West Town, Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village, Kinzie Corridor, Humboldt Park

West Town

Wisconsin

IL • MI • IN

West Loop, Fulton Market, East Garfield Park

West Loop and West Side

Evanston, The North Shore, Northern, Western and Southern Suburbs

Suburbs

Old Town, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Roscoe Village, Bucktown, Wicker Park, Logan Square, Lincoln Square, Ravenswood, Uptown, Edgewater, Andersonville, Rogers Park

North Side

Michigan Avenue, Streeterville, The Gold Coast, The Loop, and South Loop

Michigan Avenue

Pilsen, Bridgeport, Chinatown, plus Hyde Park, Jackson Park/Dorchester, and Bronzeville

South Side

Superior and Franklin streets, West Chicago Ave, and down to Merchandise Mart and the River

River North

Aspects of Nature is a two-person gallery show by Jay Walsh and Carol Zack, both of whom teach at Fine Line Creative Arts Center in St. Charles. Jay Walsh is a ceramic artist who has been playing in the mud for years. Having been introduced to ceramics in high school and continuing in college, Walsh has been teaching ceramics for several decades. Walsh says the chemistry of glaze and clay has always appealed to him. For the past couple of years, he has been exploring crystalline firings. The process of crystalline glazing combines chemistry, application, and variable firing schedules. The crystals are grown on the glaze surface, much as they do in nature, reminiscent of frost on windows, agates, snow, and other natural patterns. Walsh says, “I love teaching and creating work from clay. There is always something new and exciting to learn in this art form. Rabbit holes are everywhere when it comes to ceramics. You can dedicate your life to ceramics and there is always more to explore”. Like Walsh, Carol Zack has been teaching at Fine Line for many years. Having always enjoyed finding beautiful places to explore and realizing that artistic expression is everywhere, high school and college formed the basis of her training in Fine Arts, along with teaching certification/ Zack loves playing in the paint, particularly with soft and oil pastels, both of which seem extra-sensory and immediate, and can be quickly pushed and manipulated into beautiful, colorful layers and textures with just fingers and blenders. Just paper and pastel sticks are all she needs. As she says, “The advantage to working with pastel is that it never dries, so you can leave it and return to the painting, picking up where you left off. Clean-up is also less complicated than with other painting media”.

Aspects of Nature

William Staples, Garden, 2026, oil and acrylic on canvas, 14 x 9 inches

William Staples: Some Things Can Only Be Seen

Terra Machina explores the relationship between nature and technology. Using exceptional materials sourced from around the world, Lefty OUT There combines modern machinery with handcrafted techniques to reveal their natural beauty. The result honors each material's origins while celebrating fine art and contemporary craftsmanship. Running through every piece is Lefty's signature polymorph pattern, inspired by vibration, frequency, and the interconnected systems found throughout nature. The pattern reflects the rhythms that exist at every scale, from microscopic cellular structures to the landscapes of our terrain. It serves as a reminder that the same forces shaping the natural world are constantly at work around and within us. Terra Machina also represents a new chapter in Lefty's practice. Every work in the exhibition introduces new materials, fabrication methods, and creative processes that have never before appeared in his work. By combining natural materials with contemporary machines, the exhibition challenges the idea that nature and technology exist in opposition. Instead, it presents them as collaborators, working together to reveal new perspectives on the beauty, complexity, and interconnectedness of the world around us. Image: LEFTY OUT THERESYLVAN CONNECTION,&nbsp;2026Pacific Northwest maplereclaimed from a 100+ year-old fallen tree38 x 72 x 2 in.96.5 x 182.9 x 5.1 cm

Terra Machina:  Lefty OUT There

OS Projects is honored to present Fenestra Falsa, a solo exhibition of collages and paintings by Chicago artist Dan Devening. The exhibit opens August 8, 2026 and continues through October 10, 2026. A public reception for the artist takes place on Saturday, August 8 from 1 – 3 pm. Dan Devening is an image builder who combines decisive subject matter with gestural mark-making, spray enamel, collage and stitching to express a life experience shaped by the unexpected, the surprising and the unknown. Like much of what has held his interest over the years, the works in this exhibition engage the ways in which perceptual nuance and optical and spatial play come alive in compositions built on rigorously considered parameters. The project’s point of departure is the rounded rectangle, a shape that is ubiquitous in the devices that connect us to the outside world: iPhones, iPads, computer monitors and televisions. All these devices employ the "friendliness" of the rounded rectangle to suggest comfort and simplicity while effortlessly holding us captive. The shape’s affability—and invitation to use, peer into, and be mesmerized—mirrors the current state of culture, reflecting not only how we consume information, find entertainment and create connections but also the darker, more sinister undertones that are ever-present. The rounded rectangle also serves as a portal. It can frame an aperture or function as a window revealing a landscape. It can press outward against the picture space, swelling and suffocating the frame, as if straining toward its breaking point. This capacity, to both expand outward and pictorially recede and dissolve inward, makes the shape both flexible and multivalent, giving Devening room to explore the ways in which physical and perceptual experiences frame psychological response. Fenestra Falsa’s collages and paintings are fully grounded in the formal concerns of art making, offering the viewer the opportunity to be transported through purely material means. Form builds the image, reveals the subject and tells the story. Form creates chromatic intensity and calibrates the relationship between sharpness and blur, qualities that echo the devices that hold us hostage. Like those devices that incessantly demand speed and immediacy, the works in Fenestra Falsa induce the same pull toward absorption, elevation and immersion—only slowed down, stilled, held. <a href="https://www.osprojects.art/fenestra-falsa" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Details</a> Image: Altadena by Dan Devening, 2025

Fenestra Falsa

Butterfly Disco is an installation by Brian Keith Stephens in the JK Art House Parlor. This is a fun, immersive experience with black lights and artwork on mylar. It can only be seen at JK Art House. The opening reception is on Thursday, September 3, 2026, from 6–8 p.m. The exhibition dates are from September 2 to October 11, 2026. Private appointments are available now through the opening; contact the gallery to schedule. Please RSVP for the Opening Reception.

Brian Keith Stephens: Butterfly Disco

The Evanston Art Center (EAC) is excited to welcome the public to our upcoming exhibition, <a href="https://www.evanstonartcenter.org/exhibitions/nancy-good-layl-mcdill-and-jemsy-pradunn" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Unseen Connections | Nancy Good, Layl McDill, and Jemsy Pradunn</a>. The exhibition will be on display from September 12 - October 11, 2026 with a closing reception on Sunday, October&nbsp; 11, 1-3pm and an artist talk on Saturday, September 12, 2026 from 1-3pm. Mostly known for mural-sized, physically-interactive/immersive conceptual abstracts, Las Vegas artist Nancy Good's practice is rooted in an unwavering passion to create strong contemporary art that invites dialogue and human connection. Layl McDill grew up in Gillette, Wyoming, where her early works were dollhouses, marionettes, and even an entire “Smurf Village.” Polymer clay has been her medium of choice, using the millefiori technique and mixed media materials. Jemsy Pradunn is a Chicago born and based artist currently attending the School of the Art Institute. Pradunn uses markers, crayons, and paint markers on paper to inspire others to open their perspective and imagination.

Unseen Connections | Nancy Good, Layl McDill, and Jemsy Pradunn

The annual exhibition highlighting paintings, drawings, photography, ceramics, prints, animation, and multimedia work by young artists participating in Hyde Park Art Center’s Teen programs&nbsp;opens June 27!Each year, the Teen programs provide a structured independence that encourages young artists to develop their creative voices, learn new skills, and build relationships in the context of a community-based art center, where artists of all ages and backgrounds do the same.&nbsp;﻿The exhibition celebrates the evolution of these young artists, who have taken on the challenge of expressing perplexed thoughts, feelings, and emotions into individual works of art.<a href="https://oq8cplyab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001Wqw2lXqKHjJMAiBTkE6UO4TiVroLZtRn2GPPCnysGocIMq16gCBCtVXI6Y9vNV4LnxnPaVVHOZWnzKTe-l23USIalPSlI06q5CL7CzRgNCeEoIk6f7wocRTKcxxQJ886DpVJ4VVccxRgQYJOzCB737DkeFGJtOWQxufxv6JTBtuqw7Y7PRy9b_FQSdyKkR949er9HwE-dA-10TaeUmQwb8xXNBu8915h&amp;c=uqF6ZiMKOJ3BPb8W17UMdPyQHbxBcvaEGSDlq7ILbiojHbm2qfxegw==&amp;ch=_7JCnwZR1ujgh7H7gi0opkTxAvwTXcSXYBZo_WloBO8fhoTgu8aUJg==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">LEARN MORE HERE</a>

Off the Wall! Teen Show

Gloria Contreras: Corazón de Papel, Mexican Cartonería Sculpture is an event running from September 15 to October 14. There will be a public reception on Wednesday, September 16, from 11am to 1pm.

Gloria Contreras: Corazón de Papel, Mexican Cartonería Sculpture

Charlotte Kaplan: This is Knot Art!

Opening Reception: Friday, September 4 from 5-8pm<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0012jM1dIPeKk-2OaQxjf2YsoZP6Ie3GHSfGH6p4NcMd7tnIGQp4MbN1YvzIZMEms-92BXv-L8fcaeNeQJUw_iVoKmqL_aWsSQXxFYZvb0MQX89lZJs2VUL3iEgPhEMoDe_1pUOYVCuLv4WOIWwkrE24tcJvu4gLygmkn8HKd21nEDnotKPrcOBbNW029DRHSr8AC2bwOf9WPP_pGQaDDxD279ipFIaCCOB&amp;c=bD896lr8puQS9OpriSDqJ5qP301iIMQPRg3-oiQgr3v9xnrZ4ms2eA==&amp;ch=GHuyJjfF96DJzWfZBftksx_STJdSZNbJ3P3CeymchD-YzwoohbH4WA==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">All Is Fish That Comes to the Net</a>, a four-person exhibition by 2025 Artist Residents&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0012jM1dIPeKk-2OaQxjf2YsoZP6Ie3GHSfGH6p4NcMd7tnIGQp4MbN1YvzIZMEms-9HjTDMRi5wlIP7pnXQFb4YgtLBGJsBRWckh_1r6mdLd4hnsnNzBF-mnDr-HUI-QH5iCg1G74aUEL021zJBfsx1B_1PiNvMEmf6nBI5tx0Xdx0H_iPcl_Lr7tVLlFHmVnAyfRV0_PQ7LAMObfrYJlcLGEFy3dvde_S&amp;c=bD896lr8puQS9OpriSDqJ5qP301iIMQPRg3-oiQgr3v9xnrZ4ms2eA==&amp;ch=GHuyJjfF96DJzWfZBftksx_STJdSZNbJ3P3CeymchD-YzwoohbH4WA==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sebastian Bruno-Harris</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0012jM1dIPeKk-2OaQxjf2YsoZP6Ie3GHSfGH6p4NcMd7tnIGQp4MbN1YvzIZMEms-9B40u__HIQzrjY5jARDPoHxh4xjMUNEPSVw7VHkzDFUV8EeBGTjWCglJZdmp5LyiGPOQiG_tL5b3n8Q6lzxRHr7AAy5sGuVhk2nM8pcUN6Hu_pCAKkT68llcGHDkeOLCICyMYnAw6kWY=&amp;c=bD896lr8puQS9OpriSDqJ5qP301iIMQPRg3-oiQgr3v9xnrZ4ms2eA==&amp;ch=GHuyJjfF96DJzWfZBftksx_STJdSZNbJ3P3CeymchD-YzwoohbH4WA==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rob Croll</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0012jM1dIPeKk-2OaQxjf2YsoZP6Ie3GHSfGH6p4NcMd7tnIGQp4MbN1Q7_sFJRx_rFXU7LBHC8LpnIugfW7dYlWPnWT5dieKmfYOn7thGxA4xQ94SlBrl6EI9cz9rVMhhKfdzbIURYmXvKdfRDvj88X9Mb4LUsOjh-lag-UOdQ7YzVxU-9Pcx2Ujx90d4fGuK0H29KSIs_YvgqdZR82rjLnA==&amp;c=bD896lr8puQS9OpriSDqJ5qP301iIMQPRg3-oiQgr3v9xnrZ4ms2eA==&amp;ch=GHuyJjfF96DJzWfZBftksx_STJdSZNbJ3P3CeymchD-YzwoohbH4WA==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nick D'Alessandro</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0012jM1dIPeKk-2OaQxjf2YsoZP6Ie3GHSfGH6p4NcMd7tnIGQp4MbN1YvzIZMEms-9HbyGU15aOZdofSFLUAKHx6uoko4HDuARKO17GXB0L8-Ste1EkjCW_xORmFSXDKy-WMFG4P8A3J1f58o5Pv7R9BoZSBfqwwHzh7fCtxDH1KvcWGY33DTAejst6p28q-kA3XBEnWPl7Fc=&amp;c=bD896lr8puQS9OpriSDqJ5qP301iIMQPRg3-oiQgr3v9xnrZ4ms2eA==&amp;ch=GHuyJjfF96DJzWfZBftksx_STJdSZNbJ3P3CeymchD-YzwoohbH4WA==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Van Payne</a>, curated by 2025 Curatorial Resident&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0012jM1dIPeKk-2OaQxjf2YsoZP6Ie3GHSfGH6p4NcMd7tnIGQp4MbN1YvzIZMEms-9ENyyQmSfWYYJNuHwQiAqQ6Poudb_qcznZOs1v0KO8Nx98MzOtDAHvUaKCx5JIUHP0_NjHKmhoOUdJhhPIoJUHQ4krX8sF_TPLbmIC-21bEmOAg7MKXZb_XrgDp2F-Ld4JxHsgPP3IynFfQoS_yth8Q==&amp;c=bD896lr8puQS9OpriSDqJ5qP301iIMQPRg3-oiQgr3v9xnrZ4ms2eA==&amp;ch=GHuyJjfF96DJzWfZBftksx_STJdSZNbJ3P3CeymchD-YzwoohbH4WA==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Taj Richardson</a>.Collage Making Workshop: Thursday, September 17 from 4-6pmRSVP for free admission&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0012jM1dIPeKk-2OaQxjf2YsoZP6Ie3GHSfGH6p4NcMd7tnIGQp4MbN1YvzIZMEms-9nbY2QWxQ7NZbMXadjhLVlny3A6cLGZjBgzK4Z6OtGKXE6_JmSMH-qRvgQ7xYaZdioBgRncMzXfO7bR3yfzlbaEdcKg3MXtoiCfjfrUlfhBFTP3EqlJjbkJgZWPub4WBSlOW-Gza7qJFH117F9gKXmHwyc_xCkGSU&amp;c=bD896lr8puQS9OpriSDqJ5qP301iIMQPRg3-oiQgr3v9xnrZ4ms2eA==&amp;ch=GHuyJjfF96DJzWfZBftksx_STJdSZNbJ3P3CeymchD-YzwoohbH4WA==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">HERE</a>Image: Sebastian Bruno-Harris,&nbsp;A Wild Sheep Chase,&nbsp;2018, Charcoal, graphite, and correction tape on vellum, 30” x 52.5”

All Is Fish That Comes to the Net

This October do not miss our three gallery shows&nbsp; in our 3rd and 4th Floor Galleries! 4th Floor GalleryDECADENCE DEUXPresented by Pigment International &amp; September Gray Fine Art 3rd Floor GalleriesART CONNECTION: PAST MEETS PRESENTPresented by ArtConnectEDArt Educator &amp; Alumni Exhibition UNA VUELTA A MIS RAICES(A Return to My Roots): Monochromatic Pigment Paintings by Robert Lipton<a href="https://bridgeportart.acemlnb.com/lt.php?x=4lZy~GDMV6Gh65F5zADMgRVw2nNSut~wj~hhjqTHI3Gi7p37zEy7x.N02X4Rzk~w_x6uXnLIMnSb6q360OxIUeVw" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank">RSVP - FREE EVENT</a>

Open Studios Third Friday at the Bridgeport Art Center

Guest Curated by Dan CameronBert Green Fine Art&nbsp;is pleased to present a solo show by Chicago-based artist Kevin Blake, guest curated by Dan Cameron.Kevin Blake&nbsp;grew up on the far south side of Chicago, and while young bore witness to the unique fraternity of white male power that was the Chicago Police Department, where his father and grandfather both enjoyed long careers, while forbidding him to follow in their footsteps. Instead, he studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was inspired by its emphasis on art that reflects the specific paradoxes of one’s time and place. Thus incentivized to investigate subject matter close to home, Blake began the challenging process of minutely examining the psychological and cultural effects of toxic masculinity left over from his personal history and presumed cultural identity, to see how they might be reassembled into something more redemptive.&nbsp;The poignant results of Blake’s intensive cross-examination of (mostly) male identity can be seen in “Sundowning,” a word that typically refers to the dramatic mood shifts experienced by Alzheimer’s patients when daylight ends. Its use here is metaphorical, a reference to the crumbling of certain longstanding myths about what male roles are appropriate in today’s increasingly pluralistic society. If what first strikes one about Blake’s work is his impressive level of skill and creativity, that technical aspect is soon overtaken by our gradual discovery that the characters he depicts so unerringly can evoke our capacity to empathize with their suffering, no matter how unappetizing they first appear.In Blake’s compositions, the male of the species is typically portrayed performing a social role fully in accord with societal expectations, only something isn’t going the way it should. A round of golf is swept away by a typhoon, a poolside reverie is harshly interrupted, a gym bro grimaces in our direction: while his subjects aspire to maintain their male privilege in the material world, Blake invites us to see through the bravado, and perceive them within a framework of near-desperate social isolation, worsened by their inability to drop their deeply ingrained roles. — Dan CameronAll gallery events are free and open to the public. Additional information found at the gallery website at&nbsp;<a href="https://bgfa.us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://bgfa.us</a> A Third Degree Witness, Graphite, oil pastel, oil paint, and collage on paper mounted on canvas, 29.5 x 21", 2024

Kevin Blake: Sundowning

<a href="https://nmprac.org/exhibitions/diasporic-collage-puerto-rico-and-the-survival-of-a-people/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Details</a> <h4>The Puerto Rican diaspora is a collage of overlapping histories of colonialism, resistance, and survival.</h4> Diasporic Collage: Puerto Rico and the Survival of a People honors Puerto Rican identities in the archipelago and its diasporas. Puerto Rico’s colonial status and geographical location situate it as a locus of global encounters and ongoing displacement. As such, the Puerto Rican diaspora can be understood as a collage of overlapping histories of colonialism, resistance, and survival. This exhibition engages with collage as both practice and metaphor. A collage is an assemblage, an art technique that uses discrete materials, images, or text to create a whole picture. Countering the concept of a melting pot, which emphasizes assimilation and loss of culture, the idea of a collaged community allows for the celebration of roots and relations. This exhibition also considers the close relationship between photography and collage, both notable 20th-century art forms. It takes the first major documentary initiative on the Puerto Rican diaspora as a point of departure to examine the enduring legacy of survival and migration. The Puerto Rican Diaspora Documentary Project by community organizer, activist, educator, and documentary photographer Frank Espada (1930–2014, Puerto Rico) was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1979 to 1981. The resulting collection of over 4,000 photos and 130 interviews led to the 2007 publication The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Themes in the Survival of a People, from which this exhibition takes its subtitle. The artists featured in this exhibition consider the Puerto Rican diaspora in a fluid and expansive way. While several focus on the diaspora in the traditional sense—Puerto Ricans who migrate to the United States—many honor the different diasporas that intersect with the archipelago of Puerto Rico, documenting their communities with care and showing us a collage of Puerto Rican and Caribbean experiences. Diaspora scatters; collage connects. Diasporic Collage: Puerto Rico and the Survival of a People is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (MSU Broad Art Museum) and the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at Hunter College, in collaboration with the Diaspora Solidarities Lab (DSL), and curated by Dr. Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez, directora of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO), formerly associate professor at MSU; Dr. Windy M. Cosme Rosario, instructor, University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras; and Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez, assistant curator, MSU Broad Art Museum; with support from DSL fellows Melanie Rodríguez Vázquez, Ariana Costales Del Toro, Yafrainy Familia, Nicole Hernández, Stephany Bravo, Imaida M. Durán Mariñez, Alana Cordero Montesinos, Meleny González, Olivia M. Ramírez, Jaden Morales, and Yuleysy Ortiz. Support for this series is provided by the MSU Federal Credit Union. The Diaspora Solidarities Lab is made possible with financial support from the Mellon Foundation. This exhibition, being presented by&nbsp;The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, is the result of collaborative research and community projects produced since 2022 by the&nbsp;Diaspora Solidarities Lab (DSL), a Black feminist–led partnership between&nbsp;Michigan State University,&nbsp;Johns Hopkins University, and&nbsp;Hunter College.&nbsp;The DSL is directed by Dr. Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez, professor and directora of the&nbsp;Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO)&nbsp;at Hunter College, formerly an associate professor at MSU, and&nbsp;Dr. Jessica Marie Johnson, associate professor at&nbsp;Johns Hopkins University. Artists featured in the exhibition include&nbsp;La Vaughn Belle, Rebel Betty, Mónica Ching, Frank Espada, Alia Farid, Glorimar Garcia, Daniel Lind Ramos, María Martínez-Cañas, Luis Rivera Jiménez, Edra Soto, Brenda Torres-Figueroa, and Nitza Tufiño.

Diasporic Collage: Puerto Rico and The Survival of a People

Main / Office Galleries Image: Neil Goodman - "Untitled," 2021, unique cast bronze, 14 x 27½ x 10 in.

Neil Goodman: Rivers & Valleys

South Gallery IGOR &amp; MARINA

Igor and Marina: The Shadow Lives Where There is Light

Joy Machine is thrilled to present&nbsp;The Peace of Wild Things, a duo exhibition by Chicago-based American artist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.emmystarbrown.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" target="_blank">Emmy Star Brown</a>&nbsp;and San Jose-based Korean artist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.danymkwon.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" target="_blank">Danym Kwon</a>. This is Brown’s second exhibition at Joy Machine and Kwon’s third. You can&nbsp;<a href="https://luma.com/j9u7nxgr" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" target="_blank">RSVP to our opening reception</a>&nbsp;on August 28 from 6 to 8 p.m. Drawing its title from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/peace-wild-things-0/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" target="_blank">Wendell Berry’s often-quoted poem</a>,&nbsp;The Peace of Wild Things&nbsp;is a return to wonder through disparate yet complementary practices. For both Brown and Kwon, color and layering become a means of self-discovery and a way to tap into the emotions, dreams, and memories that might not surface otherwise. Their practices diverge in notable ways–Brown works abstractly, while Kwon turns to surreal representations of care and domestic life–but when presented together, they enter into a harmonic dialogue about the ways experiences linger long after a moment has passed. Whether working on a monumental mural or intimate painting on canvas, Brown revels in riotous geometries of color. Amorphous forms and clean lines commingle in compositions that conjure the emotional power of magenta, peach, cobalt, or goldenrod. Describing her studio practice as the space in which her inner child emerges, the artist harnesses the playful energy we typically associate with adolescent imagination. In both her canvases and irregularly shaped found-cardboard pieces, each line resists being bound by the edge of the frame, instead appearing to continue onward on its own course. Inversely, Kwon nests tiny scenes of family life into stacks of folded clothes and bulbous vessels evocative of Korean Moon Jars. Holding the mundane with affection, the artist preserves small acts of care by placing them securely inside these larger forms. Rendering elements at different scales echoes the ways experiences fade and reappear over time, while the soft, pastel color palettes suggest a tenderness toward quiet intimacies. Kwon also draws on her Korean heritage and training in Asian painting traditions, the latter of which informs her understanding of negative space. In the diptych “What We Hold Dear,” she pairs a trio of vignettes depicting outdoor adventures with hands cradling the small findings from such endeavors. The pieces are presented in a folding frame with soft, rounded edges inspired by Korean design. For both Brown and Kwon, painting offers the necessary space to process the past and imagine the future. Perhaps more importantly, though, the practice demands one’s presence and creates the conditions that spark wonder and joy. The Peace of Wild Things&nbsp;is on view from August 28 to October 17, 2026. Please&nbsp;<a href="https://luma.com/j9u7nxgr" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" target="_blank">RSVP to our opening reception</a>.

The Peace of Wild Things: Emmy Star Brown and Danym Kwon

Enriching Life Retrospective (Heeyoung Kim and Brushwood Botanical Artists)

Enriching Life Retrospective

At Ease In Nature: Nature Holds Our Stories is an event taking place from October 7 to October 24 at the Carnegie Library in Waukegan. The event is associated with Brushwood Gallery, located at 21850 N. Riverwoods Rd., Riverwoods (60015). For more information, visit www.brushwoodcenter.org.

At Ease In Nature: Nature Holds Our Stories

Volume Gallery announces&nbsp;Flowers and Leaves, Christy Matson’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery, opening September 17th, from 5-8PM. This new work draws on a recently discovered box of nineteenth-century family textiles, including lace, tatted fragments, and woven cloth passed through generations, to consider inherited histories of labor, resistance, and ornament. “Flowers and Leaves&nbsp;begins with a Jacquard-woven tea cloth found in a box of family heirlooms, accompanied by a handwritten note from my grandmother tracing its passage through generations. The cloth dates to the 1830s or 40s and belonged to Sarah Doty Arnold, my fifth great-grandmother, a Quaker woman living in Macedon, New York, within a community shaped by abolitionist networks and early feminist organizing, where radical thought moved through households in letters, meetings, and domestic exchange.” - Christy Matson Many of Matson’s ancestors were Quakers active in abolitionist, pacifist and early feminist movements. Macedon, New York, was a vital hub of the Underground Railroad, and these inherited objects would have circulated within households during moments of profound social and political change. Alongside that history, the handmade lace and cloth also carry a parallel meaning: the long tradition of women’s textile work as a site of knowledge, cultural production, and embodied practice, often left out of written record, but preserved in the objects that remain as evidence of their presence. This tension is a throughline in Matson’s practice, a sustained attention to the time, intelligence, and material thinking embedded in domestic textiles, forms of labor that have long gone unrecognized. This box of tatted doilies, scraps of lace with delicate floral motifs, and cloth bearing geometric patterns was passed down through generations. Unlike bulkier heirlooms that would have been left behind during displacement, these pieces endured. Cloth could be folded into trunks, sewn into coat linings and passed between hands across migration, upheaval, and inheritance. Drawing from details found in the remnants, Matson creates geometric but irregular oil pastel drawings that serve as a ground for collage. From the textile fragments, she isolates motifs of flowers and leaves, photographing and extracting these details before integrating them into the drawn compositions. These layered works function as studies for the woven images that follow. Using a Jacquard loom, she translates the collages into meticulously constructed woven paintings, drafting each image thread by thread through a series of weave structures. The resulting works are both intimate and monumental. Colorful blocks of pattern evoke both quilt-making and Modernist painting. Vertical stripes intersect lace-like interventions that depict scraps and studies, including overshot florals, suns, and sunflowers, drawn from larger, now-lost textiles. The exhibition’s title comes from the writings of Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), mathematician and the world’s first computer programmer. In the same decade that the Jacquard-woven tea cloth that inspired this body of work was made, Ada Lovelace described the loom as a system that “weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.” She used weaving to describe a new kind of machine logic, one that operates on symbols according to rules rather than only calculating quantities. This idea sits within a longer history of textile practices as systems for encoding and transmitting pattern, structure, and notation, most often through women’s labor. The binary logic of weaving (warp and weft, thread above and below) runs through all of Matson’s work, a reminder that these ancient systems of making were always a form of code and a form of communication. Textiles encode structures that outlive their origin; patterns carried across time.Flowers and Leaves&nbsp;will be on view through October 24, 2026. Christy Matson&nbsp;lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Recent solo exhibitions include Philip Martin Gallery, Rebecca Camacho Presents, The Milwaukee Art Museum, Cranbrook Art Museum, which featured a special commission for the US Art in Embassies Program, and the Long Beach Museum of Art. Her work has been in dozens of group exhibitions, including the Bakersfield Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum, the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, the Asheville Art Museum, and the Knoxville Museum of Art. Matson’s work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cranbrook Art Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. ​

Flowers and Leaves

Volume Gallery is pleased to present Arrangements, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with Los Angeles-based artist Arina Erdélyi, opening September 17th, from 5-8PM in gallery two. In a series of ceramic lighting and wall works, Erdélyi explores tensions of scale and perspective through the pairing of miniature and full-scale forms. Table lamps frame miniature domestic scenes illuminated beneath silk shades, while full-scale plates hang above, extending these scenes into the surrounding space.

Arrangements

The Art Center's massive annual showcase of recycled and rediscovered artwork.We are proud to announce that the&nbsp;2026 Recycled Art Sale&nbsp;will be bigger, and filled with more treasures, than ever before.&nbsp; Over the last year, donors have dropped off a record number of donations. The art at&nbsp;Recycled&nbsp;is carefully curated and priced to be affordable. Make sure you get your ticket for opening night below, or join us during the week of the sale for free.&nbsp; First Look Entry:Friday, Oct 16 | 5 pm Opening Night Event:Friday, Oct 16 | 6 pm Opening WeekendSaturday, Oct 17 | 10 am – 4 pmSunday, Oct 18 | 12 pm – 4 pm Free Entry:Monday, Oct 19 – Saturday, Oct 24<a href="https://rkcgwygbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001shdM4pYLrrQHSx7IJCzsIYZedukQGSp5GKA088AOyu5MHbVyfqYWX5O2pBY0TZXhTMGplt9A5bovGShmr_MhLVKKiTGVvbWQEn9O3jgH5reMsJt4HuigkhsUM_jvoeYfRCUJ_oEEDHrY4OVUG8QEshjmmsnfPL7N0zFUj336NNcBtkfEN6NQgeSOrUreiMQ6PkMRMGvNljo6lt3GYv9GftlIZpiKBo6TTpLSzH1Fs7srj3kjhe8SLMwxIT7I0_e-3njmeL0i6IB44ngqbvKFUg4-nrSJ5NAVCOCqENYkGPcHFHhJle143w==&amp;c=SQKm9DDLdpMQLf-CGyUwqJpILvUjkmq4gB6Co3Gfv3QwsRN6YmalGw==&amp;ch=belmXMhoSl8-jaeyjf0Ex2ByYEuxGjfP2Y85OeEJ5FhF2kFtpno0aw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Get your tickets here</a>

Recycled 2026

﻿Brendan Fernandes&nbsp;is an internationally recognized,&nbsp;multidisciplinary artist&nbsp;who&nbsp;examines issues of cultural displacement, migration, labor, and queer subjectivity through installation, video, sculpture, and dance. He is invested in confronting the complexities of transitional and transnational identities, with a particular interest in incorporating elements of cultural performance into contemporary art, arising from his unique cultural background as a Queer, Kenyan Indian Canadian.&nbsp;Fernandes’&nbsp;projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest, and other forms of collective movement. Always looking to create new spaces and new forms of agency,&nbsp;his&nbsp;projects take on hybrid forms: part Ballet, part queer dance party, part political protest...&nbsp;always rooted in collaboration and fostering solidarity.&nbsp; Fernandes (b.1979, Nairobi, Kenya) attended York University for his Bachelors (hons.) and is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2010).&nbsp;He is currently an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.&nbsp;Selected solo presentations include&nbsp;the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Denver, CO (2024);&nbsp;Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, NY (2023);&nbsp;The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA (2023);&nbsp;Lurie Garden at&nbsp;Millennium&nbsp;Park, Chicago, IL (2022); The Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, BC (2022); The Art Gallery in Ontario, Toronto, ON (2021); Chrysler Art Museum, Norfolk, VA (2020);&nbsp;moniquemeloche&nbsp;(2019); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2019); The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC (2019); The Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; and DePaul University Art Museum, Chicago, IL (2018).&nbsp;His projects have been featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, New York, NY; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa,&nbsp;ON;&nbsp;Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON;&nbsp;Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA;&nbsp;and The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI, among many others.&nbsp;Recent projects include performances and solo presentations at the&nbsp;Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, MO; Prospect.6, New Orleans, LA;&nbsp;Remai Modern, Saskatoon, CA;&nbsp;Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway; a collaboration with Danish National Radio, Copenhagen, Denmark, a group show at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa,&nbsp;and a two person show at Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA. In 2024, Fernandes debuted&nbsp;Build of the House&nbsp;for ART on THE MART, which traveled to Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moments.&nbsp;&nbsp; Public collections include&nbsp;the&nbsp;National Museum of&nbsp;African&nbsp;Art, Smithsonian, DC;&nbsp;Museum of Contemporary&nbsp;Art, Chicago, IL;&nbsp;Remai&nbsp;Modern, Saskatoon, CA;&nbsp;The&nbsp;Museu&nbsp;de&nbsp;Arte de São&nbsp;Paulo, BR;&nbsp;Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO;&nbsp;DePaul University Art Museum, Chicago, IL;&nbsp;Block Museum of&nbsp;Art&nbsp;at Northwestern University, IL;&nbsp;The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, CA;&nbsp;Musée&nbsp;des&nbsp;Beaux-Arts de Montréal, QC;&nbsp;Crysler&nbsp;Museum of&nbsp;Art, Norfolk, VA;&nbsp;The Joyner/Giuffrida&nbsp;Collection of&nbsp;Abstract&nbsp;Art, San Francisco, CA;&nbsp;Museum of Contemporary&nbsp;Art, University of Massachusetts,&nbsp;Amherst, MA;&nbsp;and the Wedge Collection, Toronto, ON.&nbsp;Fernandes is a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Fellowship. In 2010, he was shortlisted for the Sobey Art&nbsp;Award, and&nbsp;is the recipient of a prestigious Canada Council New Chapters grant (2017), the&nbsp;Artadia&nbsp;Award (2019), a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant (2019), and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020).&nbsp; Fernandes currently lives&nbsp;and works&nbsp;in Chicago, IL.&nbsp;Installation View, Photo by Bob.

Brendan Fernandes: The Noise Will Sound

The Evanston Art Center (EAC) is excited to welcome the public to our upcoming exhibition, <a href="https://www.evanstonartcenter.org/exhibitions/amy-hanks-over-sea-under-stone" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Amy Hanks | Over Sea Under Stone</a>. The exhibition will be on display from September 19 - October 25, 2026 with an opening reception on Sunday, September 27, 1-3pm that will be free and open to the public. "My art practice is informed by nonlinear, spirit-filled narratives. I’m inspired by icons, tarot cards, lotería, memoirs, kachina dancers, children’s stories, illuminated manuscripts, and more.I layer, scrape, draw, paint, sew, reveal, and obscure as an analogy to life's transformative journeys over unfamiliar and unexpected landscapes. Through this process, I grapple with earthy and mystic subjects such as time travel, uncertainty, humor, grief and delight.” – Amy Hanks Amy Hanks graduated with a BFA from the University of Texas and an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she was a Rackham Fellow. She has been awarded an Individual Artist Grant from the State of Illinois and is a 2024 Fulbright Fellow Alumni.&nbsp;

Amy Hanks | Over Sea Under Stone

The Evanston Art Center (EAC) is excited to welcome the public to our upcoming exhibition, <a href="https://www.evanstonartcenter.org/exhibitions/sarah-sipling" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sarah Sipling | Solo Exhibition</a>. The exhibition will be on display from September 19 - October 25, 2026 with an opening reception on Sunday, September 27, 1-3pm that will be free and open to the public. “I focus on the many possibilities of printmaking, combining traditional and digital techniques. Each printmaking method has a unique visual language and communicative power and I often combine techniques and reimagine the possibilities of each method. My work questions political issues focusing on ideas of protest, power, and perception.” – Sarah Sipling Sarah Sipling is a mixed media artist and printmaker. Sipling received her MFA in Printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design and BFA in Printmaking from Purchase College, State University of New York. She lives and works in New York and Kansas City.

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