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

The title of the exhibition is&nbsp;Her Story. The "her" of the title is our daughter, Temma Day Lowly. The title is also a bit of a feminist twist on "history." The&nbsp;Her Story&nbsp;project consists of vertical format black &amp; white paintings, each of which will be accompanied by a text (title + essay, poem, dictionary entry, etc.) written by my partner (and Temma's mother) Sherrie Lowly.&nbsp;Concurrently with paintings of the&nbsp;Her Story&nbsp;project I will be showing a current collaborative project, the&nbsp;Trio Mandorla. This large drawing also depicts Temma, but with her mother Sherrie and caregiver Ellen Herbert). Begun 3 years ago, this project involves a collaborative component wherein people who are interested can draw onto the 2 parts of the drawing that depict quilts. I have exhibited this project previously, and numerous people have joined in the participatory compontent of the piece.

Her Story

The Evanston Art Center (EAC) is excited to welcome the public to&nbsp;Ruth Poor: Beatrice. The exhibition will be on display from February 21 to March 18, 2026, in our Second Floor Atrium Gallery and will be free and open to the public.Beatrice&nbsp;is the culmination of a nearly year-long study and performative execution of "grief-work" as a means to ground oneself amidst the shared loss of environmental sanctity, bodily autonomy, and community from rising authoritarianism, Christo-fascism, and consumerism.&nbsp;Ruth L. Poor, an interdisciplinary artist, embraces an evolving process of creation rooted in research and journaling/sketching as observation. Often implementing or commenting on spiritual/religious practice and ritual as it intersects with the macrocosm of American history and politics, alongside the parallelism of the personal.&nbsp;

Ruth Poor: Beatrice

Join us on Thursday, February 12, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, for an exhilarating evening as we unveil a captivating new show at the Kavanagh Gallery!&nbsp;Meet some of the artists and other members of your Fine Line community and view the incredible art.This reception, like all Fine Line receptions, is free and open to everyone. Light refreshments will be served. Artists' talks and award presentations will begin at 6.30 pm.

Paper

This March we feature the emerging talents of high school students! The Northern Exhibition is one of Illinois' largest and most influential student art exhibitions. This truly unique show celebrates artistic achievement and provides talented young artists with opportunities to showcase their artwork and compete at a state level.Empowering Young Creative Voices<a href="https://bridgeportart.acemlnb.com/lt.php?x=4lZy~GDMV6Gh65F5zADMgRVw2nNSut~wj~hhjqTHI3Gi7p37zEy7x.Nu130Rzk~w_x6uXXfLMnOg5q360OxHVel0" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" target="_blank">RSVP - FREE EVENT</a>

March Open Studios Third Friday at the Bridgeport Art Center

Working with shaped canvases, he breaks the rectangle, giving his works a sense of floating in space. We love their physicality…&nbsp;his practice goes far beyond painting realistic objects; he fabricates “canvases” that trick the eye.This marks Sechor's breakthrough exhibition.&nbsp;Over the past year, VSG's quarterly releases of his train cars have sold out every time.&nbsp;For this show, we're releasing nine new works — seven already placed through strong collector outreach. The two remaining cars are below.

Authorized Entry: Sechor & Akiva Listman

DOCUMENT Chicago is delighted to present a two-person exhibition of photographs by Jimmy DeSana and Paul Mpagi Sepuya. Opening on January 9, the exhibition will remain on view through March 21, 2026. This intergenerational dialogue between the work of Jimmy DeSana (b. 1949, Detroit, MI – d. 1990, New York, NY) and Paul Mpagi Sepuya (b. 1982, San Bernardino, CA) unfolds as a set of carefully matched pairings. Both artists use photography to engage with queer bodies and the politics of representation, implicating the viewer as much as any figure who appears in the frame. Closely associated with New York City’s No Wave and downtown art scenes in the late 1970s and employing a rich array of photographic processes, DeSana drew on Surrealism in presenting bodies in confusing entanglement with everyday objects as well as one another. Anticipating the sexual anxieties of the imminent AIDS crisis, he infused queer erotics with equal parts absurdity and dread. Beginning his career in the mid-2000s, Sepuya’s work comes from his intimate involvement and collaboration with queer communities on both U.S. coasts. The desiring gaze can only take in Sepuya’s bodies via fragmentation, mirroring or the clever reproduction of his previous photographs; effects meticulously produced by Sepuya in the studio rather than by any digital manipulation. Side by side, DeSana and Sepuya remind us that queer aesthetics—much like queer liberation—is a continual process, never far from the lived, corporeal world. Image: Paul Mpagi Sepuya,&nbsp;Darkroom Mirror (0X5A0752), 2019. Archival pigment print; 51 x 34 in.

Jimmy DeSana and Paul Mpagi Sepuya

Amira DiawAva PetersonRebekka FederleOlivia Porter A house is never only a structure. It is a sequence of movements, arrangements, and experiences: arrivals and departures, objects placed then replaced, rooms slowly infused with life through use. Housewarming, Elise Seigenthaler Gallery’s inaugural exhibition, brings together a group of artists whose works consider the domesticity as a site of memory, projection, and emotional investigation.&nbsp;Throughout the history of art, interiors have offered a framework for thinking through personal environments and the quiet pressures of everyday life. Neither purely private nor entirely fixed, the home emerges as a place shaped by negotiation: between self and other, permanence and impermanence, outside and inside, care and neglect. The works in&nbsp;Housewarming&nbsp;engage with these tensions, approaching domestic space not as a static backdrop but as an active and evolving habitat.&nbsp;Across painting, beaded work, and sculpture, familiar elements of the home are loosened from their functional and traditional roles. Ornate decor dissolves into shimmering strokes of abstraction, rooms register absence as much as occupation, and wooden objects become affective substitutes for pets. The components and meaning of an interior are revealed as something constructed, vulnerable, and deeply entangled with personal and cultural histories.&nbsp;As the gallery’s first exhibition,&nbsp;Housewarming&nbsp;reflects a moment of arrival. The exhibition extends its attention inward and treats the gallery itself as a space in the process of becoming. The works gathered in this show trace their own paths through memory, material, and imagination, offering the gallery as a provisional interior, newly occupied and still taking shape. Amira Diaw&nbsp;(b. 2002 in&nbsp;Houston, TX)&nbsp;is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago, IL. Her paintings serve as an archive of their history, capturing moments from the 1970s through the early 2000s that lend a stranger-like quality in the realm of the family or kinship space. Diaw has exhibited her work with John St Gallery, Point Blank Gallery, and Gure. She is a BFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2026).&nbsp;Rebekka Federle&nbsp;(b. in&nbsp;Chicago, IL) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Chicago, IL. Federle received her MFA from the University of Chicago (2025). Federle’s work was recently exhibited in the solo shows&nbsp;The Liberators, Chat About x CWAC Exhibition Series&nbsp;(Cochran Woods Art Center, IL) and&nbsp;In Your Dreams&nbsp;(Topo, ME) and&nbsp;GOODUNANIMOUSBAD BADUNANIMOUSGOOD(Logan Center, IL)&nbsp;Ava Peterson&nbsp;(b. 2002 in Columbus, OH) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago, IL. Peterson received a BFA in Studio Art from Denison University (2024) and is an MFA candidate in Painting &amp; Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2026). Notable exhibitions include the solo shows&nbsp;House &amp; Garden&nbsp;(Incubator Gallery, IL) and&nbsp;Clear the Kitchen Table&nbsp;(Bryant Arts Center, OH) as well as the group show&nbsp;In a Child's Place&nbsp;(Purple Window Gallery, IL). Peterson has also received the Nan Nowik Memorial Award for Outstanding Artistic Expression (2024) and was a Luminarts Visual Arts Fellowship Finalist (2025).&nbsp;Olivia Porter&nbsp;(b.1995 in Los Angeles, CA) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, CA. Porter received her BA from Kenyon College (2018). Recent exhibitions include&nbsp;The Last Notice Show&nbsp;(Rusha &amp; Co., CA) and&nbsp;Garden 2022(Ladie’s Room, CA).&nbsp;

Housewarming

SoNa Chicago Contemporary Art presents&nbsp;“Beneath an Economy of Sky”&nbsp;featuring&nbsp;the&nbsp;artwork of Jack Poker, a Chicago-based artist who blends painting and collage to make unique and moving works. The exhibition&nbsp;opens Friday, February 20, 2026, at SoNa Chicago Contemporary Art, 1527 N. Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL and continues through March 21, 2026. There will be an Opening Reception on Friday, February 20 from 6-9 pm and an artist talk on Sunday, March 1 from 2:00 - 3:30 pm.Jack Poker is a Chicago-based artist whose work examines memory and how it is tied to the history of a place. His current body of work explores the economic and environmental impacts on communities of removals of buildings and transformations of spaces. Jack’s paintings, collages, and sculptures depict what happens to abandoned or demolished buildings, city blocks, suburban neighborhoods, and commercial sites as urban and rural landscapes change with economic development or neglect.&nbsp;This exhibition also includes several pieces from his Majorette series, which playfully invite the viewer to question the cultural meaning and metaphorical role of these figures in contemporary society. In both the Removal and Majorette series, Jack's paintings depict how histories, without context, are fragmented and distorted until the artist reconstructs them and the viewer gives them meaning.“Jack came to my attention when we were planning a group show with Tony Fitzpatrick in the months before Tony passed“ said Laura Botwinick, SoNa Chicago gallery owner and director. “Tony encouraged me to look at Jack’s work and when I visited his studio, I immediately offered him a solo show.”&nbsp;Tony said of Jack, “For my money he is the most underrated and little-known artist in Chicago. For all of the attention being paid to collage as well as combinations of painting and drawing and collage, Jack has flown under the radar, bringing his own sensibility to ideas of landscape, map-making, place, and poetry… He is only like himself.”Before moving to Chicago in 1995, New Mexican-born Jack Poker spent his youth in Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. He studied history and anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia before moving to Seattle, Washington, where he divided his time between work and art. He lived in Alaska briefly, where he worked on a fishing boat in the Bering Sea.&nbsp;He participated in group shows in and around Chicago until 2004 but continued to paint and sculpt full-time, selling his work to private collectors.&nbsp;In 2011, he was forced to take a hiatus from painting after his studio, along with his belongings, were destroyed in a flood.&nbsp;&nbsp;This is Jack Poker’s first solo show in Chicago. The opening reception is on Friday, February 20 from 6-9 p.m. An artist talk is scheduled for Sunday, March 1, from 2 – 3:30 p.m. For more information about the upcoming exhibition, contact Laura Botwinick at 773.513.4436 or by email at&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="mailto:Lkbotwinick@gmail.com" target="_blank">Lkbotwinick@gmail.com</a>.&nbsp;Go to&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.sonachicagoart.com/" target="_blank">www.sonachicagoart.com</a>&nbsp;for additional details.&nbsp;

Jack Poker: Beneath an Economy of Sky

Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present Spaces for People, Systems for Spaces, a group show about the built environment — cities, buildings, structures, urban planning — featuring 15 artists from across the States who make art about architecture.&nbsp; Kim BeckJohn BehnkeMarshall BrownCourttney CooperShir EndeEdie FakeJazmine HarrisR.J. JuguilonMakayla LindsayAya NakamuraBrian PetroneDeb SokolowRyan StandfestMarvin YoungJoe Zaldivar Image: Joe&nbsp;ZaldivarKohls Department Store in Upland, 2024marker and watercolor on paper18h x 24w in

Spaces for People, Systems for Spaces

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery is pleased to present Inflorescence, a new body of work that expands Cecilia Beaven's ongoing investigation of invented mythology within the ecological landscape of Chicago. Drawing on visual references from the natural world and her upbringing in Mexico City, the exhibition introduces hybrid plant, animal, and human forms that operate as symbolic structures through which cultural identity is understood as adaptive and continually shaped by environment and experience. Working across painting, drawing, murals, and ceramics, Beaven constructs staged surreal environments that extend beyond the picture plane and emphasize the relationship between personal history and broader cultural narratives. Her multidisciplinary approach examines how stories are formed, revised, and circulated, offering a framework for reconsidering established representations of Mexican identity beyond folklore.

Cecilia Beaven: Inflorescence

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery is pleased to present Rhonda Gates: Beneath Hyperion's Sky, a series of landscape paintings shaped by observation of atmosphere, weather, and terrain. Drawing on the mythic figure of Hyperion, the Titan associated with heavenly light and cyclical time, the exhibition considers how illumination and temporal change structure both the natural world and human perception. Working in layers, Gates builds her surfaces through repeated applications of color and line, translating direct observation of the Midwestern landscape into meditative compositions. Circles, grids, and linear progressions organize the canvas, mapping shifts in light, horizon, and seasonal change. These formal elements register the passage of time and the changing atmosphere, so that the landscape emerges not as a descriptive view but as an ordered system. Situated between abstraction and representation, her work invites reflection on ecology, memory, and shared experience, positioning landscape as a site of connection within a time of environmental and cultural uncertainty.

Rhonda Gates: Beneath Hyperion's Sky

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery is pleased to present&nbsp;El Jardin, a body of large scale paintings that emerge from the intimate pen and ink drawings first shown in Aguirre's recent exhibition&nbsp;El calor de las hojas. While the earlier drawings functioned as a space of reflection and discovery, the paintings extend those narratives into physical form, transforming quiet observation into architectural scale. Through layered paint and sculpted surfaces, Aguirre renders doors, walls, trees, and streets as sites marked by memory and absence.&nbsp;The works confront the ongoing realities of violence affecting Chicago's inner city communities, drawing from what the artist has seen, witnessed, and carried from youth into adulthood. Figures often recede, leaving deserted rooms, empty streets, and fragile traces of human presence that hold grief and remembrance. In this way, the garden becomes both memorial and offering, honoring lives lost while insisting that they are not forgotten.&nbsp; Image: Herman Aguirre,&nbsp;¡Ni uno mas!, 2023, Oil and oil/acrylic skins on panel, 63" x 98" x 4.5"

Herman Aguirre: El Jardin

Not a Soft Thing is a multifaceted exhibition by 15 artist/mothers spanning diverse cultural backgrounds, disciplines, and stages of caregiving. Together, this artist collective challenges the idealized narratives of motherhood, exposing the strength, struggle, and resilience that shape both art making and parenting. Through the media of painting, photography, ceramics, text, and installation, this exhibition explores the question: “What does it mean to create in the margins of care?” Some pieces are resolved and refined; others remain raw, incomplete, or in-process by design, revealing the realities of creating art in stolen moments. Collectively, the works reflect the fragmented time, emotional labor, and radical tenderness inherent in caregiving. Born organically through an interconnected community of artist mothers, this collective was founded as a space of solidarity. Not a Soft Thing is not only about their identity, but also about how they keep showing up—building community with and for one another creating, caring, and telling stories that shape contemporary art and culture. This exhibition is both a call to action and an invitation—to recognize caregiving not as a barrier to creativity, but as a powerful, generative force within it. Included in the exhibition are artworks uniquely designed to be kid-friendly and serve as an open invitation for audience participation, creating space for meaningful, memorable interactions for all generations. Exhibiting artists include A.Martinez, Angela Lopez, Aubrey Ingmar, Bobbi Meier, Connie Noyes, Cydney M Lewis, Jenny Halpern, Jihae Park, Katie Kirk, Keeley Haftner, Noelle Garcia, Orr Menirom, Sarana Mehra, Tulika Ladsariya, and Yemisi Oyeniyi.

Not a Soft Thing: A Group Exhibition by Artist Mothers

The KIA is pleased to present the annual&nbsp;Young Artists of Kalamazoo County&nbsp;exhibition, celebrating the artistic achievements of students in grades K–8. Nearly 70 art educators carefully select each featured work, creating a highly-anticipated partnership with our community’s exceptional teachers. This yearly highlight offers visitors of all ages a dynamic and uplifting experience.This show is open to K-8 students attending school in Kalamazoo County. Teachers are able to choose works from their students to be displayed at the KIA. The number of works that a teacher is able to submit is determined by the number of students attending their school.&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.kiarts.org/yakc-teachers/" target="_blank">View info for educators here.</a>

2026 Young Artists of Kalamazoo County

The Center Program offers artists who are ready to raise their practice to the next level the opportunity to develop new work, receive feedback from art professionals, and work towards an exhibition at the Art Center over the course of eight months. This eleventh iteration of the program will feature the work of 20 artists guest curated by Teresa Silva, an independent curator and writer based in Chicago.

Center Program

Join Chris Patrello, associate curator of the Americas and Africa, for a focused tour of&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://t.e2ma.net/click/1bplzl/td1dw8/xkhm8cb" target="_blank">Bridging Time and Place.</a>Patrello will highlight works that expand and deepen the Museum’s collection of Indigenous art of the Americas.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://t.e2ma.net/click/1bplzl/td1dw8/ddim8cb" target="_blank">Read more⇒</a>

Curator-led Tour of Bridging Time and Place: Indigenous Art of the Americas

Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-Taught Art in Chicago,&nbsp;the first major&nbsp;exhibition to focus on the importance of immigration and migration in the genre of self-taught art, will now be on view&nbsp;through March 22, 2026,&nbsp;at the recently reimagined&nbsp;Intuit Art Museum&nbsp;(IAM), 756 N. Milwaukee Avenue. This special exhibition, co-curated by Intuit Chief Curator&nbsp;Alison Amick&nbsp;and independent curator&nbsp;Dana Boutin,&nbsp;spotlights 22 artists and features more than 92 works from leading collections, in a range of media, including drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, printmaking, textiles, ceramics, woodcarving and installation.&nbsp;&nbsp;A highlight since opening May 23 is a dramatic 9’ x 18’ site-specific installation by&nbsp;Pooja Pittie, raised in Mumbai, India and now living in Chicago, entitled&nbsp;What We Build to Belong&nbsp;(2025).&nbsp;Encompassing&nbsp;hand-knotted net, cords, readymade nets, crochet,&nbsp;knittings, discarded drawings, wrapped watercolor fragments, residual&nbsp;fiber&nbsp;and paper objects from the artist’s studio,&nbsp;the work has invited museum&nbsp;visitors to add their own&nbsp;written or drawnreflections about belonging, with&nbsp;more than&nbsp;500personalized paper tags currently&nbsp;contributed.&nbsp;&nbsp;“Especially in this current climate, Intuit is proud to be offering the public an opportunity to discover a treasure trove of works created by artists who immigrated to Chicago since the early-20thcentury, much of it examining the experience of migrating from one’s homeland. The act of creating art can be a form of personal activism as well as the expression of lived experience, and Intuit is proud to feature the work and honor the lived experiences of those whose stories are frequently overlooked,” saidDebra Kerr, Intuit Art Museum President and CEO. “For those who haven’t checked out our new, welcoming space, yet, our upcoming free Community Day in February is a great opportunity to catchCatalyst, too.”&nbsp;&nbsp;Among ongoing programming offered by&nbsp;Intuit&nbsp;is its quarterly&nbsp;IAM Community Days, inviting the public to explore&nbsp;the Museum, learn about the art on view and work with IAM educators to create a work of art while building connections with others.&nbsp;The next IAM Community Day is&nbsp;Saturday, Feb. 7, 11 am-6 pm; museum admission and activities will be free of charge with no reservation needed.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; About&nbsp;CatalystCatalyst: Im/migration and Self-taught Art in Chicagounderscores the creative contributions of migrants and immigrants, broadening the scope to include artists deserving of greater attention, while posing questions about access to the art world and how art comes to be defined and valued. Considering artists in the context of their migration experience, cultural backgrounds and communities invites new insights into their work. Chicago, a city with a significant and ongoing history of immigration and migration, is fertile ground for investigating the rich array of academic and nonacademic influences—cultural, communal and familial—that enrich artistic production. The exhibition aims to be inclusive of the experiences of immigrants and migrants while acknowledging social and legal differences.Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-taught Art in Chicagoexplores catalysts for leaving home, for coming to Chicago and for pursuing an art practice. The range of personal and political subject matter and artistic styles reflects artists processing distinct cultural traditions, memories and experiences of living far from one’s homeland. Themes in the artworks range from belonging and longing for homeland, to labor and individual expression, to bearing witness to history, to assimilation. The narrative centers on the rise of self-taught art in Chicago during the second half of the 20th century, opportunities for artists leading up to this time, and the continued importance of im/migration and self-taught art to Chicago today.Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-taught Art in Chicagois part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities. Participating Artists&nbsp;Carlos Barberena&nbsp;(active in the United States, born Granada, Nicaragua),&nbsp;Isamu Guy Conners&nbsp;(active in the United States, born Tokyo, Japan),&nbsp;María Enríquez de Allen&nbsp;(American, born Allende, Mexico),&nbsp;Albina Felski&nbsp;(American, born Fernie, Canada),&nbsp;Stefan Harhaj&nbsp;(active in the United States, born Stuttgart, Germany),&nbsp;Aaron Kleeblatt&nbsp;(active in the United States, born Poland),&nbsp;Thomas Kong(American, born Hwanghae Province, North Korea, raised in Incheon, South Korea),&nbsp;Alfonso “Piloto” Nieves Ruiz&nbsp;(active in the United States, born Querétaro, Mexico),&nbsp;Marion Perkins&nbsp;(American, born Marche, Ark.),&nbsp;Aldobrando “Aldo” Piacenza(American, born S’Anna-Pelago, Italy),&nbsp;Marva Lee Pitchford-Jolly&nbsp;(American, born Crenshaw, Miss.),Pooja Pittie&nbsp;(American, born in Coimbatore, India, raised in Bombay/now Mumbai, India),&nbsp;Pauline Simon&nbsp;(American, born Nesvizh, Russian Empire/now Belarus),&nbsp;Genya “Jennie” Siporin(American, born Łódź, Russian-occupied Poland/now Poland),&nbsp;Drossos P. Skyllas&nbsp;(American, born Kalymnos, Ottoman Empire/now Greece),&nbsp;Dr. Charles Smith&nbsp;(American, born New Orleans),&nbsp;Bronislaw “Bruno” Sowa&nbsp;(American, born Lubomierz, Poland),&nbsp;Stanislaw “Stanley” Szwarc(active in the United States, born Krotoszyn, Poland),Jesús Torres&nbsp;(active in the United States, born Silao, Mexico),&nbsp;Charles Warner&nbsp;(American, bornpartitioned Poland/now Poland),&nbsp;Derek Webster(American, born Puerto Castilla, Republic of Honduras, raised in Belize City, British Honduras/now Belize), and&nbsp;Badaskhan “Betty” Zakoian&nbsp;(American, born&nbsp;Kharpert, Ottoman Empire/now Turkey).

Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-taught Art in Chicago

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">Hyde Park Art Center</a> announces&nbsp;Mutuality, a group exhibition of new works culminating the Art Center’s biennial&nbsp;Center Program, a professional development program for the elevation of emerging and mid-career artists, now in its 11th edition. Curated by writer, curator, and art administrator&nbsp;Teresa Silva, this exhibition will occupy the entire first floor galleries from&nbsp;December 12, 2025 – March 8, 2026, featuring works by twenty artists from Center Program’s 2025 cohort.The&nbsp;Mutuality&nbsp;exhibition brings together artists whose diverse works were created in a rigorous and continual context of self-reflection and dialogue over the course of nearly a year:&nbsp;Bethany Cordero,&nbsp;Amethyst J. Davis,&nbsp;Caitlyn Doran,&nbsp;Josué Esaú,&nbsp;Richard Gessert,&nbsp;Jalen Hamilton,&nbsp;Juan Molina Hernández,&nbsp;Amay Kataria,&nbsp;Millicent Kennedy,&nbsp;Deborah Kraft,&nbsp;Dawn Liddicoatt,&nbsp;Charlotte Mays,&nbsp;Kelly McKaig,&nbsp;Gabriel Moreno,&nbsp;Vida Sačić,&nbsp;Carlos Salazar-Lermont,&nbsp;Eugene I-Peng Tang,&nbsp;Carina Vargas-Nuñez,&nbsp;Frank Vega, and&nbsp;Katie Vota. Artworks in the exhibition represent a multitude of disciplines ranging from painting and drawing to sculpture and installation to photography and video to fiber and printmaking to performance and sound.The exhibition defines mutuality as demonstrating mutual care and interest as artists and people to think about how intentions, works, and practice impact the world. Throughout the program, mutuality guided the weekly presentations and conversations among the artists to take their work to a new level. The exhibition gives shape and form to mutuality as a creative process, emphasizing that dialogue and connection drive inspired development.&nbsp;About the curatorTeresa Silva&nbsp;is the Chicago co-director of the national artist-run cooperative, Tiger Strikes Asteroid. In 2020, Silva curated&nbsp;Luis A. Sahagun: Both Eagle and Serpent,&nbsp;the artist’s first institutional solo exhibition, at the Chicago Cultural Center. Other recently curated exhibitions were presented at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Mana Contemporary, and 6018North. Her curated exhibitions have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Art Design Chicago, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Silva has won wide praise for her art leadership, having served as a Visual Arts Panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts in 2020; and, lauded in 2019 and 2022 in Newcity’s&nbsp;Art 50: Chicago’s Visual Vanguard&nbsp;for her influence and contributions to the city’s art and culture. Previously, Silva was the Director of Exhibitions and Residencies and subsequently the Executive and Artistic Director at the Chicago Artists Coalition, from 2014-2022. About Center ProgramA long-time professional development program for Chicago artists who are ready to raise their practice to the next level, Center Program offers the unique opportunity to develop new work, receive feedback from art professionals in the field, and work towards an exhibition at the Art Center. Over the course of a year and half, a supportive peer network, guest artists, gallerists, critics, and professionals push artists to answer tough questions and evolve their practice.&nbsp;&nbsp;About Hyde Park Art CenterHyde 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; an 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 connect 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, visit<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">&nbsp;www.hydeparkart.org</a>.&nbsp;

Mutuality

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is thrilled to announce the latest installation in its&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 124, 137);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=5302a2f296&amp;e=95b957c616" target="_blank">Atrium Project series, featuring the mural&nbsp;The Free Clinic for Gender Affirming Care&nbsp;by artist Edie Fake</a>&nbsp;(b. 1980, Evanston, IL; lives in Twentynine Palms, CA). Opening on March 25, 2025, and running through March 26, 2026, in the MCA’s second floor atrium, the artwork envisions the utopian façade of a clinic for free transgender healthcare. Curated by Assistant Curator Jack Schneider,&nbsp;The Free Clinic&nbsp;is a large-scale architectural representation of a clinic, whose prismatic colors reflect the full spectrum of gender expression beyond the binary. It confronts widespread political efforts to restrain, scapegoat, and repress transgender and nonbinary people in the United States, an issue that is personal to Fake. To him, “gender affirming care has been hard-won and life-changing . . . this mural is meant to meet the threat—and often reality—that has positioned gender affirming care as scarce, under-resourced, and underground with an aspirational and celebratory vision.”&nbsp; The installation coincides, and is in conversation with,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 124, 137);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=f9f0473f52&amp;e=95b957c616" target="_blank">City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago</a>, an upcoming exhibition at the MCA opening on July 5, 2025, also curated by Schneider.&nbsp;City in a Garden&nbsp;examines Chicago's underacknowledged role in the histories of queer art and activism beginning in the 1980s, when activists radically mobilized in response to the US government’s disastrous handling of the AIDS crisis and reclaimed the historically pejorative epithet “queer” as a liberatory term encompassing all who purposefully deviate from heteronormative society. With works drawn from the MCA Collection and other local collections, the exhibition features over thirty artists—including Fake. Edie Fake’s work has previously been exhibited at the MCA in&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 124, 137);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=8cfda8f3de&amp;e=95b957c616" target="_blank">Chicago Comics: 1960s to Now</a>&nbsp;(2021). Atrium Project: Edie Fake&nbsp;is curated by Jack Schneider, Assistant Curator.&nbsp; ABOUT THE ARTIST Edie Fake’s (b. 1980, Evanston, IL; lives in Twentynine Palms, CA)&nbsp;multimedia work—drawings, paintings, installations, comics, books, and zines—has been exhibited in solo shows at Berkeley Art Museum and Film Archive; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse; and in New York City at The Drawing Center, Broadway Gallery, and Marlborough Gallery. Fake recently exhibited publications, paintings, and a large wall installation in&nbsp;Chicago Comics: 1960s to Now&nbsp;at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. His 2018 show at Western Exhibitions was reviewed in Art in America. Fake’s work is held in the collections of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library &amp; Museum, Columbus; Des Moines Art Center, Iowa; RISD Museum, Providence; KADIST, San Francisco; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. He was one of the first recipients of Printed Matter’s Awards for Artists, and his Gaylord Phoenix collection of comics won the 2011 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel. His work has been written about and featured in&nbsp;Artforum, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Art News, Art 21, Juxtapoz, Hyperallergic, The Comics Journal, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Fake’s work is held in the collections of the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa, the RISD Museum in Providence, RI, KADIST in San Francisco, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, KS. Edie fake was born in Chicagoland in 1980 and received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2002. Fake is represented by Western Exhibitions in Chicago and Broadway Gallery in New York, and he currently lives and works in Twentynine Palms, California.

Atrium Project: Edie Fake

Tandem Press is pleased to host&nbsp;Pathways, a Master of Fine Arts Qualifier Exhibition by Alexandra Riesco, University of Wisconsin-Madison MFA Candidate and 2025-2026 Tandem Press Studio Curatorial Project Assistant. Inspired by her experiences living in several disparate environments, Alexandra Riesco creates records of place and movement through printed and handmade paper pieces. In images that oscillate between abstract and representational, microscopic and macroscopic, she studies the ground closely through a scientific lens, exploring the idea of home in a time of uncertainty and the integral connection between humans and the environment.Exhibition StatementCentering the ground as subject,&nbsp;Pathways&nbsp;chronicles my movement within and among distinct environments through collected images, impressions, and samples. This body of work considers ideas of home and displacement, connection and disconnection, the traces left on us by place, and humanity’s impact on the environment.&nbsp;The ground is the physical point of connection between the body and the environment; it is the source of food and resources, and the foundation for the idea of home. We speak of roots as origins and of earth as a final resting place. Yet, despite humanity’s integral connection to the land, the ground is often overlooked, seen as a backdrop rather than a subject worthy of attention. In&nbsp;Pathways, the ground confronts the viewer in various forms: through images and corresponding soil samples, through objects evoking the materiality of the ground and impressions of its varied surfaces. Referencing the visual language of the sciences, these works reorient the viewer to the ground, asking them to look closely and contemplate their own relationship with their surroundings.&nbsp;This exhibition is a record of how I strive to physically connect to my own surroundings. I echo the processes that sculpt the landscape through etching, while my monoprints document ephemeral accumulations of material on the ground. Grappling with the tension between scientific objectivity and the emotional implications of home and exile, my meditative acts of close observation, collection, and recording serve both as acts of intimacy and attempts to understand place. The material qualities of handmade paper provide the organic feel of a natural object while the moment of contact between surfaces in printmaking parallels the contact between our bodies and the ground. Throughout these ruminations on my homes, past and present, the growing threat of environmental degradation lingers below the surface.Artist BiographyAlexandra Riesco is an artist and printmaker from Miami, Florida. Her work is heavily influenced by the natural world and the dynamic processes that drive it. After completing a semester-long geology field program, she discovered the parallels between the forces that shape the planet and the slow, physical processes of printmaking. Her interest in the sciences and deep love for the outdoors feeds her practice, which incorporates drawing, printmaking, and papermaking to explore the bodily experience of the landscape, mapping and the geologic record, and the possibilities of a reciprocal rather than controlling relationship with the environment.Riesco received her B.A. in Studio Art and Biology modified with Earth Sciences from Dartmouth College in 2017, where she won the Robert Read Prize&nbsp;and the Artist’s Book Prize. After spending a few years working in outdoor education, Riesco returned to printmaking and has worked as an assistant printer, workshop instructor, and manager of a fine art print publisher. She is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she received the Graduate Research Scholars Fellowship from the School of Education.This exhibition is supported by the Anonymous Fund.

Alexandra Riesco: Pathways

Woman Made Gallery proudly presents its&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://womanmade.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=77610ec6940e4a7c0d652a863&amp;id=768a5f3dc5&amp;e=a3993dd90f" target="_blank">27th International Open</a>, a juried exhibition held during Women's History Month featuring 41 women and non-binary artists from the US, Canada, Europe, and Hong Kong. Juror Nirmal Raja selected works that push conceptual and material boundaries across a wide range of mediums.<ul><li>Opening reception on Saturday, February 28, from 4–7 p.m.</li><li>Closing Reception with Artist Walkthrough on Saturday, March 28 from 2–4 p.m.</li></ul>EXHIBITING ARTISTSKatalina Barrera, Shweta Bist, Lauren Petrick Brooks, Amy Cannestra, Julie Carcione, Marcy Chevali, Shannon Cleere, Isabella Covert, Geornica Daniels, Jenie Gao, Lilly Handley, Fion C. Y. Hung, Andrea Jablonski, Natalie Jackson, Indira Freitas Johnson, Jori Jori, Kanishka, Yuliya Klochan, Ling-lin Ku, Xinchen Li, Lue LIKETHEHIGHWAY Khoury, Kimberly Lyle, Valerie Mann, Asia Mathis, Caroline McAuliffe, Kiki McGrath, Naomi Middelmann, Kim Miller, Rebecca Oehler, Gina Lee Robbins, Emma Scarafiotti, Sandrine Schaefer, Andrea Seguraz, Rahimat Onize Shaibu, Meg Stein, Stevia Roxanne, Jessica Swank, Yidi Wang, Lydia Wickham, Isabel Zeng, Sihan Zhang&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://womanmade.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=77610ec6940e4a7c0d652a863&amp;id=d177978dde&amp;e=a3993dd90f" target="_blank">&nbsp;</a><a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://womanmade.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=77610ec6940e4a7c0d652a863&amp;id=4dae8206d0&amp;e=a3993dd90f" target="_blank">See their works and statements.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE JUROR&nbsp;Nirmal Raja&nbsp;holds a BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and an MFA from UW–Milwaukee, where she was named Graduate of the Decade. Her honors include the 2020 Mary L. Nohl Fellowship and the 2022 Mildred L. Harpole Artists of the Year Award. Her work explores migration, women, and cultural memory.VISIT THIS EXHIBIT AT WOMAN MADE GALLERYAddress: 1332 S. Halsted St, ChicagoHours: Wednesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m.

27th International Open

Volume Gallery's new location, 1700 W Hubbard, Chicago, IL The Heresy of Legacy, the first exhibition at Volume Gallery’s new, expanded, space, explores the cyclical nature of movements and currents in art, architecture, and design—how innovation emerges in friction with established legacies, and how heresy becomes the foundation for new canons. This group exhibition considers what happens when today’s artists engage the paradox of history: honoring the influence of the past while consciously dismantling it. Rooted in the history of the avant-garde, the exhibition acknowledges how reactionary moves have continually propelled art, architecture, and design forward. Stanley Tigerman once encouraged a protégé to “take the baton—run with it, stab him with it, stab someone else with it, pass it forward and be stabbed by it—just don’t decline it.” This call to action embodies the spirit of the exhibition: a recognition that creative inheritance is both a gift and a weapon—a cycle of making, unmaking, and remaking. The exhibition will feature carefully curated historical and contemporary practices that operate within this matrix: giving equal weight to legacy and heresy, embracing complexity rather than purity, and acknowledging that rebellion itself eventually ossifies into tradition. Through this lens,&nbsp;The Heresy of Legacy&nbsp;will trace the continual renegotiation between reverence and rupture—how artists and designers today contend with inherited ideals, materials, and forms, and how they point toward future iconoclasms. Featuring:Selva AparicioRichard ArtschwagerGarry Knox BennettLia CookJessica Jackson HutchinsNorman KelleyHoward KottlerWilliam J. O’BrienRO/LUSarah RosalenaJoyce ScottStanley TigermanRobert Venturi and Denise Scott BrownJames WinesThaddeus WolfeClaire Zeisler Image: Lia Cook,&nbsp;New Master Draperies: Leonardo I, 1990

The Heresy of Legacy

Oliva Gallery marks its ten-year anniversary with&nbsp;MMM…., a group exhibition presented in conjunction with International Women’s Day. The exhibition opens March 6, 2026, and features work by Melanie P. Brown, Mia Capodilupo, and Michelle Stone. The title references both the shared first initials of the participating artists and the visual and sensory richness of their work.Together, the exhibition brings painting, sculpture, installation, and performance-informed practices into dialogue, highlighting distinct yet complementary approaches to material, gesture, space, and perception.Melanie P. Brown presents work rooted in her long-standing practice of painting in direct response to sound and music. Since 2020, Brown’s process has centered on live and recorded sound as a catalyst for color, gesture, and mark-making. Preparing extensive palettes and integrating pastel and charcoal, she translates rhythm, texture, and spatial perception into layered compositions. Brown frequently performs live painting in collaboration with musicians, treating the act of painting as a time-based, multisensory event. The resulting canvases function as residual records of these four-dimensional collaborations. Brown lives and works in Chicago and holds a BA from Knox College and an MFA in Painting from American University.Mia Capodilupo contributes sculptural and installation-based work informed by physical contact, spatial experience, and material tension. A sculptor and installation artist originally from Boston, Capodilupo has exhibited widely in museums, galleries, and alternative spaces across the United States. Her practice includes large-scale public and semi-permanent installations commissioned by the cities of Chicago, Atlanta, Bellevue, Washington, and the Indianapolis Art Center, as well as a permanent work at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois. Capodilupo holds an MFA in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute and serves as Gallery Director at Lillstreet Art Center. She is also the founder and director of Ignition Project Space in Chicago.Michelle Stone presents constructed, impasto acrylic sculptures alongside related paintings and drawings. Her work occupies a space between figuration and abstraction, often expanding into wall-based, floor-based, and immersive installations. Stone’s practice investigates memory, narrative, and the human condition through layered surfaces, fragmented forms, and evolving structures. Her paintings and sculptures emphasize transformation, erosion, and psychological space, with imagery emerging through accumulated gestures and textures. Stone is affiliated with Ceres Gallery in New York City and Dialogue Chicago and maintains a studio with Greenleaf Artists. She lives and works between Chicago and New York. MMM….&nbsp;affirms Oliva Gallery’s decade-long commitment to presenting contemporary work while foregrounding the voices and practices of women artists. The exhibition aligns with International Women’s Day to future emphasize this focus of the gallery.Artists:&nbsp;Melanie P. Brown, Mia Capodilupo, Michelle StoneOccasion:&nbsp;International Women’s Day and Oliva Gallery Ten-Year Anniversary For additional information, images, or press inquiries, please contact Oliva Gallery.About Oliva GalleryOliva Gallery is dedicated to showcasing exceptional work by contemporary artists with roots in the Midwest and beyond. Through exhibitions spanning painting, sculpture, and mixed media, the gallery fosters critical dialogue, interdisciplinary exploration, and inclusive cultural engagement.

MMM.... 

Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to present&nbsp;I Dream I Cross the River in One Stride, a group exhibition bringing together the work of Clémence Gbonon (b. 1994), Brittney Leeanne Williams (b. 1990), and Autumn Wallace (b. 1996).&nbsp;The exhibition is inspired by ideas explored in Lorraine O’Grady’s seminal essay&nbsp;Olympia’s Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity.&nbsp;If, as O’Grady argues, the Black female body has long functioned as the unseen reverse side of Western femininity—present as stereotype, absent as subject—these artists reclaim the right to produce images that are self-authored, multiple, and unafraid of excess. Across painting and sculpture, Gbonon, Williams, and Wallace refuse inherited dichotomies and instead inhabit what O’Grady calls a “both/and” space: sensuous and thoughtful, wild and monumental, intimate and vulnerable, queer and undefined.Presented together, these artists do more than correct an art-historical omission; they propose a contemporary grammar for seeing and feeling lived experience. In dialogue with O’Grady’s text, the exhibition suggests that reclaiming female subjectivity today means moving beyond rescue from the male gaze toward a more radical act: freeing these figures from the historic script altogether. Here, the artworks become sites of self-knowledge, contradiction, pleasure—spaces where the right to complexity is not negotiated but asserted.Image: Brittney Leeanne Williams,&nbsp;Interruption 7, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Berggruen, NY.

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