA and MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Exhibiting since 1985, Ott has participated in over 100 solo and group exhibitions at institutions in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Auckland, New Zealand; Melbourne, Australia; and many cities across the US. Her work is in numerous museum collections including The Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum of Art, and has been reviewed in Art in America, Art Forum, New Art Examiner, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, among other publications. She is Professor of Art at Columbia College in Chicago.
Abundant Gesture + Always in the Dark
Cameron Harvey
Abundant Gesture
+
Erin Washington
Always in the Dark
Curated by Karen Azarnia
October 12 – November 8, 2014
Reception: Sunday, October 12, 3 – 6pm
The RAC Freeark Gallery is pleased to present two solo exhibitions. In the south gallery, Abundant Gesture features new work by Cameron Harvey. Exploring the formal qualities and boundaries of painting, Harvey mines paint and the use of material to engender an experience specifically related to the human body. Her painterly gestures, made with intention, are at once bold and abundant in their physical presence.
Watching the evolution of Harvey’s practice over the past few years, she has consistently maintained an investigation of biological phenomenon related to the body – be it breath, fluid, organs, excrement and lately the embodiment of physical presence through trace of mark and gesture. This latest series of work seems to be the most direct approach: pushing against minimalist and hard-edged abstraction there are no straight lines or edges to be found here. Rather, there is an insistence on the roundness and fullness of curves, the liveliness of color. Hovering between painting and sculpture, with the recent playful incorporation of spray foam, round, bulbous, chunky, oozing, squishy, fecund and fertile are all descriptions that come to mind. Harvey cultivates a corporeal viewing experience that leaves one sated, embracing the notion of the gesture as an act of generosity towards the viewer.
On display in the north gallery is Always in the Dark, featuring new work by Erin Washington. Washington’s paintings, drawings and recent installation work mine the vernacular of science to question the notion of truth: whether it is something that can be defined. With pop cultural references serving as an entry point, ranging from Time Magazine and National Geographic to art history and Greek mythology, Washington’s practice reflects a distinctly personal mythology.
Working in ephemeral materials including paint, chalk, organic berry pigment and blood, Washington embarks on an existential search as she layers multiple marks and erasures over time. The erasures are not corrective, but rather serve to record what was “correct or truthful” in a given moment. The resulting palimpsests contain richly layered meaning as the rules for the work shift and change through the process of making.
Experiencing Washington’s work is a kind of visual excavation, as the intricate layers convey a subtle yet powerful metaphor. Much like accepting the uncertainty inherent to the pursuit of a serious artistic practice, Washington suggests that the ultimate heroic gesture is embracing ambiguity and the passage of time.
–Karen Azarnia
Inside Space
Joanne Aono, Paula Crown, Susanne Doremus, Carrie Gundersdorf, Jin Lee, Jason Lazarus in collaboration with Molly Brandt and Robert Burnier
September 7 – October 4
Reception: Sunday, September 7, 3 – 6pm
Panel Discussion: Saturday, September 27, 4pm
Curated by Anne Harris
Click here to read the exhibition essay written by Anne Harris
“I excel at staring into space.
I’m really good at that.” -Iggy Pop
The artists in this exhibition vary greatly, but all bring substance to what we usually think of as empty. Behind their selection lies a drawing idea, the notion that marks on a surface transform that surface. The stuff between marks becomes space: a container for light, air, mass, movement and imagination.
In this regard, Susanne Doremus’s gestural figures are rest stops that punctuate painted air. Jason Lazarus, who essentially hides things (here, artwork by Molly Brandt and Robert Burnier), uses concealment to unspool our imaginations. Carrie Gundersdorf’s vibrantly colored bars and bands create spectral rays zipping across paper; while Paula Crown uses MRI and digital imaging to turn extant spaces into form–from the perforated edges of her drawings to the structures inside her own skull. Joanne Aono’s pencils, held like chop sticks, tweeze the space between marks while parsing dualities between paired cultures and twin sisters; and Jin Lee’s camera measures the distance from eye level to ground, while transforming the ordinary expanse beneath her feet into contemplative tactile planes.
There’s an assumption that the meaning of art is found in ideas, or in overt subject matter—the story told, the figure depicted—that art is about things that are explicitly stated. Here, meaning is between and beneath those things, it exists as implication, within the weight of space. The meaning lies inside space. -Anne Harris
Art + Reintegration
August 9 – 23
Opening Reception: August 9, 3 – 6pm
Closing Reception: August 23, 3 – 6pm
Curated By Victoria Pietrowski
Summer Gallery Hours:
August 9 – 23: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 6 – 9pm
*Please note, the gallery will be closed July 31 – August 8, and August 24 – September 1.
RAC presents a special summer Veteran’s exhibition, examining the reconnection of identity through art and creativity during the reintegration process.
RAC + ITAK Summer Pie Social
July 26, 2014, 2 – 6pm @ RAC
The Riverside Arts Center and Inside the Artists Kitchen invite you to a summertime pie social. Swing on by to indulge in summer delights. Pie and lemonade are the order of the day, generously donated by ITAK artists and various Chicagoland bakeries. Test your aim at the pie throwing station, while kids let loose at the creative station. Kick back and relax as you support two great organizations.
For more information visit:
www.riversideartscenter.com/pie
http://insidetheartistskitchen.com/blog/
ITAK is funded by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency,
and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
RAC is partially funded by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and sponsorship from the Riverside Township.
RAC Spotlight: Tariq Tamir | June 21 – July 19, 2014
Tariq Tamir: All This Time
June 21 – July 19, 2014
Reception: Saturday, June 21, 3 – 6pm
Artist Talk: Friday, July 11, 7pm
The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present All This Time featuring new work by RAC instructor Tariq Tamir. For the exhibition, Tamir will create a site-specific installation in both the gallery and sculpture garden. Large 2D wall panels serve as theatrical backdrops for whimsical sculptural pieces, constructed from a wide variety of found objects. Anything goes and any material is fair game, as Tamir builds a sci-fi world where the tension of the man-made and natural worlds collide. With the impulse of making a cornerstone of his practice, “nature always wins,” according to Tamir. Ultimately, the audience is the recipient of a generous visual vocabulary, as they are confronted with singular work that has been steadily crafted and honed over time to embody a deeply personal vision.
Watch the Artist Interview here:
Tariq Tamir: All This Time
About the artist:
Tamir received his BFA from Columbia College Chicago in 2001, and has been involved in the fine arts for many years. In addition to his long-time role of instructor at RAC since 2006, he has also mentored teens and young adults at Gallery 37. Poetically inclined, Tamir believes in using art as a medium for self-growth and empowerment.