Inside\Within

Richard Rezac: Expansion Without Chaos

Published February, 2018

Before beginning any sculpture, Richard first draws. Through this act ideas manifest on paper— blueprints which are then altered and refined in a series of proceeding drafts. His mark-making is careful but never precious, as the drawings are first and foremost a vehicle for his abstract sculpture. Considering a work’s physical form follows these drafted musings, with Richard often building his sculptures in a way that will best express the honest and inherent details of their material composition.

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Nate Young: Excavating the Void

Published February, 2018

Nate’s work observes his family lineage, detailing the fissures found in his grandmother’s stories about his great-grandfather. Excavating these familial histories connects his practice to the gaps found in larger, related histories, presenting these connections as immersive installations that utilize sound, absence of light, and sculpture to project a narrative void. In his sculpture and performance he often obscures fact, forcing the audience to experience these stories through his own murky translation.

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Erin Washington’s Porous Palimpsests

Published February, 2016

Utilizing material as content, Erin produces works on handmade chalkboards with ephemeral materials such as coffee, chalk, and dust. Her works claim the labels of both painting and drawing as she continuously adds and erases marks on top of the abstract pieces. This layering express the history of each work’s construction, leaving evidence of prior marks and feelings within the porous materials. Inspired by the institution in which she works, Erin often pulls imagery from sculptures found in the Art Institute of Chicago, placing ancient Greek pieces like Head of Aphrodite onto her chalk-based works.

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Holly Cahill’s Illuminated Portals

Published February, 2016

Producing illuminated marks on paper and canvas, Holly switches back and forth between two and three dimensions, craving the variety inherent to her colorful practice. Building up color slowly through spray bottles, she softly layers colors she considers joyous, which turn mysterious once covered with graphite and resist. Inspired by both a science fiction and practical definition of portals, she often encourages her two and three dimensional work to reference that of a fourth dimension.

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William J. O'Brien's Humor in Expressive Weight

Published July, 2015

Drawn to physical forms of making, Bill produces ceramics, drawings, and collages, often using humor within each of his mediums to address a latent darkness in his work. Through his physical processes he is able to address a range of emotional states, calling attention to the way his own body expresses these forms of consciousness. Flipping between gentle and aggressive making, he moves from quiet creations to those that are quite heavy and messy, producing ceramic pieces that are confusing or hard to reconcile.

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Jessica Campbell's Drawn-Out Humor

Published May, 2015

Often using comedic tropes as the subject matter of her practice, Jessica focuses on humor within her performance, drawing, painting, and comics. Relating comedy and art through their guarded expressions of vulnerability, she has begun to mask text within her work, forcing the audience to slowly absorb the words within their camouflaged environments.

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Elijah Burgher's Portable Ritual Spaces

Published February, 2015

Focused on sigils, Elijah turned his drawings into portable ritual spaces, a way to propel his images on paper into real space. His history of experimental rituals now informs his large, drop cloth paintings, charging them through the act of making each work. Focusing on a specific group of symbols at a time, Elijah allows them to fall out naturally as desires and worries emerge or evolve.

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Michael Milano's Quotidian Explorations

Published January, 2015

Transitioning between several mediums, Michael applies the same method of parameters and permutations to both his sound-based and visual pieces. Applying an attentive eye to the studio allows Michael to transfer the same practice to real life, in turn bringing small, everyday inspirations from the street back to his drawings and textile works.

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Ryan Travis Christian's Patterned Obscurity

Published January, 2015

Ryan’s detailed drawings incorporate graphite, rubbings, and personal histories obscured through cartoon figures and geometric explosions. Suburban life is just one of his many influences, as he attempts to twist mundane activities into graphic fantasies. Ryan also curates massive exhibitions, his latest show bringing together over 100 works from artists across the country.

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Tony Lewis's Epigrammatic Abstractions

Published December, 2014

Layers of graphite shavings create an opaque yet luminous film across the entirety of Tony’s studio, steadily imprinting the drawings that exist both on the walls and floor. Working mainly with appropriated language, Tony is interested in turning the nonsense from his many sources into important material and vice versa, reconstructing the text into marks and meaning of his own.

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Diane Simpson's Detailed Continuity

Published November, 2014

Working meticulously from drawing to model to sculpture, Diane creates objects that are imminently sturdy in both design and function. Leaving no detail unaddressed, works appear as comprehensive plans for future cities, with architecture forming one of Diane’s key inspirations. Although typically sparked by an item of clothing, the literal source immediately leaves Diane’s mind once pencil is to paper, letting the sculpture exist beyond the nomenclature of both architecture and fashion.

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Allison Wade's Sculptured Prose

Published November, 2014

Allison arranges her sculptures in the same way an author would a paragraph, grouping works into phrases and removing objects for pause. Together the sculptures balance each other within small families, playing out a tensioned existence that works amongst each of their collected parts. Separately the works exist as minimal objects, but gain momentum when combined with others formed within the same clause.

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Deb Sokolow's Fictionalized Blueprints

Published July, 2014

Deb works with the mysteries weaved into her own life, the bizarre misalignments that others might overlook. Fact informs fiction, mixing the two elements into a strange connection that cannot be untangled. Deb’s sunny studio in the far West Loop provides a perfect location for her endless people-gazing, large windows providing the vantage point for the train tracks and travelers who traverse on them below.

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Melanie Pankau's Geometric Meditations

Published April, 2014

Melanie’s studio overlooks the skyline, a bright loft divided between her and her husband. Strands of tape litter one wall, pickings of her purposeful procedures in line and geometric form. Focusing intently on palette and drawings, Melanie’s paintings go through several preliminary rounds before finally ending on a finished product.

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Danny Giles: The Utility of the Synthetic

Published March, 2014

Danny works from the home studio he shares with his partner in Rogers Park, a zen-filled apartment with lightly-colored walls and plush floor cushions. Creating work from florescent lengths of synthetic hair, Danny stretches the material’s ability to point both away and towards the human body.

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Alberto Aguilar's Momentary Monuments

Published January, 2014

Alberto uses found objects to construct sculptures—creating meaning between objects otherwise unnoticed. His studio, untied to the physical, exists within home, office, and while in transit.

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Charlie Megna's Interdimensional Rituals

Published November, 2013

Charlie pulls inspiration for his work from childhood pow wows, societal rituals, and a lifetime of skateboarding. His delicately devised tribal universe can be found in his studio and gallery, The Peanut Gallery, in Humboldt Park.

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