Inside\Within

Stevie Hanley’s Perverted Kitchen

Published April, 2016

Stevie produces work that productively confuses the viewer, drawing one in with normalized objects and then introducing them to chaos. Referring to his studio as the Pervert Kitchen, Stevie creates work that transforms elements of shame into power, heightening previously demeaned spaces into areas of unlimited experimentation. Giving himself the authority and permission to create messy objects that might only delight his own senses, he pushes his work to stray from narrow notions of beauty.

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Alex Bradley Cohen’s Community-Culled Portraiture

Published February, 2016

Painting from the subjects that surround him, Alex creates portraits of his family and longtime friends— bright works that highlight his relationships in both the past and present. His paintings often take on an autobiographical quality, tracing personal stories from childhood memories to getting his GED. Alex often places himself within a work’s scene, painting multiple versions to represent different aspects of his psyche. Although deeply engaged with painting, he is also an active installation artist, desiring the balance of community-engaged art to his solitary studio time.

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Victoria Martinez's Sparkly Detritus

Published July, 2015

Victoria makes physical and metaphorical marks on the communities around her, engaging with local students while creating outdoor sculptures she places in environments with strong nostalgic ties. Existing in a nomadic work state, Victoria’s studio is wherever she is currently making work, producing soft sculptures and tapestry-like pieces in the gallery or urban environment in which they will live. To build her pieces Victoria collects scraps and abandoned materials found in the neighborhood she is producing work, scavenging for materials in local thrift stores and alleys.

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Brandon Alvendia's Nomadic Studio

Published May, 2015

Recently moving his studio into Mana Contemporary, Brandon has created a 13-foot installation that serves as an artist’s self-portrait— a snapshot into his own practice through his performance within the work. Although the floor of his studio was installed against the wall, the inverted studio still acts as a functional space in which he produces work.

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Laura Davis's Sculpture-Based Object Poems

Published April, 2015

Utilizing her background in jewelry and metalwork, Laura’s sculptures are often focused on the armature which acts as a display for the smaller works she places delicately upon the structure. Balance for her is often found in twos, bringing opposites together in combinations of light and dark, gold and silver. Laura also focuses on the regenerative nature of the work she produces, constantly saving and refurbishing elements of her sculptures for future pieces.

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Lise Haller Baggesen's Disco Feminism

Published February, 2015

Lise creates work that not only address motherhood and its feminist components, but act as a mother through its execution and content. Her practice focuses on staking out a territory for mothering in contemporary discourse, balancing her vibrant, tented environment with the printed text of her piece Mothernism—a disco beat serving as the lyrical and aesthetic inspiration.

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Ivan LOZANO's Polysemic Scars

Published October, 2014

Ivan’s studio houses eyes, faces, and limbs roughly cut without attention to exact detail. The parts, culled from vintage and contemporary gay pornography, serve as bookmarks to the pornography’s history while also imitating similar shapes of Mexican milagros. With a background in experimental film Ivan has moved towards physically editing his work, creating animations that appear computer-edited rather than produced entirely by hand.

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Dana Carter's Nature-Bound Presence

Published September, 2014

Experimenting with an array of materials, Dana produces cut backdrops for her short videos and animations, light filtering through the slots that she gracefully removes from the dark fabric. Producing sets within her studio and on location, Dana creates videos that are both planned out and happened upon, a cinematic spontaneity incorporating nature and its poetic slowness. Dana’s practice is just as broad as the subjects she focuses, leaving open the ability for shifting light and attitude within her work.

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Alex Chitty's Additive Distortions and Photographic Sculptures

Published August, 2014

Alex’s studio space is a culmination base camp, a bright studio where her many materials finally merge together. Although previously focused on scanner distortions, Alex has incorporated shelving-based installations through a similar method of additive information. Transitioning back and forth between the design of both the shelves and the objects they hold, Alex forms cohesive arrangements that distort the viewer’s observations of personal narrative.

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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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Kate Ruggeri's Personally-Bound Sculptures

Published June, 2014

Kate’s studio is large and open, objects and paintings clinging to the walls and floor in an array of completion. Often requested to make larger sculptural objects for shows, Kate places her own items inside, giving personal objects a newly enshrined existence.

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Assaf Evron's Overlooked Aesthetic

Published April, 2014

Assaf is an Israeli artist and former photojournalist who traded his motorcycle for an art practice. Assaf’s studio is located in the Hyde Park Art Center, a large second floor studio packed with sculptures layered from door to window, a byproduct of his recent move from 2D to 3D.

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Leslie Baum's Hydradic Appetite

Published April, 2014

Leslie’s studio is a storefront in Logan Square, a vast white space and former bodega a 1/2 block from her home. Utilizing all surfaces including the floor, Leslie works on several pieces at once to feed the many heads of her Hydra-like practice.

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Alex Tam: Mark Making and Mediating the Void

Published February, 2014

Alex is a recent graduate of Columbia College Chicago and founder of South of the Tracks, a project he curates out of his studio space in Garfield Park. Alex produces image with more than the traditional modes of photography—focusing on the experiential rather than latent image.

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