Hyde Park Art Center, the renowned non-profit hub for contemporary art located on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, announces Ground Floor, the ninth iteration of the Art Center’s biennial program showcasing select work by recent graduates from each of Chicago’s five MFA (Master of Fine Art) programs, on view from August 9 – November 1, 2026. The exhibition opens on the Art Center’s quarterly open house day, Center Day, with free public programs including artmaking from 1-4 p.m.
The exhibition offers a single destination to view some of Chicago’s most promising emerging talent who graduated in 2025-26 from one of Chicago’s five MFA programs: Columbia College Chicago, Northwestern University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, The University of Chicago, and The University of Illinois at Chicago. Artists represented in Ground Floor include Lamia Abukhadra, Gabby Banks, Claire Burke Dain, Ricardo De Lima, Emma Difani, naakita f.k., Aidan Anne Frierson, Laveen Gammie, Laurel Hauge, Liang He, Xingyu Huang, Susan Jablonski, Faye Yingfei Liang, Mauricio López F., Isaiah McDaniel, Te Palandjian, Breanna Nannette Robinson, Renee Royale, Kiana Shahnia, Nanako Wagley, and Judson Womack.Ground Floor presents the work of select graduates made in the past two years to articulate conceptual and stylistic trends coming out of Chicago art schools right now. Their modes of making range the full spectrum in media, from painting and printmaking to film and sculpture.
The artists share their excitement about the opportunity and why it is meaningful at this moment in their practices: "Over the years, I’ve known many artists whose careers and practices have been deeply impacted by this exhibition, and I’ve always seen it as an incredible resource and opportunity for artists navigating life after graduate school. I’ve been connected to the Art Center in many ways—as a South Sider, a visitor, an artist, and coordinator of the Center Program—long before this exhibition. To now have the honor of exhibiting my own work alongside so many other artists feels like a homecoming moment," says Aidan Anne Frierson. And Emma Difani shared: “While graduate school was a period of tremendous growth, it was also a bit of a bubble. This is an exciting opportunity to build relationships outside of the academic setting in a place for art-as-lived that celebrates artists of all ages and stages.” Xingyu Huang said, “For me, this opportunity to show my work on the building facade is an invitation to reimagine the boundaries we build between ourselves and the living world. My work challenges the idea that urban environments and ecological processes are separate by bringing attention to aquatic systems within exhibit spaces. It’s incredibly exciting to create a space at HPAC where audiences can physically confront these invisible, shared dependencies and realize we are entirely continuous with our environment.”
The exhibition opening day overlaps with the summer installment of the Art Center’s quarterly series Center Day, an all-ages program offering free public access to art viewing and artmaking, from 1-4 p.m. The August 9 programming includes exhibition receptions for three exhibitions (Jeff Carter: The Singer Pavilion Project and OFF THE WALL!, in addition to Ground Floor) from 1-4 p.m., a mural workshop from 1-4 p.m., Chicago Housing Authority mural unveiling from 1-1:30 p.m., a teen artist panel from 1:30-2 p.m., a basket weaving workshop led by Art Center resident artist ebere agwuncha from 1-3 p.m., and open studios from 1-4 p.m. with resident artists (ebere agwuncha, Carlos Flores, Cydney M. Lewis, Pooja Pittie, Fidencio Fifield-Perez, Anwulika Anigbo, D. Lammie-Hanson, Jess Atieno, Laveen Gammie, and Tongji Philip Qian).
About Ground Floor 2026
Ground Floor—so named because it provides a crucial platform for rising artists and traverses the entire lower level of the Art Center—gives exhibiting artists a major public venue in which to display their works at a critical juncture in their careers, helping to build, support, and ensure a strong and vibrant community of artists in Chicago.
The 21 artists in the exhibition were selected by the Art Center’s Ground FloorSelection Committee from a competitive pool of applicants who were nominated by respected Chicago-based artists, curators, and administrators. The 2026 jury committee includes nationally and internationally renowned artists, curators, and educators Cecilia Beaven, Amber Ginsburg, Sherwin Ovid, Lorelei Stewart, and Jade Yumang. The exhibition is curated by Director of Exhibitions and Residency, Mariela Acuña, and Exhibitions and Residency Manager, Tran Tran. The exhibition is enriched with further insight into these artists’ practices by didactic text by writer and curator Nicky Ni. A few notable Ground Floor alumni include Jonathan Castillo, Hai-Wen Lin, Tony Lewis, Maria Gaspar, Norman Teague, and Melissa Leandro.
This exhibition is generously supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Illinois Arts Council, and The Joyce Foundation.
ABOUT THE HYDE PARK ART CENTER
Hyde Park Art Center, at 5020 South Cornell Avenue on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, is a hub for contemporary arts in Chicago, serving as a gathering, production, and exhibition space for artists and the broader community to cultivate ideas, impact social change, and connect with new networks. Since its inception in 1939, Hyde Park Art Center has grown from a small collective of artists to establishing a strong legacy of risk-taking and experimentation, emerging as a unique Chicago arts institution with social impact. Today, the Art Center offers a diverse suite of programs for artists and art lovers of all backgrounds, ages, and stages in their careers including: contemporary art exhibitions in six galleries; open-access community-based school with 2,000 annual enrollments; weekly arts education to 1,000 elementary school students in public schools; weekly and summer teen programs for 100 teen artists; professional-advancement programs for artists; a local and international artist residency; and public programs that connects residents with Chicago art and artists. The Art Center’s Oakman Clinton School + Studio is the nation’s first fully contribute-what-you-can visual art school for all ages. The Art Center functions as an amplifier for creative voices of today and tomorrow, providing the space to cultivate new work and connections.
For more information, please visit www.hydeparkart.org.
