Before even entering the gallery, “Somewhere between the eyes and the heart” pulls you in. Leasho Johnson’s densely textured paintings vary in scale. The dark color palette and shiny pitch-black silhouettes are interrupted by bright splashes of color: vivid pink, yellow, blue, and tangerine. The Jamaican-born, Chicago-based artist’s subjects are abstract enough for their facial […]
Tag: Western Exhibitions
Forging new architectures
Collaging invites us to manipulate our worlds. This surrealistic technique synthesizes the remnants of our reality into an alluring, illusory vision. But to create these new worlds, we must deconstruct the old ones. This is the collage’s paradox. Artist and architect Marshall Brown emphasizes this evocative contradiction in his Western Exhibitions show, “Remasterisér.” The show […]
All in at Western Exhibition’s “Drawing Biennial”
Drawing is a foundational art form, which may make it one of the most difficult to exhibit. The line between a schematic and a doodle and a cohesive final product can be, well, sketchy. Some of the pieces in Western Exhibition’s second “Drawing Biennial” are keenly aware of this flexibility and use it to their […]
Jessica Labatte finds beauty in the detritus of everyday life
Being a parent requires attentiveness, and when you can muster it, patience. In many ways, parenting small children is not unlike being an artist; both necessitate curiosity, mindfulness, and a certain amount of nimbleness. The works in Jessica Labatte’s solo exhibition at Western Exhibitions, “Knee-deep in the cosmic overwhelm,” form a web of connections between […]
Loving, repeating, collaborating, and intimacy
In a new exhibition, longtime collaborators Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger created an immersive multimedia installation that explores intimacy, distance, and the fluctuations between. The above comic captures their reflections on making together and materials in play. Text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Our collaboration developed organically. We were both ceramic […]
The body in focus
While living alone in the woods of northern California at the start of 2020, Lilli Carré started learning chess. Like many folks deep into the pandemic, she took up a new hobby. While trying to draw inspiration for her work, she incorporated her new vehicle for communication when all touch and connection were lost. Carré’s […]
Out there, around here
Upcoming events and recommendations for the next seven days
Western Exhibitions invites a Cincinnati art center to Chicago
“Visionaries + Voices” presents sincere and humble work from an Ohio-based nonprofit that supports artists with disabilities.
Hedda Gabler: A Play With Live Music, Charlie and the Hashbrown Factory Chili Cook-Off, and more to do this weekend
Arts and culture happenings from Fri 2/28 to Sun 3/1.
The radical nature of Faith Wilding’s fantastical watercolors
Western Exhibitions puts on a compressed retrospective of the Paraguayan-American artist.
Western Exhibitions inaugurates a new space with an expansive show
The gallery’s biennial, “Underlying System Is Not Known,” is both a retrospective and an exciting glimpse of the venue’s future.
Five must-dos at Expo Chicago
Ai Weiwei, Studio Gang Architects, and more Expo Chicago recommendations
Reader’s Agenda Sat 8/9: Brain Frame finale, United Nations, and Medium Cool
What’s on the Reader‘s Agenda for Saturday, August 9
A bigger, better Medium Cool returns
Chicago’s own art book fair and objects shop is back for a second year.
“Fractured Yet Rising,” “The Way of the Shovel,” and the rest of your weekend in visual arts
Your guide to visual arts in the city this weekend