Coming up at the Chicago Art Source Gallery in Lincoln Park is an exhibition titled Chicago Six, opening Thursday, April 4 and featuring diverse works from the following Chicago artists: Mark Phillips, Eric Holubow, Sheila Ganch, Lynn Basa, Kristin Komar and Michelle Gordon. The focus of the group show is to allow each artist to represent what they find inspiring, challenging and rewarding about living in Chicago. Though these Chicago-based artists are not all originally from Chicago, they have all made the city their home.

The six artists I will be discussing cover a wide range of mediums such as printmaking, photography, sculpture and painting, while still representing the theme of Chicago life found in the buildings, the people and the busy streets in each work.

Mark Phillips works with metal, printmaking and paint to represent the gritty El stations, the graffiti-clad walls and the busy streets that have become visual embodiments of his urban life in Chicago.

Eric Holubow photographs abandoned churches, theatres and warehouses in an effort to capture the beauty in these dilapidated structures, revealing a different side of Chicago architecture.

Sheila Ganch shapes abstract sculptures portraying the people that grab her attention in the city, such as the form of a couple bent over a table in thought, maybe waiting for their food at a local restaurant or playing a game of chess in the park. By creating different bodies in varied positions, Chicago becomes their common denominator. 

The three painters in the exhibition see the city in more abstract, color-filled ways. 

Lynn Basa creates tableaus of color springing forth from city lights and buildings.

Kristin Komar pairs unnatural shapes and colors on a background of dripping paint that represents the man-made buildings placed up against natural parks and lake and river.

Finally, Michelle Gordon piles color upon color to portray the diverse spectrum of people and places that life in Chicago has to offer.

Chicago Six

April 5-June 22

Chicago Art Source Gallery

1871 N. Clybourn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614

I recently got the chance to check out the galleries in the John Hancock Center for the first time. The galleries in this building are all noteworthy as well as unique.What really struck a cord with me was the latest addition to the John Hancock Center’s gallery repertoire. Mongerson Galleries has been a Chicago gallery staple since the early 1970s, but has just recently joined the good company of the Hancock Center’s 25^th floor. The gallery specializes in paintings and sculptures of our country’s Westward Expansion along with other related fields such as Sporting, American Impression, Early Moderns and Contemporary.

It was here that a work caught my eye and remained in my thoughts for days after I visited Mongerson Galleries.  The piece was an oil painting by Charles McGee entitled Ring Around the Rosy. McGee, 87, grew up in Detroit and focuses much of his work on the culture and activity found in the streets of his city. In this painting McGee conveys rough and dirty living conditions while still portraying this innate innocence and vulnerability of young girls playing ring around the rosy. It is by no means a whimsical painting yet there is a sense of playful mischief and young imagination while poverty and pain still surround. As I sat and stared at this work, I was quickly captivated by the harsh lines of the painting combined with the soft forms of the young girls. The work draws the viewer into the happiness shared by the girls while still causing a sense of oppression brought on by what surrounds them. 

Gallery owner Tyler Mongerson shows excitement for each work in the gallery and loves to explain the importance, the history and the beauty of each artist and each piece. Stop by to see the new space and talk with Mr. Mongerson to learn more about the gallery’s history and its plans for the future. While visiting make sure you also check out I was able Marc Swanson's work in the Richard Gray Gallery, Francine Turk's pieces in KM Fine Arts and Herbert Ferber's paintings and sculptures in the Valerie Carberry Gallery.

Mongerson Galleries

875 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 2520

Chicago, IL 60611

312-943-2354 

Charles McGee

Ring Around the Rosy

Oil on Board

27 x 68 inches

Thomas Robertello Gallery recently opened a show this past Friday featuring two artist: ceramicist Sarah Hicks’s show Pop Garden shows concurrently with Hilder Asgeirsdóttir Jóhnsson’s Strata. As both artists are exhibiting together in the gallery’s space, their rather unique works of art find ways to complement each other.

Chicago-based Hicks offers a variety of ceramic sculptures of imagined morphologies rendering her minimalist pop-surreal sensibilities. Hicks’s eccentric pieces are created from reassembled molds of mass produced and found objects. As Hicks wishes to investigate ornamental and highly stylized forms, she uncovers abstract as well as obvious correlations between their origins and knick-knack toys. She creates these hybrid works by a method known as slip trailing, in which she pours ceramic slip into a plaster slab where shapes are then drawn. This gives Hicks the chance to craft a two-dimensional form in a fluid method. She then treats the surfaces with intense colors, patterns, textures and glazing techniques to give the pieces a whimsical yet chic feel. These works demonstrate Hicks’s interest in the connection of the familiar and foreign pushing back on one another.

The Cleveland-based Icelandic artist Hilder Asgeirsdóttir Jóhnsson creates abstract and textile art that removes the detailed, vivid points in her photographs from her journeys to Iceland to simple and abstract hand–woven works. Jóhnsson documents her travel through Iceland, and uses the photographs of this stark landscape as the beginning point of her studio practice. She sorts through photos of trips to her native country, editing and then selecting images that really captivate her. She then distils the images to their most fundamental forms creating almost topographical studies. She then paints the drawings onto two separated silk threads that she weaves together to form a single woven piece. The abstract forms she creates are hard to recognize as the original Icelandic landscapes, but there is still a glimpse into this natural place and memory with which Jóhnsson first started.

This show seems to reveal a connection between Hicks and Jóhnsson though they are two very different artists. Both call for their original subjects to be minimized to the point of unrecognized form. In this form is where the viewer may then begin to understand the artists’ goal in their work.

Visit the exhibition to discover the connection between the two unique artists. The show runs through April 6.

Thomas Robertello Gallery

27 N. Morgan St.

Chicago, IL 60607

812-345-1886

www.thomasrobertello.com

Hicks

Johnsson

“I feel that in art there are no limits for the creator among any kind of expression. For me, what I am asking in my world is to bring the deepest elements of my existence up to the surface and transfer all the hidden personal codes to bring my personal signature to the universal and global world. As the Ancient Greek philosopher, Heraklitos said, everything is fluid, and as a subscriber to this philosophy, I believe in global logos. It is very important for me to jump from painting to sculpture and from sculpture to music and to any other kind of art in order to find the traces, which will drive me to the global truth. I think that this is a very fundamental reason for someone to live, to exist.”               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 -Kostis Georgiou

In the latest exhibition at Hilton|Asmus Contemporary, Greek sculptor and painter Kostis Georgiou presents Pixels.  The show opened Friday, February 15, welcoming over 200 visitors excited to see some of Georgiou’s work. A pixel is the smallest element of an image that can be illuminated or darkened, and Georgiou’s works fill the gallery with brightly colored paintings and sculptures of simple detail and beautiful forms that boast a vitality that is very welcome in the dreary days of this Chicago February.

 Georgiou, known for his sculptural work in which he creates small figures – on view now at Hilton|Asmus Contemporary – as well as large works that can be up to 9 meters tall- as seen in France’s Peyrassol Vineyards. These simple form sculptures have a fluidity that can only come from the aforementioned global logos- this plan that governs all, passing from one form to another, just as his sculptures pass from one shape to another. With a focus on the simplistic shape Georgiou attempts to represent deep elements of his human existence, while creating works that boast beauty in both movement and form.

 Though known for his sculptures, it was Georgiou’s paintings that first caught my eye. They are brightly colored, with a very surreal and dreamlike sense to them. With thick, quick brushstrokes, moving around the canvas like a dance or song, each painting causes the viewing to travel around the work quickly, still understanding what is represented. Each one tells its own story and calls the viewer to stop and contemplate what the subject is thinking, doing or believing.

 It takes a talented artist to find success in representing his own existence in both painting and sculpture, and Georgiou does so with flair. From his 9 meter tall sculptures, which could easily be found in a large open space such as Millennium Park, to his colorful paintings of subjects swimming under the night moon, Georgiou’s work was able to take me into the artist’s world and I hope you will be able to stop by Hilton|Asmus Contemporary so his work may sweep you up as well.

Hilton|Asmus 

716 N. Wells St.

Chicago, IL 60654

312-475-1788

www.hilton-asmus.com

Below are some photos of Georgiou's work as the gallery.

Love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day is upon us.  If you’re on the “love it” side, you might be interested in some appropriate art and special deals from some of our CGN friends.  Check out this work if you’re feeling festive this week, and keep it in mind if you’re looking for a special gift - for yourself, or for your Valentine.  

Poster Plus has a wide array of vintage and reproduction posters.  Since 1969 they have offered an extensive selection of original posters from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, in addition to Chicago-related posters, Giclées and gifts. 

Left: Andy Warhol, Heart with Bow, 1983 (petite), 8.5” x 11”;  Right: Robert Indiana, Love Documenta, c. 1968, silkscreen 24.5” x 33.5”

The Leigh Gallery offers new original artwork and handcrafted art objects perfect for a one-of-a-kind gift.  Contact the gallery for more information about their current exhibiting artists.   

Artwork from Leigh Gallery

Zygman Voss Gallery features a lovely collection of work - small to large scale - that makes an impressive statement this Valentine’s Day or any day.

Left: Jules Cheret, Programme, watercolors;  Right: Alfredo Muller, Peacock Panel, lithograph

Mars Gallery has some limited edition prints that were originally created for the gallery’s 15^th anniversary.  Edition size 10, pencil signed by the artist; matting and custom framing available.

Julie Gittinger, artwork on rag art paper, 6” x 8”

Galleries Maurice Sternberg is featuring work by British artist Inge Clayton that is executed in her sensuous, painterly style. 

Left: Inge Clayton, On the Bridal Path, oil on aluminum, 55” x 31.5”;  Right: Inge Clayton, Where Cows Graze, oil on aluminum, 55” x 31.5”