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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Kelly Kaczynski’s Mutable Stage

Published February, 2018

Kelly has previously produced large-scale installations, focusing on the stage as a site of inclusive narrative-building through works produced for the University of Buffalo Art Gallery and the Hyde Park Art Center. Kelly’s adopted roll of director turned her focus inward to the studio, observing the choreography associated with the performance of making. Recently Kelly has begun to deconstruct the stage by letting its objectness inform her work—obscuring its shape through video, and building upon its form through print.

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Nazafarin Lotfi’s Interior Landscape

Published August, 2017

Nazafarin has always been interested in the horizon and what lays just beyond its perceived edge. After exploring the subject conceptually with painting, she has moved her interest to sculpture, exploring horizon and landscape physically through her work with paper maché molds. Her hollow works reveal deep interiors that she imagines could be lived in and used, rather than just serve as objects to be observed. Nazafarin develops these interiors just as much as the sculptures’ exterior surfaces, using the inner cavity to think about both the inner body and core of the earth.

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E. Aaron Ross’s Existential Nihilism

Published June, 2017

Entering into Aaron’s studio you immediately encounter several projects in different states of decay—loaves of white bread transforming into gruesome piles of sludge, and past-due bologna twirling above your head while other slices discolor the walls. Originally focused on video, his practice is more concerned with the process behind each of his pieces rather than their final image. Aaron closely follows how his work lives, rots, and dies, utilizing the mediums of sculpture, photography, or one-off performances which follow his destruction of a love seat within the context of an improvised death metal show.

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Chloe Seibert’s Welcoming Gestures

Published December, 2016

Chloe forms animals and other large-scale beings from concrete, sculptures that force her audience to either confront or avoid their presence. Typically these works are produced in the same texture or shade as an exhibition’s floor, an attempt keep the pieces consistent with their surroundings despite their unavoidable size. Recently Chloe has begun to translate her gestures in cement to those in rubber, producing cartoonish images that can be viewed as both humorous and aggressive.

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MuWDV: Danielle Rosen's Ritualized Animality

Published July, 2016

INSIDE\WITHIN and Danny Volk sit down with Danielle Rosen to discuss how humans have framed non-humans throughout history, consider Patricia Rose’s position as a performative platform, and get a rare chance to see Danny in a see through t-shirt.

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MuWDV: Devin Mays' Iconic Detritus

Published July, 2016

INSIDE\WITHIN and Danny Volk sit down with Devin Mays to talk about his work’s obsession with cigarette packaging, how religious imagery has found its way into his performative work, and Danny gets made up in the style of the Hughes Brothers’ film Dead Presidents.

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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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Lindsey French’s Passive Protagonist

Published April, 2016

Researching ways to interact with plants on their own terms, Lindsey has hosted a symphony for plants by plants, introduced herself to poison ivy’s infectious chemical, and dedicated herself to experiencing the world in the same ways as the peripheral life form. Through these experiments and projects Lindsey aims to understand plants’ quiet role outside of the perceived center, appreciating each for their often passive existence rather than forcing an aggressive examination of their delicate form.

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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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Judith Brotman’s Cautious Optimism

Published January, 2016

Recalling past, present, and fabricated histories, Judith builds sculptures from thread, self-hardening clay, and words, selecting aspects of their origins to highlight through her own twisted lens. In addition to a studio practice, Judith’s work also extends into others’ homes, asking participants to select texts to read to her for an hour. Deeply relationship tied, the sculptural and performative works express the laborious process of coming to understand anyone, even the work’s creator.

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Jenny Kendler's Sensuous Rewilding

Published December, 2015

As a naturalist, artist, and activist Jenny is focused on prompting a dialogue that brings attention back to humans’ biological position as animals, helping us to connect more deeply with nature. Jenny organizes large-scale public artworks, balancing this with producing small, delicate sculptures in her studio. In 2014 she began a residency with the National Resources Defense Council, where she has since facilitated several projects that combine art and activism to raise awareness about locally threatened plants and animals.

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Juan Angel Chavez's Street-Picked Assemblages

Published December, 2015

With a start in community-based murals and mosaics, Juan gradually became more curious about what he could get away with publicly and started to produce bigger and bolder assemblages from items found on the street. Although now his works are often found in galleries and institutions, Juan is still in touch with his roots, continuing to incorporate found objects into his large-scale wooden sculptures that explore resourcefulness and adaptation.

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Cheryl Pope's Sculpted Language

Published October, 2015

Located on the first floor of her Logan Square loft, Cheryl’s studio exists in a state of organized chaos, mannequins standing erect amongst piles of collected china tableware. With a background in fashion and boxing, Cheryl’s performance, projects, and sculptures speak to the combined history of an object or movement, excavating memory from sculptural objects and her own muscles. Recently Cheryl has begun to work with local youth, encouraging them to express their own histories through both poetry and spoken word.

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Jason Lazarus: Image as Footnote

Published July, 2015

Jason uses image to build community around certain historical events and moments, often involving his subjects directly in the process of each of his ongoing projects. Understanding the social nature of photography, Jason has moved beyond pure documentation, layering his images with meaning that can either be digested or taken at face value. Looking outside the typical frame, Jason observes subjects from all angles, creating alternate ways of looking, even turning the picture to the wall to make the image something that can only be envisioned.

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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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Tom Burtonwood: Object as Infinite Producer

Published March, 2015

Due to his interest in the lineages between art objects’ reference material, Tom produces 3D printed work that can be quickly linked back to its original source. He has designed and printed two books that allow one to easily copy the objects within their 3D pages—serving as a source for continuous reproduction and an open-sourced object that features the instructions for its creation online.

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Susan Giles's Constructed Observation

Published March, 2015

Currently working in miniature and large-scale, Susan builds replicas of buildings to explore how we yearn to own and manipulate the structures we visit as tourists. Fascinated by aerial views, Susan’s latest project involves building four of the world’s tallest observation towers, exploring their function as both a tourist object and a way for modern cities to aggressively expose their technological progress.

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Soo Shin: Reflecting the Inner Void

Published February, 2015

Soo builds sculptures from found pieces of wood and metal, the natural wear of the discarded objects creating an approachability for the viewer. Pointing towards the inseparable nature of struggle and faith, Soo’s pieces often have a slight reflective quality, allowing one’s body to complete the sculpture as they stare at themselves through the dark, resin-coated abyss.

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Sam Jaffe's Anthropomorphic Textiles

Published January, 2015

Appearing like the jumbled clothing stores from which Sam pulls inspiration, her studio contains large collections of yarn, thread, fabric, and sweaters of every color and pattern. Crafting geometric works out of her compilations of amorphic material, Sam occasionally adds hair to exemplify her practice’s position between sculpture and body.

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Noël Morical's Color-Based Suspension

Published December, 2014

Hung like a mass of piñatas, Noël’s macrame sculptures drift throughout her studio in different states of completion. Previously titled “Eidolons” because of their specter-like presence, she is now moving away from the term to encourage a wider discourse for her objects, a way to embrace their increasingly architectural feel.

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Matt Morris: Memory as Gesture

Published December, 2014

A writer, educator, critic, and artist, Matt investigates the underlying systems that exist beneath that which is most familiar. Working from a studio that also serves as an office and library, Matt allows each to influence the other, transparent about how the many positions he holds are continuously engaged with one another.

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Chelsea Culp's Memory-Tied Talismans

Published December, 2014

Arranged from overlooked memories, Chelsea’s paintings tap into the undocumented moments of her recent past, turning them into fantasy on canvas. Often distracted by images imprinted on her mind, Chelsea chooses to paint the images instead, removing them from her consciousness so her focus remains on her environmental paintings and cement-dipped sculptures.

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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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Dan Gunn's Implied Mobility

Published November, 2014

Stitching together wooden slats inspired by photographed fabric, Dan creates mobile sculptures—objects that stray from their material’s restrictions. Through Photoshop Dan manipulates his sources, accepting the computer-aided gestures and errors that produce another dimension for his photographic sculptures.

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Christopher Meerdo's Absent Image

Published November, 2014

Chris’s studio is interrupted by a large reflective orb, a sculpture that exists as both present and absent. Absence is often an area of interest for Chris—mining images that have been purposefully deleted or encrypted. Through this digital ritual Chris explores the corruption and failures that surface through bringing back an image that has already been lost.

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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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Maddie Reyna's Disrupted Documentation

Published October, 2014

Smattered with objects Maddie has stolen from various chain retail locations, her studio exists as a gathering place for her girly aesthetic. Gold flowers and doodled hearts cover her foamcore pieces, works not focused on precise production but rather how that lack of perfection is perceived. Often incorporating correspondence into projects, Maddie explores others’ value systems— whether institutional or tied to one’s obsession with frivolous accessories.

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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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Cody Hudson's Cut Paper Crossovers

Published August, 2014

Once obsessed with limiting the connections between his paintings and graphic design, Cody has recently migrated to an acceptance of their related imagery, allowing his painting to become more planned. Cody continues to produce graphic design work for his company Struggle Inc., while also focusing further into the overlapping influence of cut paper collages within his large metal sculptures and paintings.

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Max Garett's Large-Scale Isotypes

Published July, 2014

Max shares a studio with several other artists, his own space located directly within the center. His sculptures stand erect around his workspace, a small army protecting his casting process inside. As a replicator for the Field Museum, Max allows his job to largely influence the materials and processes he uses within his private practice.

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Besty Odom's Feminization of the Hide

Published July, 2014

Betsy’s studio is located in Andersonville, a space filled with materials from giant chunks of cork to freshly sewn leather. Betsy’s practice spins masculine materials into feminized works, decorating hides with floral patterns and placing the practice of sport into objects that seduce the viewer into the desire to touch, hold, and feel.

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Heidi Norton's Resin-Coated Instability

Published June, 2014

Heidi uses glass, wax, and resin to encase plants, often giving her pieces the appearance of microscopic slides or photographic wet plates. Once worried about the inevitable death that would consume her plant-driven pieces, Heidi has since let go of her grasp on the plants’ continuous existence. The darkening of leaves and decay of root systems is now an accepted force, gradually altering the aesthetic appeal of her nature-based work through its own sculptural life cycle.

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Robert Burnier's System-Driven Folds

Published June, 2014

Robert creates work that forces him through a journey of material, physically recreating images originally formed on the computer with aluminum. Working with and against the strict form, Robert creates objects with emphasis on the fold, a sculptural map of his physical process.

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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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Claire Ashley's Bright Bodily Blobs

Published May, 2014

Claire’s studio is located behind her Oak Park home, a space often too small for her large, inflatable creations that tend to spill out into her backyard between plots of tulips. Like the flowers speckling her yard—vibrant yellows, pinks and blues splatter her amorphous objects inciting the innate desire for touch and play.

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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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Jeroen Nelemans: Deconstructing the Life Form of the Digital Image

Published April, 2014

Jeroen’s studio in the West Loop is tucked in the same space as ASPECT/RATIO, his husband’s video art gallery. As a Dutch artist Jeroen is obsessed with light, using his work to pick apart its use in lasers, classic paintings, and the digital image.

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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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Samantha Bittman's Patterned Prototypes

Published February, 2014

Samantha has traditionally created weavings and paintings out of her West Loop studio, but has recently moved her practice to incorporate small, unfixed tiles. The tiles remain separate, coming together to create site-specific patterns originally inspired by the weavings that she still creates on her in-studio loom.

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Ben Marcus's Power Culture

Published February, 2014

Ben is an artist and DJ living in Humboldt Park—the same home in which he first began hosting parties adorned by the colorful objects that now live within the realm of Total Therapy at Berlin Nightclub. Ben curates late night experiences, creating environments both visually and audibly.

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Edra Soto's Grafted Relationships

Published February, 2014

Edra is a conceptual artist working out of her home in Garfield Park surrounded by two dogs, several masks, and an array of work that her and her husband have collected over the years. It was this collection that was a major piece of inspiration for THE FRANKLIN, an exhibition space and free-standing structure existing just behind their home.

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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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Joseph Rynkiewicz: Suspending Disbelief for the Intangible

Published January, 2014

Joseph is an archivist and sculptor who encourages his audience to participate further than a momentary observation of his work. From his studio in Garfield Park, Joseph subtly manipulates materials to share experiences that cannot necessarily be seen.

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Sabina Ott's Liminal Functionality

Published December, 2013

Surrounded by an extensive library, dog Alice, and endless cans of spray foam—Sabina creates sculptures from her studio just steps away from her home and exhibition space, Terrain.

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Sarah and Joseph Belknap's Celestial Synchronicity

Published December, 2013

Sarah and Joseph have created their own orbit at the far end of Chicago’s Pink Line. Looping effortlessly back and forth between their Cicero home and studio located in the backyard, the couple balance their love for 1000-year-old skulls and 1,000,000-year-old meteorites.

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Sarah Leitten's Earth Juice

Published November, 2013

Sarah is a comic artist, sculptor, musician, and turtle owner living and making art in Humboldt Park. In addition to wood burning, comic creation, and mud monster molding, Sarah also uses her studio for sleeping, spying on the neighbors, and white magic.

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