Soak. Stroke. Scratch.

Soak. Stroke. Scratch.

Reception: Friday Mar 1, 5–8pm

Michelle Bolinger

I am a painter through and through; my work has, for a long time, been focused exclusively on abstract painting contained within the edges of a frame. Limiting my possibilities through palette, material, and scale oddly frees me to experiment while concentrating closely on building one exclusive space at a time. I stay compelled by the strata and history of the spaces I make with paint and remove, stack, layer, dig and remove again to find unknown places and reveal new sites. My own discoveries keep me painting while I hope sharing these discoveries through painting keeps the world looking fresh and fun.

Martina Nehrling

Seduced by the formal complexity of color, I revel in its emotive slipperiness and enjoy mining its controversial decorativeness.  The inextricability of these aspects unique to color continually spurs my engagement.  Tuned to the vivid and continuous absurd disparities of daily life, I weave visual rhythms—resonant, discordant, muscular, mellifluous—in patterns akin to currents and eddies, note taking, list making, pixilation and mapping.  I use multiple distinct brushstrokes for their staccato quality and graphic directness, and employ highly saturated chroma for its insistence, its unapologetic hysteria, its mirth and its madness.  With this tensile language I explore what it means to be here, musing or ranting in lush celebration, high-pitched lament, or raucous rebellion.

Michelle Wasson

Wasson is an internationally exhibiting artist based in Chicago. Her work has recently been included in exhibitions at Aspect/Ratio in Chicago, Popps Packing in Detroit and Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Los Angeles. She received her MFA from Washington University in 2001, and has served as faculty at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago and The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She currently co-directs Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago.

Through color-driven painting, collage, drawing and installation, Wasson toys with the many deaths, limitations and history of Panting and how these become entangled with her intentions as a maker. Her artworks are at once meditations on the process of art making and portraits of the artist.