Turner Gallery

Chicago Works: Mike Cloud is a solo exhibition of new paintings by Mike Cloud (b. 1974, Chicago; lives in Chicago). Over the past two decades, Cloud has developed a practice that challenges historical framings of abstract painting as apolitical and pure, approaching his works instead as objects that circulate within broader systems of commodities, signs and power. As part of his process, he configures canvas stretcher bars into recognizable and often symbolically-loaded shapes—the teepee, the pyramid and the Star of David, among them—only to defamiliarize them through dense layers of oil paint, text and found materials applied to the surface of his canvases. Although Cloud’s paintings appear to be abstract in form, they also hold specific subjects sourced from current events that carry themes of tragedy, suffering and death. Underscoring the objecthood and modularity of his works, the exhibition will include sculptural paintings installed across both the walls and the floor of the gallery. 

Chicago Works: Mike Cloud is organized by Nolan Jimbo, Assistant Curator.