The Elmhurst Art Museum is proud to present the first major museum exhibition of celebrated artist Pooja Pittie this winter. Titled Undercurrent and curated by Allison Peters Quinn, Executive Director and Chief Curator, the exhibition highlights a decade of the Mumbai-born, Chicago-based artist’s practice. Featuring over 40 paintings, drawings, and fiber works, the survey explores Pittie’s creative evolution and determination to articulate the body-mind experience through material experimentation, searching for balance while living with a progressive muscular disability. Praised for her large-scale, seductive abstract paintings since 2015, Pittie has had to shift her mark-making gestures in recent years to accommodate her body’s altered state. The result is a masterful exploration of hand-crocheted objects informed by painting, inviting visitors to enter a tactile, meditative space to reflect on the relationship between the body and its material surroundings.
The Museum is proud to present a solo exhibition of contemporary Chicago artist and educator Matthew Girson in the Elmhurst Art Museum’s Mies van der Roe-designed McCormick House. Titled Still Lives at 4:00 AM and curated by Liz Chilsen, Manager of Exhibitions and Collections, the exhibition features a series of still life paintings of empty vessels and floral prints, captured in restrained color and diminished light, as a way of reflecting on loss, absence, and lack. Using “4:00 AM colors” that dissolve into grey, visitors’ eyes struggle to discern detail and form, as brushstrokes and subtle shifts in color slowly reveal themselves upon longer looking. For Girson, the subjects he paints are not as important as the things Girson chooses not to include: absent are the flowers themselves, as well as their color--but their beauty is gleaned in the duration of time taken with them.
Peters Quinn says, “We are thrilled to present two concurrent solo exhibitions featuring the extraordinary work of Chicago-based painters Matthew Girson and Pooja Pittie. Through focused engagement with color, dynamic patterning, and nuanced texture, both artists invite viewers to slow down and enter into a quiet dialogue with the traditional medium. Their contributions to contemporary painting represent the high standard of artistic practice coming out of the Midwest, and we are honored to bring their significant work to the Museum to be seen and celebrated.”
The exhibitions will be on view at the Elmhurst Art Museum, 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst, from January 23 to April 25, 2027.
ABOUT POOJA PITTIE
Pooja Pittie is a visual artist based in Chicago, whose work explores the complex interplay between body and mind, movement and stillness. Raised in Mumbai, India, Pittie trained as an accountant and earned an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago before transitioning to a full-time art practice in 2016. Living with a progressive form of muscular dystrophy, Pittie’s work draws on the dynamics between a slowing body and an active, curious mind. Through painting and fiber art, she weaves together personal memories, cultural heritage, motherhood, and her experiences of disability, creating intricate compositions that speak to resilience and identity. Pittie has completed the Center Program at Hyde Park Art Center, the HATCH residency at Chicago Artists' Coalition, and the 3Arts Bodies of Work Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She was the recipient of the 2022 3Arts Next Level/Spare Room Award. Her work is part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; University of Chicago; University of Illinois at Chicago; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (Delhi, India). She is represented by McCormick Gallery in Chicago.
ABOUT MATTHEW GIRSON
Matthew Girson makes paintings that explore the depth and range of the discipline as a physical medium, historical subject, and poetic opportunity. Specific themes in his paintings over the past 30 years include the relationship between abstraction and representation and how they operate within modern democracies. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, and will be an Artist In Residence at the Lost and Found Lab in Connecticut in March 2027. His work is held in numerous public and private collections including the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. He is a Professor in the Art School at DePaul University where he teaches painting, drawing, and seminars on contemporary art.
ABOUT THE ELMHURST ART MUSEUM
The Elmhurst Art Museum is located at 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst (IL), 25 minutes from downtown Chicago by car or public transportation (Metra). On the museum’s campus is the McCormick House, a single-family home designed in 1952 by Mies van der Rohe, one of the great architects of the 20th Century. The McCormick House is one of only three residences designed and built by Mies in the United States – and one of only two open to the public.
The Museum is open Wednesday and Thursday from 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., Friday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Regular admission prices are $18 for adults (ages 18+), $15 for seniors, $10 for students, and $5 for children. For more information, please call 630.834.0202 or visitelmhurstartmuseum.org.
