Mating Call at Believe Inn
by Niki Grangruth
The End of the 80s at Avram Eisen
by Stacy Hunt
Public Works at Andrew Rafacz
by Corinna Kirsch
Devastation and Space at Eel Space
by Ariel Pittman
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Mating Call at Believe Inn
by Niki Grangruth
Candy-colored paintings of nymph-like cartoon characters, cubist-inspired muses, tan-skinned madonna-esque figure and the lush jungle of Puerto Rico direct the subject matter of work by artists Chris Silva and Lauren Feece at Believe Inn. The show, titled “Mating Call,” contains works created by the artists during a two year stay in Puerto Rico, where they spent most of their time in isolation along a river on 16 acres of land in the lush jungle.
The colors were obviously inspired by the artists’ environment. Aqua blues, vibrant greens, and Tuscan oranges dominate the paintings, which are hung salon-style in the compact gallery space. Love and cuteness are in abundance with depictions of a deer whose antlers are adorned with feathers, colorful birds paired with hearts, and many beautiful longhaired women sprouting flowers and feathers.
Silva’s “Wise Children’s Room Investment” stood out as the only sculptural work. Created from dilapidated wood, paint and a cartoonish wooden llama, surrounded by silhouettes of plants and sunburst flowers. In accordance with the title, it appears to be a rustic version of a children’s wall plaque.
“Peacock” by Feece depicts a woman with dark features haloed by a vibrant orange sunset. Her flowing brown hair gives way to turquoise and green peacock feathers, forming an inner halo. The paintings have a spiritual and mythological air around them, drawing from religious iconography and cultural folklore. The impact of her Puerto Rican experience reveals itself in the work through the use of color, subject matter and style.
At first look, the style seems completely static, which is surprising for works created by two different artists. Upon closer examination, there are obvious differences between the styles of the artists; Silva uses slightly brighter colors and focuses more on abstract line and shape while Feece uses a more subdued palette and focuses on figurative subjects, specifically women. In a few of the paintings on which the two artists collaborated, these two styles interweave; Silva’s geometric shapes give way to Feece’s organic swirls of color.
Believe Inn is located at 2043 N. Winchester Ave. For more information, visit www.believeinn.org
The End of the 80s at Avram Eisen
by Stacy Hunt
A few of the alumni of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago have come together for an exhibit to showcase some of their recent works of art at the Avram Eisen Gallery. Somewhat expecting there to be a similarity between all the artists due to the fact that they had all graduated between 1985-1989, I was surprised to find them all to be very different from one another showing how each artist have taken their own experiences and created their own style. A small place card next to each work of art helped to give the artists perspective on how they have grown since attending SAIC, as well as their views on how they make their art.
Going Mobile with Style by Joan Fabian
This small gallery was very successful in showing the various styles all the SAIC alumni had to offer through this exhibit. From digital mixed media to painting and even sculpture, the unique perspective of each artist was clear from looking around the gallery. None of the artists had chosen to the same process or subject matter, making it clear that though they were all SAIC alumni they shared very little else especially in their artwork. The exhibit is definitely an interesting collection of alumni from a short period in the 1980s that shows the growth of their art and how experiences of each artist have shaped their own styles since graduating.
Avram Eisen is located at 5202 N. Damen Ave. For more information, visit www.avrameisengallery.com
Public Works at Andrew Rafacz
by Corinna Kirsch
In The Design of Everyday Things, Donald A. Norman describes how the frustrations we have with the objects that surround us—from difficult to unbuckle safety belts to unzippable zippers—is often due to poor design. However, this problem has a simple remedy, one taken on by contemporary designers like the four shown in Public Works at the Andrew Rafacz Gallery. Part aesthetics and part engineering, the contemporary designer doesn’t just sell you things—they make things that people want to use (iPhones), propel viewers towards social change (Shepherd Fairey), or provide visual delight (any of the designers in this exhibition).
Public Works, the first in a series of exhibitions and events that will show crossovers between art and commerce, features artists who have made careers out of design, but whose work can—and has—just as easily be shown on the door to a music venue or on the cover of a magazine as on gallery walls. Many of the works revel in the simplicity of color, composition, and pattern. Walking into the gallery, I was overwhelmed with a simple feeling of glee, absobed in an adult gymboree of bright colors and playful approaches to collage. (DEMO), Sing by Justin Fines combines quirky colors, a plethora of shapes,—like triangles, circles, and hearts—and found imagery into a banjo-strumming musician with a smile so large it could crush its wearer. Andy Mueller’s Joni Mitchell’s Necklace requires a double-take to decipher what decade the work was made.
Collage, an oft-used technique in this show, facilitates combinations of old and new styles and in the 2000s, a decade where bands try to sound like Joy Division and Kanye West tries to look like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, this return to the past often results egregious abuses. Of course, the best instances of the mash-up, espoused in new music by bands like The Dirty Projectors, a band equal parts Jazz to Jam band and East to West, are more than just copies of the past, but tensely balance their sources, held together through collage.
A design exhibition without artists’ commercially applied designs would be incomplete, belying the crucial tension inherent in any design exhibition. As such, the southern wall of the main gallery features a “super group” wall with a salon-style presentation of album covers, concert posters, and even an advertisement for a sporting event in Los Angeles. As the variety of works in this exhibition show, design can sell you things, but in line with Brown’s description of good design, it has the ability to pull you in any which direction.
Andrew Rafacz is located at 835 W. Washington Blvd. For more information, visit www.andrewrafacz.com
Devastation and Space at Eel Space
by Ariel Pittman
Eel space inhabits a humble ground floor studio at 2846 W North Ave. Run by Patrick Holbrook, the space is primarily used to present curated, thematic exhibitions of work by emerging artists. Devastation and Space brings together work by Emily J Gómez, Jesal Kapadia and Snorre Sjønøst Henriksen in an exploration of the public and private narratives of space.
Kapadia’s video, A Vacant Rectangle, left black for a work expressing modern feeling, depicts the city of Chandighar in Northern India, designed and built by LeCorbusier in the 1950’s. Accompanied by a series of photographs of the city, Kapadia’s video refutes the discourse of concrete utopias espoused by the figureheads of modern architecture.
This theme of disappointment and lost promises persists in Gómez’s muted photographs of sacred Native American sites. These sites have been marginalized by development. Transformed into football stadiums and traffic circles by modern America, Gómez’s photographs lend these sites an intense pathos through a careful under-exposure, and an embrace of grey tones. Her images imply that no one has looked for the sacred here in quite a while. As a contrast to the reflective quality of Kapadia and Gómez’s work, Henriksen’s video, Psychosomatic, is a dizzy recording of the artist and a collaborator, dressed in lab coats, skateboarding through the tunnels between the psychiatric and somatic wards at the Central Hospital of Telemark, where Henriksen was treated following a suicide attempt.
The piece is captivating in its whimsy and adept use of rough shots combined with careful, media conscious editing. Though, it is less expressive of an underlying narrative than Gómez’s photographs or Kapadia’s installation. Purporting to express a desire to reunite the mind and the body, despite the hospital’s attempt to dissociate the treatment of the two, Henriksen’s video is more a reckless reclamation of freedom in a heavily controlled environment. Watching these two young men skate through the underground tunnel at breakneck speeds, sometimes falling, sometimes showing off, I was struck by the infinitesimal line between having and losing control. Devastation and Space poses questions about our experience of spaces. In particular, how we perceive their histories, sacred potential, and the charge they retain from individuals who have inhabited them. The only answer it presents is that control over space and experience is out of our hands.
Eel Space is located at 2846 W. North Ave. For more information, visit eelspace.wordpress.com
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