Spring and summer offer a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke with five insiders about what excites them now and what they anticipate next. – CGN

Read our 5TTT with Jay Krehbiel here.

Read our 5TTT with Michelle T. Boone here.

Read our 5TTT with Monique Meloche here.

Read our 5TTT with “Easy” Otabor here.

To subscribe to the spring/summer magazine click here.

James Mesplé – Artist

“While exhibiting at the Cliff Dwellers, Morton College, Triton College, and The Arts Club of Chicago in 2025 and 2026, I realized that all of my [exhibited] paintings contained figures. It made me hungry to create landscapes focusing on vegetation. However, I was invited to create a diptych for Duality (March-April 2026) at Jackson/Junge Gallery, and my ideas returned to figuration.

After finishing a small and larger diptych for Duality, I began a new series focusing on landscapes. Will figures suddenly reappear in the landscapes in diminutive form? Maybe. In the meantime, I am drawing and painting flowers, plants, and trees and thinking about our Earth and humanity’s place upon it. I am also taking out time to create a Painted Sculpture for Greek Town, which will be displayed for the public on Halsted Street during the Summer, Fall, and Winter of 2026.

My exhibition, “One Thing Leads to Another,” at Morton College last year got me interested in the Morton Arboretum. I will spend my summer at both the Arboretum and the Chicago Botanic Garden. Here’s hoping Flora and Demeter give Chicago a pleasant Summer and that Ceres and Pomona provide a bountiful Autumn Harvest of paintings.”