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

Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to announce Flaming Memory, a solo presentation of new works by Tokyo–based painter, Yukimasa Ida, whose portrait-based practice explores the tension between fleeting perception and the lasting imprint of memory on canvas. Yukimasa Ida builds his paintings through decisive brushstrokes, layering matter onto the canvas to render faces, whether of people close to him or strangers encountered during his travels. These portraits simultaneously convey a sense of vulnerability, marked by the impossibility of truly confronting these figures face to face. At the same time, his recurrent use of red infuses the works with a contagious inner intensity. Imbued with memories of both near and distant presences, Yukimasa Ida’s work lingers in the viewer’s mind like the image of a glowing fire, at once magnetic and perilous. Through facial abstraction, Ida opens a perspective into the visceral depictions of the psyche. Each painting explores the subject's internal state, inviting viewers to confront the complexity of human experience. The absence of distinction between foreground and background draws the eye to the subtle cues of face figuration: the curve of an ear or shadow of a lip, that anchors one's gaze. The artist’s charged color palette, built over a canvas primed with black, amplifies the somatic intensities of his sculptural oil impasto technique that holds the memory of knife marks and wet-on-wet blending. In this way, Ida’s canvases behave like skin—vulnerable to scars, erosion, and inscription. In Ida Yukimasa’s work, the canvas becomes mnemonic flesh, a surface that absorbs what perception cannot fully hold: emotion, disorientation, psychic residue. The power of his work lies in its contradiction: while the image dissolves; the material endures. It is the impossibility of permanence, where memory flickers and decays like a flame, yet everything leaves a trace. Flaming Memory will be on view in Chicago from August 30 to October 25, 2025.

Yukimasa Ida: Flaming Memory

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=18663075f4&amp;e=95b957c616" target="_blank">Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me</a> opens February 1 and runs through October 19, 2025.Indulge Me is a major survey of renowned artist Wafaa Bilal (b. 1966, Najaf, Iraq; lives in New York, NY). Crucially, the exhibition will take a comprehensive look at Bilal’s myriad practice, highlighting the development of his work across decades and placing it in conversation with broader art histories. It will also explore cultural cannibalism—that is, how culture (specifically the culture of the other) is used, disassembled, and consumed.Working in performance, sculpture, and with online and interactive technologies, Bilal’s interdisciplinary practice investigates the dynamic between international and interpersonal politics while highlighting the tension between the United States, which he has deemed the “comfort zone,” and the “conflict zone” of Iraq. Through methods such as using his own body to interrogate notions of power and using innovative technologies to rectify acts of cultural destruction, Bilal shows us what it means to consciously engage across cultures while highlighting negative global implications of consumption, exploitation, and profiteering.The exhibition will be organized into five immersive sections, each of which focuses on a major work from Bilal’s practice. Artworks on display include a reconstruction of a room in Chicago’s FLATFILE Gallery that the artist confined himself to for a month-long performance in Domestic Tension (2007). During this performance, Bilal invited the audience to shoot at him with a paintball gun that was operated virtually by viewers who could also interact with him via camera feed and live chat. Over the course of thirty days, a total of 60,000 shots were fired by "shooters" from 128 countries. Also included in the MCA exhibition is a large-scale, towering video displaying images from Bilal’s year-long performance 3rdi (2010–11), wherein Bilal surgically implanted a camera into the back of his head that, every minute on the minute, captured photographs. The photos included in the MCA display will correspond to the minute, hour, and day they were taken.&nbsp;Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me will also present Thumbsat Satellite (2024), which comprises a golden bust of Saddam Hussein fixed to a satellite and launched into Earth’s orbit as part of the exhibition. Developed as a critique of the former Iraqi president’s rumored desire to launch a bust of himself into space, the work will also feature a number of in-gallery components, including a model of the satellite and bust and a way for visitors to track the artwork’s location through live-captured images before it is destroyed upon re-entry into the atmosphere.&nbsp;Additionally, the exhibition will feature In a Grain of Wheat: Cultivating Hybrid Futures in Ancient Seed DNA, Bilal’s response to ISIS’s destruction of the Winged Bull of Nineveh sculpture, or Lamassu, in 2015. The piece involves inserting high-resolution 3D scans of the sculpture into the DNA of heirloom Iraqi wheat seeds. A commission by the MCA will see the project activated in a new, sculptural form, which will consider if it is possible for a wheat seed to transform terrorist violence into restorative agency.&nbsp;The exhibition is accompanied by a major publication, the first to survey multiple projects by the visionary artist.&nbsp;A series of exhibition-related programs will be announced closer to the opening.&nbsp;Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me is curated by Bana Kattan, Pamela Alper Associate Curator, with Iris Colburn, Curatorial Associate.&nbsp;Image: Wafaa Bilal (b. 1966, Najaf, Iraq; lives in New York, NY), Rendering of Thumbsat Satellite, 2023. © Wafaa Bilal. Courtesy of the artist.

Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me

What does the work mean? There is some mystery, some beauty, some drama, some surprise, and a little wit. There is much about being human and being part of or apart from the natural world. There is a lot about the passage of time and the persistence of the past. There is a great deal about celebrating the joy of seeing. That said, the content remains nearly as open for me as it does for you, the viewer.&nbsp;—Ron IsaacsMost of Ron Isaacs’s work—a combination of two-dimensional imagery and cut and sawn wood—operates in an in-between space. Isaacs identifies his work as “trompe l’oeil&nbsp;painted constructions.” He further goes on to state, “I never actually made it to three dimensions; I seem to have stalled at two and a half.”This exhibition debuts a new-to-RAM archive of works created by Isaacs between 1968 and 2020. This grouping—the scope of which is unmatched at any other organization—includes early acrylic on canvas paintings, a drawing, art jewelry, and over 20 painted wood constructions.

Collection Focus: Ron Isaacs

PATRON is proud to present&nbsp;Dusk, our fourth solo exhibition with Chicago-based artist Bethany Collins. Continuing narratives and bodies of work included in her recent institutional presentations in the Prospect 6 Triennial New Orleans, as well as her solo exhibition&nbsp;At Sea&nbsp;at The Seattle Art Museum,&nbsp;Dusk&nbsp;brings together five bodies of work composed of paintings and drawings on paper along with sculpture.&nbsp;Dusk, as a moment in time, is defined by an anticipated immersion into darkness. The loss of light is as pivotal to its encounter as the acceptance of its impending absence. Through the use of language, both written and visualized, Collins’s recent work reflects on the metaphoric potential of one story, to be our collective warning and guide. While dusk brings the night, we enter the darkness together.Orchestrating the heart of the exhibition are three new paintings from Collins’s&nbsp;The Battle Hymn of the Republicseries. Arguably the most familiar early American contrafactum—a song in which the melody remains constant while the lyrics are rewritten over time—versions of&nbsp;The Battle Hymn of the Republic&nbsp;have been adapted in support of varying political causes, including revolution, temperance, suffrage, labor, secession, and abolition, articulating often contradictory versions of what it means to be American. Emerging from cloudy, gray- washed backgrounds, Collins’s gestural marks form fragments of lyrical excerpts from alternate versions of the war-time anthem. The phrases included are drawn from adaptations of the song which lean on floral references as universal symbols of grief,&nbsp;renewal, and peace. Bleeding down the paper and abstracted into gesture, Collins translates the intended unifying voices of the lyrics'&nbsp;symbology into illegible noise.&nbsp;Dusk&nbsp;premieres a series of graphite drawings adapted from commercially available floral lithographs produced during the second half of the 19th century. Now housed in the Library of Congress, Collins considers these reproductions of bouquets and arrangements of roses as a persistent American symbol (the rose would be named a top contender for national flower in the 1920s, an honor formalized in 1986 by President Regan). Shrouded in plumes of charcoal dust, these household images of beauty are, in Collins’s work, disturbed and muddled, reflecting the tempestuous nature of the time.&nbsp;For three new bodies of work, Collins draws inspiration from Herman Melville's 1851 novel,&nbsp;Moby Dick;&nbsp;or, The Whale. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick refers to the novel as an "American Bible," a literary exploration of loss, salvation and the dark consequences of an unrepentant spirit.&nbsp;Or, The Whale. Vol 1., 2024 -2025, is the first of a three volume portfolio that was created by Collins handwriting the entirety of the novel in iron gall ink onto onion skin paper. Ubiquitous from the late Middle Ages through the 19th century, iron gall ink was originally chosen precisely for its “outstanding permanence.”[1] Eventually, this lauded fixity shifted to an inherent vice as the ink’s chemical makeup produced an inevitable corrosion. The ink may eventually eat through the delicate paper, rendering Collins’s adaptation of the original language, like that in her subsequent drawings, largely illegible. Yet, the laborious gestural text remains a doggedly futile act of care and preservation.&nbsp;&nbsp;Moby Dick, Vol. 1, 2&nbsp;and&nbsp;3&nbsp;extend Collins’s&nbsp;Loss&nbsp;series, a body of work which began as a search for the language of endings through expressive and often romantic language. The exhibition includes three graphite drawings, each of which reproduces a single page from the original volumes of Melville's novel. Through a process of physically rubbing away, or erasing the majority of the reproduced language, Collins leaves only phrases that describe, in violent or post-apocalyptic terms, the sea. Ending the exhibition with a line from Melville’s final chapter recasts our attention from the end to the persistence of “the sea . . . which rolls on as it rolled five thousand years ago.” Functioning as memorials to a language, land, or reality lost, are three related “erasure” sculptures, created from the erosion of a blue eraser, reduced to nearly dust after the physical removal of language from a page. The sculptures offer a type of non-textual postscript. Each contains the essence of the story, when language itself has faded away.Positioned on the threshold of uncertainty between past, present, and future,&nbsp;Dusk&nbsp;bears witness to the fleetingness of time as well as the permanence of attentive language and bond. Each shared expression—an epic tale, a national flower or an ever-changing anthem—is an attempt to weather the dark together. [1]&nbsp;&nbsp;Schulze, Charissa, “Inherent Vice, Part 1.” Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 2014.﻿Image: Bethany Collins,&nbsp;In the whiteness of the lilies, 2024, Wax, pastel, and acrylic on paper, 40” x 60” | 101.6 x 152.4 cm

Bethany Collins : DUSK

Pistachios is collaborating with Precious Collective to host an exhibition titled Things Unsaid, which will be at Pistachios from August 14, 2025 to October 26, 2025 before traveling to Munich Jewelry Week in 2026. The exhibition features 35 members from Precious Collective, an international community of artists that are bound together by their ambiguous definitions of what exactly ‘precious’ is in relation to jewelry. Conceptually, the exhibition will explore: What is a tangible manifestation for the things unsaid? How can we extend the voice of materiality through acts of making? Where does the metaphysical influence the language of jewelry? This is the first time Precious Collective will be featured in the United States. On Thursday, August 14, 2025 from 4:00pm to 7:00pm we'll be hosting a reception to celebrate the exhibition with Lynne Speake, the Founder and Creative Director of Precious Collective, in attendance.&nbsp;

Things Unsaid

Perspective Gallery is proud to present a new show by fine art photographers Suzanne Metzel and Kaushik Sunder Rajan. Metzel’s&nbsp;For the Love of Trees&nbsp;celebrates trees through the medium of photopolymer gravure.&nbsp;Each image, hand-printed on an etching press, explores different ways of seeing these noble works of nature. Sunder Rajan’s work, titled&nbsp;Gods of Small Things, is a tribute to Arundhati Roy’s novel&nbsp;The God of Small Things,&nbsp;documenting his own visit to the village of Ayamenem in which it was set and the feelings that both the novel and its setting evoked.&nbsp; For the Love of Trees and Gods of Small Things&nbsp;open on October 2, with a public reception on Saturday, October 4 from 5 p.m.- 7 p.m. Suzanne and Kaushik will give an artist’s talk on zoom on Thursday, October 9 at 7 p.m. Please see&nbsp;<a style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://perspectivegallery.com/" target="_blank">perspectivegallery.com</a>&nbsp;for details on how to register for the zoom talk. The show will close on October 26.﻿ Kaushik Sunder Rajan,&nbsp;Untitled

Gods of Small Things

Perspective Gallery is proud to present a new show by fine art photographers Suzanne Metzel and Kaushik Sunder Rajan. Metzel’s&nbsp;For the Love of Trees&nbsp;celebrates trees through the medium of photopolymer gravure.&nbsp;Each image, hand-printed on an etching press, explores different ways of seeing these noble works of nature. Sunder Rajan’s work, titled&nbsp;Gods of Small Things, is a tribute to Arundhati Roy’s novel&nbsp;The God of Small Things,&nbsp;documenting his own visit to the village of Ayamenem in which it was set and the feelings that both the novel and its setting evoked.&nbsp; Suzanne Metzel,&nbsp;Cottonwood

For the Love of Trees

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 6, 2 to 5 PM&nbsp; The True Colors Exhibition offers fresh, painterly approaches to the landscape genre. Color is an expressive tool which illustrates emotional depth and subjective responses. In this exhibition, juried by Nina Weiss, selections include paintings executed from memory, abstract interpretations of the landscape, and Impressionistic approaches. As a result, this compelling exhibition is comprised of oil, pastel and watercolor paintings with evidence of brush strokes, texture, and bold, Expressionistic colors. All of the artists in this exhibition employ color as an evocative tool that conveys the essence of a place, whether real or imagined. They have painted their authentic emotional responses to nature.&nbsp; Artists: Colette Wright Adams, Piotr Antonow, Michael Birnbaum, Alan Brunettin, Carlos Cerrato, Anna Marie Crovetti, John Fleck, Peter Jablokow, Anne Kauff, Mike Barret Kolasinki, Basia Krol, Angela McElwain, Robyn McMurray Hurtig, Elaine Miller, Carol Neiger, Deborah Newmark,&nbsp;Deb Popely, David Ray, Alice Rebechini, Beth Shadur, Pam Spicer, Kris Stebbins Kelly, Maria Sundqvist, Claire Tarnacki, and Sally Wille Location: 619 Grove Street, Downtown Evanston, ILGallery Hours: Thursday through Sunday, 1 to 6 PM<a style="color: rgb(56, 101, 115);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.grovegallery.shop" target="_blank">www.grovegallery.shop</a>Contact: Sarah Kaiser-Amaral(773) 318-0163

True Colors: Fall 2025 Juried Exhibition

Exhibition of Impressionistic Landscape Paintings, juried by Nina Weiss

True Colors: Expressive Landscape Paintings

Sept 26 - Oct 30: Guest curated show by Marc LeBlanc To celebrate M. LeBlanc’s 8th anniversary, the gallery has collaborated with local non-profit Arts Of Life on an extraordinary exhibition/event.&nbsp;Over twenty artists have generously donated their work for an exhibition and raffle to be held on Devils Night at Midnight in support of the Arts of Life studio and program.&nbsp;******Guest Curated by&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 112, 168);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mleblancchicago.com/" target="_blank">M. LeBlanc</a> Marc&nbsp;LeBlanc&nbsp;is an independent curator&nbsp;and the founder and owner of M.&nbsp;LeBlanc, one of Chicago’s premier galleries for international contemporary art. Prior to opening M.&nbsp;LeBlanc,&nbsp;LeBlanc&nbsp;worked as an independent curator, advisor, and writer, organizing over forty exhibitions for galleries in Berlin, Cologne, Chicago, and Los Angeles.Following his international curatorial work,&nbsp;LeBlanc&nbsp;served as the Director of Programming for Art Los Angeles Contemporary and on the host committees of several benefit art auctions supporting research in healthcare sectors, specifically for autoimmune disorders, HIV/AIDS, and reproductive health initiatives. In addition, he wrote numerous reviews and conducted interviews for magazines like Artillery, ArtReview, and Numero.LeBlanc&nbsp;received a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003 before completing his Masters in Exhibition and Museum Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2008.&nbsp;Opening Reception:September 26, 20255:00 – 8:00 pm&nbsp;Devils’ Night Party and Midnight Artwork RaffleOctober 30, 20258:00 – late&nbsp;Image:Rocco DicaroEyes! Forever Creeping Forward!,&nbsp;2024Marker and pen on paper3×5 in.

You're All Dead to Me: Guest Curated Show by Marc LeBlanc

21c Museum Hotel Chicago is pleased to present D (US) T, a solo exhibition by Daniel Hojnacki. As a part of the Elevate series at 21c Chicago, the work is on view from August - October in Gallery 3. D (US) T is a collection of work that contemplates the temporality of the body and its intrinsic interconnectedness with the cosmic landscape. Combining an array of experimental approaches to the apparatus of photography, I invite moments of stillness and poetic reflection. Photographs of my breath are suspended in frost, fingerprints are stilled with smoke soot, and a plume of dust is blown, hovering amongst the air. These records of performative and fleeting gestures with photography are paired with a selection of collaged found poetry redacted from a vintage book on planetary science, bringing together a collection of work that quietly observes and reflects on the brevity of mortality and the passage of time. Daniel Hojnacki (b.1989) uses experimental techniques in photography to investigate the quietness of being an observer within the world, creating work that explores the importance of materiality in the image-making process. Daniel seeks out ways of recording the movement of the body and natural world, trusting chance happenings within photography to capture the subtle and fleeting textural gestures around us. Daniel received his MFA from the University of New Mexico in 2022 and a BA from Columbia College Chicago in 2011. He is a recipient of the Penumbra Foundation Workspace Artist-In-Residence, LATITUDE Residency, The Patrick Nagatani Photography Scholarship, and The Phyllis Muth Arts Award, among other honors. He has exhibited work at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, University of New Mexico Art Museum, and the Chicago Cultural Center. His work has been featured in Aint-Bad, Pamplemousse Magazine, and Southwest Contemporary Magazine. He currently lives and works in Chicago, IL. Elevate at 21c presents temporary exhibitions of works by artists living and working in the communities surrounding each 21c Museum Hotel. Elevate provides hotel guests and visitors with unique access to the work of notable regional artists, while featuring their work in the context of 21c’s contemporary art space.

Daniel Hojnacki: D (US) T

In 2020, after living in Chicago and showing with the gallery for 18 years, Vidvuds moved with his wife and young daughter back to Latvia. There, they have created a rural life outside Riga on a property bursting with natural beauty. His work has evolved within this context, reflecting their shared experience and awe of the bountiful world surrounding them.<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.thomasmccormick.com/artists/vidvuds_zviedris" target="_blank">More info</a> Image: Vidvuds Zviedris, July 54th, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 90 inches, signed, dated and titled verso, #14168

Far and Further Still - New Works by Vidvuds Zviedris

DOCUMENT is delighted to present&nbsp;Artifact Unidentified, a two-person exhibition of recent sculptural works by&nbsp;Kiah Celeste and Gordon Hall.&nbsp;Openingon September 12, the exhibition will remain on view through November 1, 2025.⁠Kiah Celeste’s practice is made up of materials and objects gleaned from urban and industrial contexts, repurposed and combined in sculptures and installations with a post-minimalist bend. Her latest body of work takes on a pared down, yet striking, form: monochromatic pieces of spandex, stretched in poplar frames and installed on the gallery’s walls, playfully incorporate a set of found materials. Extending well beyond the frame to rest on the floor, a large piece of Corian towers within&nbsp;Distent. In&nbsp;Skydrool, a used paint bucket emerges from the center of another frame.&nbsp;Little Apple of Paradise’s frayed bungee cord maintains tension between a cream field of fabric and glass that rests against the floor. Installed bridging a corner,&nbsp;Four Shores’ frames hold plastic cords in tension.Gordon Hall’s sculptures often take the form of pieces of furniture or domestic objects, meticulously reproduced in materials such as cast concrete, wood, or brass. These ambiguously functional works are often employed by performing bodies in Hall’s performances. The works on view in&nbsp;Artifact Unidentifiedrepresent a body of work made for the recent exhibition at ICA Boston,&nbsp;Believers: Artists and the Shakers. Taking cues from artifacts in the Shaker Museum’s collection of over 18,000 objects, sometimes joining discrete elements or extending their dimensions, Hall also introduces diligent interventions such as the steel nails fixed to the underside of&nbsp;Rocker&nbsp;or coloring&nbsp;Knob Weight&nbsp;with red pencil.Kiah Celeste&nbsp;(b. 1994, Brooklyn, NY) lives and works in Louisville, KY. In 2016 she received a BFA in photography from the State University of New York at Purchase. Solo exhibitions include Swivel Gallery, New York, NY (2025), DOCUMENT, Lisbon, Portugal (2023), DOCUMENT,&nbsp;Chicago, IL (2022); Swivel Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2022); KMAC Contemporary Art Museum, Louisville, KY (2021); Quappi Projects, Louisville, KY (2021). Group exhibitions include The Carnegie, Covington, KY (2025), Salon 94, New York, NY (2025); Mary M. Torrgler Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA (2024); Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY (2023); University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, KY (2021); Centre d’Art La Rectoria, Sant Pere De Vilamajor, Barcelona, Spain (2020); and Dadapost, Berlin, Germany (2018).Gordon Hall&nbsp;(b. 1983, Boston, MA) is a sculptor, performance-maker, and writer based in New York. Notable solo exhibitions include The Kitchen, New York, NY (2025); the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR (2019); the Renaissance Society,&nbsp;Chicago, IL (2018); and the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2018). Hall’s sculptures and performances have been exhibited in group exhibitions at the ICA Boston, Boston, MA (2025); Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME (2022); AIR Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2021); the Verge Center for the Arts, Sacramento, CA (2019); The Drawing Center, New York, NY (2018); David Zwirner, New York, NY (2018); and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2015).&nbsp;Gordon Hall&nbsp;is Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Vassar College. They hold an MFA and an MA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of&nbsp;Chicagoand a BA from Hampshire College. Gordon Hall,&nbsp;Corner Shim (Artifact Unidentified), 2025. Cast brass; 2 x 8 x 13 in.

Kiah Celeste and Gordon Hall: Artifact Unidentified

Human Non-Human presents a sculpture cannibalized by the algorithm: generative software has scanned and obliterated a single artwork by Curry into nearly three hundred variations. Extracting nascent motifs from the original's silhouette, an array of new mutated forms emerge. In some, faces drift through neon-jellied skulls, while in others a jack-o-lantern maw cracks open where a chin once was. Upon completion of Human Non-Human, Curry destroyed the original physical sculpture, thus transforming these variations into the only record of that work's existence. What remains is a visual projection of what could have been: an amalgamation of possibilities and latent transformations across parallel timelines. The soundtrack is a collaboration with Richard Hawkins.

Aaron Curry & Richard Hawkins: Human Non-Human

Rosenthal Fine Art is pleased to present&nbsp;The Real Real&nbsp;-- a new exhibition by Dennis Wojtkiewicz. In this new body of work, the artist questions what place is there of such fiercely analog work in a mechanized, mass-produced, digital world? What is the value of a painting painstakingly constructed over time when anyone can capture an image instantly with a phone and further heighten its reality through manipulation?In his recent artist's statement Wojtkiewicz talks about his process:&nbsp;I focus primarily on how light interacts with the diverse surfaces of natural forms—forms that exist at the boundary of biology and sensuality, carrying within them an erotic charge tied to their fertility and ephemerality.The close-up, intimate vantage points I choose liberate these forms from mere depiction, pressing them toward abstraction, toward rhythm, pattern, and texture. They surrender to the idea that representation itself is an unreliable illusion, asking the viewer to engage the paintings not just as signs pointing to recognizable objects but as vivid, sensual encounters—experiences accountable only to their own internal logic.Finally Wojtkiewicz invites us to experience the work:Ultimately, my paintings are about attention and presence. They reimagine biology's fleeting moments of beauty as luminous icons, asking us not only to contemplate impermanence but also to celebrate the act of looking itself—the possibility of finding, again and again, that moment of discovery where craft, vision, and wonder converge. Image: ROSETTE SERIES #37, O/CANVAS 48 x 48 INCHES

The Real Real

Corbett vs. Dempsey presents Aaron Curry,&nbsp;Raw Dog, an exhibition of new sculptures, paintings, and collages.&nbsp;This is the gallery's first exhibition with Curry, and the artist's first solo show in Chicago.Aaron Curry (b. 1972) has charted a unique space for his work between the most sub-underground mania of the American pulp grotesque (think comix culture and the surreal side of sleazy commercialism) and the most refined formal elements of European high modernism (think Arp, Miro, Picasso).&nbsp;Based primarily in floor sculpture, his practice moves wildly between mediums, attaching to the walls (paintings, 3-D hanging boxes, collages), spreading into print (books, magazines, newsprint), as well as music and video.&nbsp; An avid historian of offbeat cultural materials, he synthesizes these points of reference in works that are often awash in dizzyingly clashing colors, hyperactive Matta-esque motion, and an ingenuity of construction that is as beautiful as it can be baffling.&nbsp;In&nbsp;Raw Dog, Curry introduces a new component to his wood sculptures, which is to leave them largely unpainted, allowing the natural grain of the material, its whorls and knots and eyes, to carry that sense of flow.&nbsp;Occasional flashes of hot pink, turquoise, and grape purple complement the tanscapes on several boxes and flatworks, while two human-scale sculptures are resolutely wooden, with cut away holes and curvilinear forms dancing with the wood's own patterns, the whole work suggesting a figure, cock's comb perched atop.&nbsp;One large painting compresses all the color that might have been in the other works into a single, atomically-charged abstract canvas. Although this is Curry's first show in Chicago, he is no stranger to the city.&nbsp;He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before heading to the Art Center in Pasadena for grad school.&nbsp;The Chicago Imagists have remained an important touchstone for Curry in his work, in particular Karl Wirsum.&nbsp;Curry is exhibited widely internationally, with recent shows at Michael Werner Gallery (NYC), David Kordansky (Los Angeles), The Ranch (East Hampton, NY), McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX), STPI Creative Workshop and Gallery (Singapore), the Bass Museum of Art (Miami), and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (Lincoln, MA).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Aaron Curry, Raw Dog

Solo ExhibitionMisha Goro: Urban Echoes – New oil paintings on aluminumParticipating in the River North Fall Gallery Walk Misha Goro's artistic practice is a continuous creative search for raw authenticity in urban environments that are constantly changing. Cities are weathered by time and through use, taking on a personality of their own from the people and the elements that have interacted with them. When considering subject matter, Goro seeks simple things that we see every day, things that become symbolic once they are taken out of context. Image: Misha Goro, State Street, oil on aluminum, 30x40"

Misha Goro: Urban Echoes

Jornie Cirdain: The Gloaming Opening reception:&nbsp;Friday, September 12, 5-8pm Western Exhibitions is pleased to present&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(8, 83, 247);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001MH-s0M4jV6liDssxt7ej_ZzkG6YCLP3PMmNgv6Xr4EPPGsiPGxRqvDYbxxeBs8qRRI59dxTG89d5E35tAvNvbGzZP_kFe56slKi1KhU_1c8H6-xi7ZCoArTl2i9qBi9colmISnlVVUITtxGO2isptwivYboP_-jEG4u8g66V_j1c_kt1vS7cuEJBU8IaP7jfkHOQ-AKgpHM=&amp;c=swVh1nE_zz0e7Zdrsb479IUjZQUqfPtnUQZyDc7V-Xk7ygDb30kIIw==&amp;ch=MG1s6P5ZVejj-dfvtJjb7ALHtdziU5F3COJ90ZbLF4T5za13DvTapA==" target="_blank">The Gloaming</a>, Journie Cirdain’s second solo show with the gallery. Cirdain’s large allegorical drawings exist at the intersection of the human and animal, internal and external, magic and reality, and ultimately, life and death. The show opens on September 12 with a public reception and runs through November 1. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm. Another word for twilight is gloaming, which influences Cirdain’s almost exclusive use of a crepuscular value range of graphite. She meticulously renders moments of tension between the human and non-human, reimagining art historical subjects (still lives, nudes, and luxury items) as living participants in an enmeshed environment. With a film director’s focus on drama and a romantic flirtation with the macabre, her drawings betray an exquisite attention to light surface as a chandelier becomes an environment for cobwebs; a spiderweb glistens like crystal; a bouquet hangs next to the site of its extraction; an environment shows beheaded tulips. Her drawings engage with ideas about living and dying as entangled beings. <a style="color: rgb(8, 83, 247);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001MH-s0M4jV6liDssxt7ej_ZzkG6YCLP3PMmNgv6Xr4EPPGsiPGxRqvDYbxxeBs8qRwSw59TaRAkeoGHP1R_SMDtSq7wEwEQ96YEEzlS8aSVnn-dOqK8L_35f06_WOr3QDboi-hPutlnLX4NvdaM5GjGB046HaZanPno8b7MAGiZF6laHN1vcUSw==&amp;c=swVh1nE_zz0e7Zdrsb479IUjZQUqfPtnUQZyDc7V-Xk7ygDb30kIIw==&amp;ch=MG1s6P5ZVejj-dfvtJjb7ALHtdziU5F3COJ90ZbLF4T5za13DvTapA==" target="_blank">Journie Nikala Cirdain</a>&nbsp;was born in 1993 in Santa Rosa, California. In 2017, she received her BA in Liberal Arts in the Great Books at St. John’s College and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has shown in exhibitions nationally and internationally, including The Green Gallery in Milwaukee, Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois, A Gallery in Seattle, and in Chicago at Goldfinch and Patient Info. Cirdain lived and worked in Chicago for the past five years and is now on her way to Queens. Image: Chandelier (Crystals), 2025Graphite on paper mounted on aluminum dibond60h x 48w in

Jornie Cirdain: The Gloaming

Volume Gallery is thrilled to announce&nbsp;Porfirio Gutiérrez: Modernism, an exhibition of captivating new abstractions exploring linear motifs, opening September 12, 2025, from 5 to 8 p.m. Expanding on the renowned imagery of Gutiérrez’s Zapotec heritage, these highly intentional weavings feature color palettes achieved with natural dyes, honoring the artistic vision of the artist’s ancestors while adding layers of contemporary interpretation.&nbsp; Guided by tradition but informed by contemporary life and experience, Porfirio Gutiérrez’s practice is a powerful affirmation of cultural continuity, personal identity, and artistic innovation. His work bridges generations, reimagining ancestral Zapotec knowledge through a deeply personal and material-driven lens. By honoring the symbolism, technique, and spirituality embedded in Indigenous weaving and natural dyeing, Gutiérrez not only preserves a vital cultural legacy but also asserts its ongoing relevance in today’s world. His weavings are both of the land and expansive in vision—offering a resonant dialogue between past and present, earth and spirit, tradition and transformation. He engages the core principles of Modernism—experimentation with form, abstraction, and an emphasis on materials and process—as a continuation, reinvigorating the very Indigenous imagery that Modernists once borrowed. Through his practice, he asserts the original context and authorship of this visual language, while advancing its relevance within contemporary discourse.His geometric&nbsp;Continuous Line&nbsp;compositions are woven to appear as if drawn in a single, unbroken line, evoking the meandering path of life and a meditative precision. Embracing the beauty of simplicity, these works reflect the rhythms of contemporary life and the cadence of the weaving process itself. The use of line and restrained abstraction speaks to a long history of cultural influence, as the visual language of the Zapotec people has inspired artists all over the world. Through form and material—the texture of wool, the tones of the natural dyes, and the elegance of the continuous line—Gutiérrez creates new compositions with timeless symbolism. The artist’s&nbsp;Monte Albán&nbsp;works are derived from aerial and elevation views of the iconic steps of sacred Zapotec architecture. With concentric lines and stepped motifs, Gutiérrez improvises with the sacred symbolism embedded in his ancestors’ designs. The monumental civic and ceremonial structure Monte Albán in Oaxaca, Mexico, was built in alignment with the sun, moon, and cardinal directions. Gutiérrez is engaging with not only the geometry of the ancient structure, but also the play of light and shadow across stepped forms and the shifting perspective brought by time, season, and celestial movement. The step motifs and sunbaked colors evoke the structure’s spiritual resonance—cycles of life, cosmic balance, and the ongoing dialogue between man, earth, and sky. The presence of braids in Gutiérrez’s work is representative of the deep cultural and spiritual significance plaiting holds in Zapotec culture as ceremonial adornment as well as the artist’s feminine side. The piece is a gesture of healing and emotional connection—an exploration of the strength required to be in touch with one’s emotions. Gutiérrez gathers natural dye materials between his native Oaxaca and his current home in Ventura, California. His process draws from thousands of years of ancestral knowledge and an evolving understanding of chemistry and botany. He is able to produce over 200 distinct hues from a variety of materials: pericón produces golden yellows; marush, greens; huizache, deep blacks; añil, vibrant blues; and cochineal insects make intense reds. His practice requires a sensitivity to nature’s rhythms—harvesting must happen at particular times, and factors like drought or sun exposure can determine the final color. This practice is more than technical; it is spiritual. In transforming earth into color, the artist honors the divinity of nature, recognizing that plants, like people, are living beings. Through this process, he sees himself not as separate from the land but as an extension of it—engaged in an act of reverence, reciprocity, and transformation. Porfirio Gutiérrez: Modernism&nbsp;will be on view through November 1, 2025. Porfirio Gutiérrez&nbsp;(b. 1978) is a California-based Zapotec artist and activist whose deliberately patterned textile works are informed by a marriage of his cultural heritage and an exploration of Modernist principles. Embracing the traditions of the Cloud People, or Zapotecs, who have lived in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico for over two centuries, the artist works with material sourced directly from the earth, informed by his childhood learning weaving and dyeing techniques from his parents. Gutiérrez’s palette is determined by the varied flora which populates his homeland. Acutely aware of nature’s constant flux, Gutiérrez makes record of the exact period a plant is harvested for dyes, which he calls its “seasonal imprint,” noting that the color gleaned from a specific plant or insect will vary in vibrancy as the effects of climate change continue to be felt.In 2023, the artist’s work was the subject of a solo exhibition,&nbsp;Continuous Line/Cosmos, at Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX. Gutiérrez’s work has also been included in numerous significant group exhibitions in recent years, including&nbsp;We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA in 2024;&nbsp;Sangre de Nopal, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA in 2024;&nbsp;Temporary Spaces, Mingei International Museum, San Diego, CA in 2024;&nbsp;Weaving at Black Mountain College, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, NC in 2023; and&nbsp;Origins, Sharjah Institute, UAE in 2023, among others. Gutiérrez’s work has been acquired by a number of public collections, including the The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; and The National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., among others.

Porfirio Gutiérrez: Modernism

With a focus on painting, sculpture, printmaking and installation,&nbsp;Braxton Garneau's&nbsp;practice is rooted in materiality, costuming, and transformation. Working in betwen cultures, Garneau combines visual influences from classical and contemporary forms with material investigations to consider cultural, social, and historical implications. Garneau is interested in what he refers to as "material honesty", or the idea that the use of living matter can imbue work with their essence and power. Exploring and exploiting the physical qualities of materials, Garneau works with harvested and hand-processed mediums including asphalt, raffia, cotton, linen, sugarcane pulp, bones, and shells. Garneau's work investigates transformation through both natural cycles and the inherent human tendency for adornment, costuming, and masquerade. Connecting materials, customs, and clothing, he explores the ability of the natural world, and of the people in it, to adapt and transmute to whatever circumstances&nbsp;they may find themselves in.&nbsp;Braxton Garneau is a visual artist based in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Canada). He holds a BFA from the University of Alberta and has had solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2024), Efraín López, New York (2024), GAVLAK, Los Angeles (2023) and Stride Gallery, Calgary (2021). Recent group exhibitions include&nbsp;Land, Sea, Sugar, Salt: Terrestrial and Aquatic Contemplations of the Caribbean, Remai Modern (2025);&nbsp;Black Every Day, Art Gallery of Alberta (2021); and&nbsp;It's About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900 - 1970 and Now, Mitchell Art Gallery, Edmonton (2020). In 2024, his work&nbsp;Pitch Lake (Pietà)&nbsp;was acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego through the Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago, and he was awarded the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award. In Spring 2025, he was in residency at the International Studio &amp; Curatorial Program (ISCP), Brooklyn, NY.&nbsp;

Braxton Garneau: Antilles Lace

Corbett vs. Dempsey is excited to present Nick Drnaso,&nbsp;Ghost Works. This is Drnaso’s first gallery exhibition.﻿Based in Chicago, Nick Drnaso is best known as a graphic novelist. He has just finished work on his fourth book, which, like the other three, will be published on the illustrious Drawn and Quarterly press. Drnaso’s second book,&nbsp;Sabrina&nbsp;(2018), is the only graphic novel to have been nominated for a Man Booker Prize; his first offering was awarded the Los Angeles Times prize for Best Graphic Novel. Parallel to and intersecting with his graphic novel work, Drnaso maintains an active painting practice. Using back-painting on glass and plexiglass, a technique he has in common with several Chicago Imagist artists, Drnaso has created a series of portraits, highly graphic and also deeply enigmatic, often in a shadow-box format. His most recent series, which will be shown complete in this exhibition, features figureless environments, haunted suburban and urban landscapes with ghostly skies, sometimes surrounded by glyph-like borders. Like his novels, Drnaso’s paintings beg more questions than they answer, their characters and situations as mysterious as they are beautifully and meticulously rendered.

Nick Drnaso, Ghost Works

Oliva Gallery is proud to present Found in Place, an exhibition of new abstract oil paintings by Chicago-based artist Tiffany Stronsky and ceramic installations by sculptor Carolyn Cronin Hughes, running&nbsp;from October 3 through November 1, the exhibition opens with a reception on Friday, October 3, from 5:00 to 9:00 PM. Found in Place explores the ways belonging reveals itself in fragments, through familiar sights such as the lines of a porch, the shadow of a tree, or the glow of late afternoon light across a neighborhood street. Stronsky translates these impressions into layered, abstract compositions where brushstrokes act as gestures of recognition, each canvas becoming a meditation on seeing, staying, and claiming space.Through her vibrant palette and richly textured surfaces, Stronsky transforms the everyday into expressive landscapes of memory and presence. The works invite viewers to consider their own connections to place, tracing the quiet beauty of what surrounds them and reflecting on the resonance of home. About the ArtistTiffany Stronsky is a Chicago-based painter whose work investigates memory, perception, and place. Known for her layered oil technique and expressive use of color, she creates abstract works that draw viewers into an active relationship with the canvas.

Found in Place – Tiffany Stronsky’s Abstract Exploration of Belonging

Simone Mantellassi: Carpeting In The Kitchen Incorporated Opening reception:&nbsp;Friday, September 12, 5-8pm Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present our first solo show with Simone&nbsp;Mantellassi,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(8, 83, 247);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001MH-s0M4jV6liDssxt7ej_ZzkG6YCLP3PMmNgv6Xr4EPPGsiPGxRqvDYbxxeBs8qRqiAKf1LTRmNqb-LWphO1fwa4JIga0i1okdkrFgh5ZpCJXmw3cpPuFhbWMMRspBsxhn4eYb-yLlZiBjqn4gw9uvF-LpR_rvCsdOsx9I2N_xQsbByrFggcGynCPb7UATN66_1fF_lqiD1Fvb2W8K1Dauu-6SBjRq6hp67XIk8VcVI=&amp;c=swVh1nE_zz0e7Zdrsb479IUjZQUqfPtnUQZyDc7V-Xk7ygDb30kIIw==&amp;ch=MG1s6P5ZVejj-dfvtJjb7ALHtdziU5F3COJ90ZbLF4T5za13DvTapA==" target="_blank">Carpeting In the Kitchen Incorporated.</a>&nbsp;Mantellassi’s paintings on paper and sculptural tableaus poke fun at the tragicomedy life, tackling subjects ranging from two former American presidents, Captain Ahab, Ronald McDonald and the axis of evil, to the ancient superheroes of Ellenic Greece and the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Inspired by a trove of artists and filmmakers including David Lynch, Alejandro Jorodowsky, Josephine Halvorson, and Philip Guston, Mantellassi works in an aesthetic fully his own; mixing comic book storytelling, surrealism and formalism into a distinct visual language. The show opens in Gallery 2 at Western Exhibitions in Chicago on September 12 with a public reception from 5 to 8pm. and runs through November 1. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm. His works on paper echo the multi-perspective quality of comic book pages and surrealist art as overlapping storylines and viewpoints cohabitate in one plane. Nonsensical alignments of objects and narratives intermingle with a humorous, dreamy color palette, often paired with poetically off-kilter titles in his second language, English. Pastries (real and fake), trees, pipes, body parts, treehouses, scenes from the kitchen, shoes and trash from the woods all expand and contract between resolution and dissolution, animating a dreamlike quality where highly vivid thoughts remain incomplete and half-formed. From certain drawings, Mantellassi creates three-dimensional sculptures—compact, diorama-like compositions composed of everyday materials in plexiglas casing. The humor and irony of his work is made concretely manifest in these objects, whose crumply, crude surfaces and “imperfect” finishes are precisely where the work culminates most fully; stage-sets for the tragicomedy of life where narrative and its artifice are on display simultaneously. In&nbsp;The Status Of Things As They Have Been&nbsp;an irregularly contoured rectangular slab of pink styrofoam leans back in a clear plastic vitrine, with white overalls painted on it, a torso shape as a stand in for the artist, perhaps. The title of the work is painted cartoonishly on each side of the slab, with quirky sculptures made from commonplace materials inhabit the space. On the back of the vitrine the Mantellassi scrawled on a painted banner “I DIDN’T LIKED RONALD REAGAN THE FIRST TIME AROUND ANYWAY” as a discrete viewer gazes up at it from the bottom right of the plane. A similar pink slab forms the central image in the work on paper&nbsp;Ronald McDonald And The Axis of Evil On Frakt Boulevard P.M.&nbsp;Instead of being adorned by overalls, this shape serves as the ground for a tumbling tableau of Guston-like forms: boots, human faces, headstones, beer cans, trees hiding fat pixies in their leaf clouds, street signs and hats, punctuated by a head of a pink man at the bottom of the page exclaiming in a comic book balloon “FUCK! IT’S THE AXIS OF EVIL.” We are particularly enamored with another sculpture in vitrine titled “Piece of Skin From My Forehead Enlarged Quite A Bit.” Descriptions defy it, you’ll have to see it in person. A self-taught artist, born and raised in Florence, Italy in 1971,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(8, 83, 247);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001MH-s0M4jV6liDssxt7ej_ZzkG6YCLP3PMmNgv6Xr4EPPGsiPGxRqvDYbxxeBs8qROz7H6CHT_LokWPbMFe8GDBay1e5BkZzGfSRNpeZY2eJ6NrCLN4HQXxtApe_AViaiepxx7Q70_3I_A-QaO1g3BZFxvwVzNc6MMPuXY9-8YodpV-zrYFsRLQ==&amp;c=swVh1nE_zz0e7Zdrsb479IUjZQUqfPtnUQZyDc7V-Xk7ygDb30kIIw==&amp;ch=MG1s6P5ZVejj-dfvtJjb7ALHtdziU5F3COJ90ZbLF4T5za13DvTapA==" target="_blank">Simone Mantellassi</a>&nbsp;moved to the United States in 2002 and lives and works in Gilbertsville, New York, in the Western Catskills.&nbsp;His work has been shown at and is in the collection of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Other exhibitions include the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, Buller Space in New York, NADA New York and KIPNZ in Walton, NY. Image: Little Jimmy On Big Jimmy (The Jimmies), 2022Acrylic on paper30h x 22w in

Simone Mantellassi: Carpeting In The Kitchen Incorporated

Oliva Gallery presents&nbsp;Verdastro&nbsp; Opening October 3 5-9&nbsp; Thru Nov 1, 2025&nbsp;

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