Flayed Nest by Deborah

"A House is Not a Home" by Leslie and Laura

Leslie, Deborah and Laura Hirshfield

Three Sisters

Deborah Hirshfield works with silk to depict various physical and emotional torments. By twisting, tying, knotting, adding and removing dyes, she seeks not only self-expression but exorcism and healing.

Laura and Leslie Hirshfield create collages uniting their individual art disciplines of cloisonne enamel and drawing and painting.  Their works evolved from collections of art materials accumulated over the years – unset enamels, scrap metal, wire, and discarded jewelry in combination with handmade paper, ink, pastel, and paint. It’s an ongoing, fun, and exciting collaboration.
They will gratefully accept any of your old discarded treasures for new works.

To contact Deborah:

http://www.debirag.tumblr.com

To contact Leslie and Laura:

lesliehirshfield@gmail.com

Dissolution III

Echo II

Soft Echo

Works in Encaustic

The public is invited to a closing reception on Friday April 27, 5-8 p.m

A resident of Chicago, artist Jane Michalski has produced work in oil, pastel and mixed-media constructions.  Since 2005, she has been working in the medium of wax with colored pigments, called encaustic. Her abstract work incorporates geometric structures transformed by layers of wax.

Jane has exhibited in the Chicago area, and in regional and national exhibitions. Her work can also be seen at Park Schreck Gallery, 1747 W. North Avenue, Chicago.

She is active in Chicago’s Logan Square Community  as a  board member of the Logan Square Chamber of Arts, which is launching The Hairpin Arts Center at
2800 N. Milwaukee Ave

To contact this artist:
www.janemichalski.com

American Quotes

You Belong Here

Julia Hürter is an artist from Berlin who works with text and images culled from popular media.  She has lived in Columbus, Ohio for the last year and has collected American quotes that she found in her daily junk mail.  Divorced from their visual cues, the messages are a distillation of American marketing culture: cajoling, demanding, and cheering.  In between these, you can find several quotes from Abraham Lincoln, a very wise president.  They stand in stark contrast to the banality of American marketing.

www.huerter.de

American Quotes detail

Matt's Cheddar Apple Pie Dessert, 2012

Geoffrey Todd Smith's Mac and Cheese (Before Tuna), 2012

Stacy Jane's Family Reunion (Meatloaf), 2012

Modern Groceries: Modern Midwestern Meals

These photographic still lifes by Stephanie Dean closely observe the particularly Midwestern Meals her friends and acquaintances have eaten. Foods such as meatloaf, mac & cheese (with tuna) and apple pie with a “special” topping are treated with the classical lighting and formal compositions usually associated with traditional Dutch still life painting. Each piece is named after the person who regularly eats the meals, and is a natural evolution from Dean’s famous “Modern Groceries” series, also seen at ART ON ARMITAGE in October 2010.

www.stephaniedean.com

Also upcoming:  Chicago Gallery News will feature Art On Armitage in the Jan-Mar 2012 edition, in an article on alternative spaces.

Endless Columns detail

Endless Columns

Endless Columns in my studio

Also on view this month at 626 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago in Columbia College Bookstore window

ENDLESS COLUMNS

I am working with trash – stuff that can’t be or isn’t recycled, mostly because it is not financially profitable.  “Endless Columns” (a take-off on Constantin Brancusi’s iconic modernist sculpture) are made of plastic jar lids and bottle caps.  The colors are beautiful, but the trash is ugly – and endless.  I hope to make people aware of just how much garbage we are throwing onto the earth, especially plastics.  Worse, they are made from petroleum, exactly what we are fighting wars for.  People are dying so we can have disposable bottles and bags.

Meanwhile,  I hope to take things that would otherwise go into a garbage dump and make beautiful environments from them.

view more of her work at:

www.maryellencroteau.net

Working - Dec 3 Installation & performance

mop heads, braided and combed

"Working" window installation

“WORKING”

In this installation, artist Jessica Vaughn presents a common, disposable working-class object for closer inspection and care.  500 mop heads create a backdrop for a live performance on Saturday, December 3 from 9am to 5pm, the length of one standard working day.  Contracted laborers comb through the mop strands, collecting fibers and generally cleaning this window space, both inside and out.

With this art installation and performance, Vaughn asks us to think about the value of work, the art of work, and issues of class, labor, and the exchange of goods.

to contact this artist:
jessvaughn.com

performance Dec 3 2011

Sister and Brother

Squabs 1960

Louisville Slugger

Sister and Brother

These watercolor paintings of my older brother and me were inspired by the family photo album compiled by my mother in the 1960s and 1970s in New Jersey.  In those old photos, we were regarding the adult behind the camera. Now that my brother and I are in our fifties, the photos seem to be looking into the future at us.
But there’s also a lot that photos can’t show. By re-interpreting the original pictures in watercolor, a child’s art material, I can bring out what I know is under the surface: what it felt to be that age in that time and place.
Sue Sommers
Pinedale, Wyoming

www.suesommers.com

Chairs are utilized as a structure for painting. In conjunction I have developed a paint that fuses into plexiglass. This enables me to replace original chair components with painted panels. Narrative situations are achieved by extending panels beyond the chair frame when mounted on the wall. Juxtaposed free standing pieces become sculptures unto themselves. When all elements are combined an installation results, this one entitled “Emotional Venues”.

to contact this artist:
fydryck@yahoo.com

Xenophobia

Xenophobia - Kong

XENOPHOBIA

This German artist shows three larger-than-life-paintings of persons who are hidden behind a primitive ape mask. Imprisoned and not visible in their unique individuality they are frozen in different postures. They react ironically, ignorantly or aggressively.

Growing xenophobia in the Western world – as manifest once more in the terrible Norwegian massacre this past July – inspired the artist. She performs with the ape mask herself and photographed all her friends and coincidental acquaintances with it too.

Out of more than 100 photos she selected 3 for the exhibited paintings. Her elaborate mosaic technique allows her to transport the paintings easily and provides great mobility for exhibiting them. From Chicago the works will travel to an art show in Dakar, Senegal in November this year.

to contact this artist:
ina.zeuch@gmail.com