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

Thoughtfully designed, One of a Kind Art Gifts

Gallery Seven Holiday Gift Show

Arts of Life is pleased to announce our next exhibition&nbsp;Hail Mary,&nbsp;guest curated by&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 112, 168);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://margaretcrowley.com/" target="_blank">Margaret Crowley</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 112, 168);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instagram.com/brozgold/?hl=en" target="_blank">Tim Callahan</a>.Hail Mary&nbsp;is an exhibition about sport. It examines the complexity and inherent spirituality of participating, watching and being a fan of any sport. James Naismith’s Guiding Principles of Basket-Ball, 1891(Glossed by Dave Hickey)1)&nbsp;&nbsp;There must be a ball; it should be large.(This in prescient expectation of Connie Hawkins and Julius Erving, whose hands would reinvent basketball as profoundly as Jimi Hendrix’s hands reinvented rock-and-roll.)2)&nbsp;There shall be no running with the ball.&nbsp;(Thus mitigating the privileges of owning portable property. Extended ownership of the ball is a virtue in football. Possession of the ball in basketball is never ownership; it is always temporary and contingent upon your doing something with it.)3)&nbsp;No man on either team shall be restricted from getting the ball at any time that it is in play.(Thus eliminating the job specialization that exists in football, by whose rules only those players in “skill positions” may touch the ball. The rest just help. In basketball there are skills peculiar to each position, but everyone must run, jump, catch, shoot, pass, and defend.)4)&nbsp;Both teams are to occupy the same area, yet there is to be no personal contact.(Thus no rigorous territoriality, nor any rewards for violently invading your opponents’ territory unless you score. The model for football is the drama of adjacent nations at war. The model for basketball is the polyglot choreography of urban sidewalks.)5)&nbsp;The goal shall be horizontal and elevated.(The most Jeffersonian principle of all: Labor must be matched by aspiration. To score, you must work your way down court, but you must also elevate! Ad astra.)&nbsp;Margaret Crowley&nbsp;(b. Ottawa, IL) is an artist&nbsp;living and working in Chicago. Crowley founded Produce Model Gallery in 2016.Timothy Callahan&nbsp;(b. Chicago, IL) co-organized Produce&nbsp;Model Gallery with Crowley from 2020 to 2024.

Hail Mary

Whether or not something is real or fabricated has become a compelling conversation in a contemporary context as technology allows for the simulation of reality on multiple levels. Artists have been interested in exploring the dynamics of representation and authenticity for many years, but what that actually looks like depends on the artist’s interests as well as what is happening in society at that time. For example, trompe l’oeil&nbsp;(French for fool or deceive the eye) artwork has been an artistic pursuit for centuries. The art form has been historically associated with two-dimensional imagery that appears as three-dimensional space or objects, but can also be applied to three-dimensional objects that, to put it simply, are deceptive in one context or another. Using clay and enamel on copper, respectively, Canadian artists and married couple Karen Dahl and James Doran explore these concepts through their well-known&nbsp;trompe l’oeil&nbsp;sculptures. The two are not collaborators, but their work is rooted in similar subject matter and a desire to explore what still life means in the modern era. A recent gift of 27 works by Dahl and Doran joined three pieces by Dahl already in RAM’s collection—establishing archive holdings for each artist. Shown intermingled in this exhibition, the works of Dahl and Doran encourage extended viewing and consideration of art history, object meaning, and process. James DoranEntomological Doodle, 1989Enamel on copper11 1/2 x 9 1/4 inchesRacine Art Museum, Gift of Holly Hotchner and Franklin SilverstonePhotography: Jarvis Lawson

Fool Me Once: The Trompe L’oeil Sculpture of Karen Dahl and James Doran

Maia Cruz Palileo&nbsp;(they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist whose paintings, installations, sculptures, and drawings navigate themes of migration and the permeable concept of home. Influenced by the oral history of their family’s arrival in the United States from the Philippines, as well as the history between the two countries, Palileo infuses these narratives using both memory and imagination. They produce paintings of dream-like quality that hover between fact and fiction. Investigating the malleable language of the medium, Palileo’s works offer a panoramic lens through which to investigate the larger questions&nbsp;pertaining to&nbsp;forgotten histories and how best to honor these stories in perpetuity. Sourcing subject matter through various photographic archives, their paintings recontextualize the stories, portraits, and images to resuscitate these figures from the exploitative gaze of the ethnographic image.&nbsp; Palileo (b.1979, Chicago, IL) received an MFA in sculpture from Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY (2008) and BA in Studio Art at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA (2001). Palileo has had solo exhibitions at&nbsp;David&nbsp;Kordansky&nbsp;Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2025);&nbsp;moniquemeloche, Chicago, IL (2023, 2021, 2019);&nbsp;The Cummer Museum, Jacksonville, FL (2023);&nbsp;Kimball Arts Center, Park City, UT (2022); the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA (2021); the&nbsp;Katzen&nbsp;Arts Center, Washington D.C. (2019);&nbsp;Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY (2018); Taymour&nbsp;Grahne&nbsp;Gallery, New York, NY (2017); and&nbsp;Cuchifritos&nbsp;Gallery + Project Space, curated by Jordan&nbsp;Buschur, New York, NY (2015).&nbsp;Palileo has been featured in recent group exhibitions at&nbsp;the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL (2024);&nbsp;Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA (2024); Sargent’s Daughters, Los Angeles, LA (2024);&nbsp;Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (2023);&nbsp;Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE (2023); The Nasher Museum, Durham, NC (2023);&nbsp;National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C. (2022); Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA (2022); San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA (2022); Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2022); The Rubin Museum of Art, New York, NY (2018); and the Bureau of General Services Queer Division, New York, NY.&nbsp;Palileo will present&nbsp;a&nbsp;solo show&nbsp;at&nbsp;moniquemeloche, Chicago, IL&nbsp;(2025).&nbsp;&nbsp;Their work is in the collections of The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD;&nbsp;The San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA;&nbsp;Cummer Museum of Art &amp; Gardens. Jacksonville, FL; The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C;&nbsp;The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC;&nbsp;The Speed Museum, Louisville, KY;&nbsp;and The&nbsp;Fredriksen&nbsp;Collection at the National Museum of Oslo, Norway.&nbsp;Palileo is a recipient of the Sharpe-Walentas&nbsp;Studio Program Award, NY (2022); NYFA Painting Fellowship (2021); Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Program Grant (2017); Rema&nbsp;Hort&nbsp;Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2014); Astraea Visual Arts Fund Award (2009); Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters &amp; Sculptors Grant (2008); and Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Award (2018).&nbsp;Palileo has&nbsp;participated&nbsp;in residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME; Lower East Side Print Shop, NY; Millay Colony, Austerlitz, New York; and the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans. They currently live and work in Brooklyn, NY.&nbsp; Image: Maia Cruz Palileo,&nbsp;I Am Well, How Are You?, 2025, oil on linen, 72 x 68 in

Maia Cruz Palileo: Branch Dance

OS Projects presents “…and the far off flutter of smoke stained wings.”, an exhibition of paintings and sculptures by Stephen Williams. The exhibition opens on November 8, 2025 and continues through January 10, 2026. The public is invited to meet the artist on Saturday, November 8 from 1 – 3 pm. Stephen Williams’ artwork asks a fundamental question: How do the things that we observe and experience outside of ourselves become infused with emotion and meaning and entry points for our imaginations? The peculiar transformation that takes place during the artmaking process, when words, concepts and experiences move from being “a thing in the world to a world in a thing,” is a source of endless fascination for the artist. Williams describes the 15 paintings in his OS Projects exhibit as renderings of anonymous interior spaces, analogous to rooms he has never entered or never could. Their images are generated spontaneously and proceed to completion in an improvisational manner. This approach allows the artist to indulge in a kind of freedom and vulnerability as well as an expansiveness that flirts with failure at every moment. To develop the palette of his paintings, Williams uses only black, blue, yellow, red and white paints. Each has been given a symbolic value. Black represents subjectivity, while blue stands for subjective experience/water. Yellow expresses metaphor/plane of immanence/air, and red is objective experience/fire. White symbolizes objectivity, the opposite of black. In contrast to the self-contained paintings, Williams’ sculptures function as models. They are physical prompts for things the artist has been thinking about or would like to consider further. Like the forms in his paintings, the sculptures exist in a state of flux. By virtue of being placed into different configurations, they become different things. What is real? The question has preoccupied Williams throughout his life. The answer, he has discovered through his decades-long art practice, is that reality is “a place where you no longer possess a thing but instead it possesses you.” About the Artist Born in Joliet, Illinois, Stephen Williams currently lives and works in Chicago. He holds degrees from the University of Illinois School of Architecture and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Williams has exhibited his work at various art venues, including the Chicago galleries CompassRose, Dart and 65GRAND, and Deborah Sharpe and Charles Cowles galleries in New York. His artwork is in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, JP Morgan Chase Bank, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the American Medical Association.&nbsp;

Stephen Williams: "...and the far off flutter of smoke stained wings."

Pedro Montilla is a Colombian artist whose practice unfolds through painting as a way to understand the experience of being alive and surrounded by life. His work stems from the understanding of painting as a mystical being, voracious and capable of imbuing objects with life. Through this lens, his practice becomes a space for transformation, reflection, and attentive presence. Pedro works primarily on fique fabric, a fiber cultivated, dried, and woven in the Colombian Andes, traditionally used to transport coffee beans and harvests. This surface mirrors both belonging to a place while also holding a sense of dislocation and memory for what it touches. On it, he creates hybrid objects that exist between painting and tapestry, holding an imagery of landscapes, scenes, and abstractions that reflect an amalgam of internal states and lived experience.&nbsp;Montilla (b.1997, Bogotá, Colombia) holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2025) and a BFA from Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá (2020). He has presented solo exhibitions at Policroma Galería, Medellín (2023; 2021), and participated in group exhibitions at the Epiphany Center for the Arts, Chicago, IL (2025); Chili Art Projects, London, UK (2024); National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL (2024); Galería El Museo, Bogotá (2024); SGR Galería, Bogotá (2021); among others. He was a Fellow at Ox-Bow School of Art, Saugatuck, MI (2025) and is currently a resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition, Chicago, IL. Montilla lives and works in Chicago, IL and is currently a Lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Image: Pedro Montilla, Primero&nbsp;está la soledad / First there is loneliness, 2025, oil and tempera on fique, 57 x 78 in

Pedro Montilla

The first mid-career survey of the artist’s work,&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jmkac.org/exhibition/ashwini-bhat-reverberating-self/?utm_medium=email&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_Ui-15B_CcQknU9GEDGXMjBqDrNc-DTSKdHoyu63GuASVBzt71GYE_-e31PGV6S0Mplqp9YfAjLuTlga8VG8STj3QakJsCm2tjyDUB9eTtkUkzkDY&amp;_hsmi=343424237&amp;utm_content=343424237&amp;utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Ashwini Bhat: Reverberating Self</a> contains artworks made over the past decade alongside newly made work that has never been shown. The exhibition illustrates her journey since moving to California—creating a new home and securing a sense of belonging through communion with her environment and art making. The artworks evidence Bhat’s technical skill and intuitive approach to diverse materials and techniques, including cast bronze, hand-built ceramics, video works, and an artist-led collaborative community installation. All works on view are part of&nbsp;Assembling California,&nbsp;the artist’s ongoing project of place and self. The series concentrates on natural phenomena including post-fire forests, climate change, large-scale forces, mapping, and relationships. As an immigrant from southern India, Bhat works to find a sense of belonging and self in her home in California. She does this through walking, hiking, and spending time with local ecologists. Bhat’s past is infused into the present and imaginings of possible futures. She weaves time and experience through her sculptures by naming a body of her works depicting California flora after nature spirits, or Yakshis, entities that are part of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religious practices. Bhat firmly roots her practice in recognizing humankind’s interconnectedness with all living beings and places—through contact, communion, and witnessing. She creates sculptures to share moments of her journey—of seeking self within her ecologies and invites viewers to relate to their environments by building relationships and spending time with other beings, human and nonhuman alike. Image: Ashwini Bhat. Photo: John Janca, courtesy of the artist and Shoshana Wayne Gallery.

Ashwini Bhat: Reverberating Self

The&nbsp;Community ⇄ Members’ Show&nbsp;is a cherished celebration of local art and talent. Whether you’re an artist or an art lover, this exhibition is a must-see, offering a rich experience of creativity in our community. Mark your calendar for the Public Preview Party on November 21, 2025 from 6 - 8 PM and join us in celebrating the vibrant artistic talent that makes our region shine. The exhibition will be on view from November 22, 2025 to January 11, 2026. Ending on our annual Pizza with the Artist event on January 11, 2026 from&nbsp;﻿4 - 6 PM.For more information regarding the exhibitions, visit&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://sfpwlrdab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001HIHBgKWmfZFsj0uHJ8VS6FYkXzlFj1PARabvKe9x6XrZh5wDwqoWvtixSV_KM9xNOhFAk0Eq0O0DZzQD_BVu0gksqKFqx4NaE1jJqHTmI3S6PEIQqABLG_SOgW7guNLw4SGU5KlRTgyOZXEK78x_B2ulQNaviEeZ&amp;c=50MTjcCJ5tDmXgKjPU21Qy_xlB1XX3MATKetvAKehRF50lfOQVCU3g==&amp;ch=9wQzHSEWPOeXK11nDqeX7IBDdcQBIg92SboG0_lYCtouAIT8l5ynVQ==" target="_blank">www.krasl.org</a>.

2025 Community ⇄ Members’ Show

Andi Crist: Live Laugh Labor Thoughts on usefulness and other myths Cleve Carney Museum of Art&nbsp;(CCMA) presents the first solo museum exhibition by multi-disciplinary artist&nbsp;Andi Crist, titled "Live, Laugh, Labor: Thoughts on Usefulness and Other Myths,” Oct.16, 2025 – Jan. 11, 2026. An opening reception will take place from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16 with remarks from the artist.&nbsp; Recently named one of Newcity’s 2025 Breakout Artists, Crist now presents her first major museum exhibition. The show features sculptures, drawings, and ceramic works from the past five years that explore the artist’s role as an arts worker.&nbsp; In this upcoming exhibition, Crist’s work prompts broader questions about labor, authenticity, and the shifting recognition of human effort in society today. Drawing inspiration from her career as a professional art handler and fabricator, this exhibit navigates the boundaries and relationships between work, play, and practice.&nbsp; “Andi Crist’s playful and humorous work challenges us to consider pressing cultural questions: What is the worth of human labor in an era of cheap goods and artificial intelligence, and what does it mean to ‘make’ in a world where so much work is hidden?” —&nbsp;Justin Witte, Director and Curator of the Cleve Carney Museum of Art In this solo exhibition, Crist utilizes various media, including woodworking, ceramics, leather craft, and mold-making/casting. These pieces showcase Crist’s technical skill and wit, while offering a playful perspective on the roles and representations of an artist as a worker.&nbsp; In Crist’s work “Ladder” the artist has hand-crafted an a-frame ladder appears at first familiar. The work has conventional ladder rungs on one side, but the other side is abruptly shortened and terminates in two handholds carved to fit Crist’s own hands. The piece only functions when Crist physically intervenes: she straps herself to one side, holding the structure steady above her head so another person can climb. That literal dependence makes the work a wry interrogation of the “ladder” as a metaphor for upward mobility and hierarchical progress. Crist transforms a ubiquitous image of success, rungs, ranks, reaching the top, into a staged dependency: she is simultaneously the wall the ladder leans on, the support that enables advancement, and a laborer charging for her service. The work folds wordplay and labor politics together, asking who holds us up and what we pay for that support.&nbsp; Andi Crist is a Chicago-based artist whose practice explores the intersections of urban environments, community and transformation. Known for her innovative use of found materials and construction techniques, Crist reimagines everyday objects and spaces, often incorporating elements of sustainability and reuse in her work. Her installations are immersive, encouraging viewers to reconsider the world around them and engage with their surroundings in new ways. Through both solo projects and collaborations with other artists, Crist’s work highlights the beauty and resilience of urban life, while challenging viewers to reflect on issues of ecology, community and collective responsibility.&nbsp; Her pieces have been featured in Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago, Roots &amp; Culture, and the Chicago Athletic Association. Recently, Crist was named as Newcity’s 2025 Breakout Artist’s issue. Crist graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology, where she gained her wood and fabrication knowledge while also freelancing as an art handler. In 2010, Crist founded Autotelic, a non-profit arts organization that serves artists on the northwest side of Chicago by creating affordable workspaces and exhibitions.&nbsp; “Live, Laugh, Labor: Thoughts on Usefulness and Other Myths” is curated by Justin Witte, Director and Curator of the CCMA. The exhibition will be on view Oct. 16, 2025 - Jan. 11, 2026. Admission is free. CCMA is open Wednesday – Sunday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. and one hour prior to MAC Performance Series concerts.&nbsp;For more information, visit&nbsp;TheCCMA.org&nbsp;&nbsp;and follow along at&nbsp;@CleveCarneyMuseumofArt For expert insight into the exhibition’s themes, tune in to CleveCast, the Cleve Carney Museum of Art’s new podcast, where Justin Witte hosts conversations with special guests including curators, artists, and scholars for behind-the-scenes stories and deep dives into the museum’s exhibitions. His interview with Crist can be found on the CCMA website at&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(229, 28, 40);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://theccma.org/clevecast" target="_blank">theccma.org/clevecast</a> Related Exhibition Events and Programming---Opening reception Thursday, Oct. 16, 5 – 7 p.m. Remarks from the artist. Light refreshments and cash bar. This event is free and open to the public.---CCMA Chief Curator Justin Witte will give a curator talk and tour of the exhibition Saturday, Oct. 18, 6:30 – 7 p.m. The event is free. Advance registration is not required <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1760641826/tm1vtz1z478stzqrp0fd.jpg">

Andi Crist: Live Laugh Labor

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, November 7, 2025 |&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ten-by-ten-opening-reception-tickets-1854549440299?aff=oddtdtcreator" target="_blank">RSVP</a> ﻿TEN by TEN is a yearly celebration of diversity and passion found within the Chicago arts community. With each piece being 10” x 10”, the result is a dazzling grid of artwork, in all styles and mediums. Being open submission, the exhibition is a chance for artists of all levels to contribute and gives an unfiltered look at what is going on today in the Chicago arts scene and beyond. Gallery Director,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/about/staff/kaitlyn-miller/" target="_blank">Kaitlyn Miller</a>&nbsp;reflects, “After the first year of TEN by TEN, we recognized the need for an open submission exhibition. Finding your footing in the art world is not an easy task, it is competitive and often disheartening and our goal has always been to support emerging artists. We had such an overwhelming response to the first year, so we thought let’s expand and accept every artist that applies. The exhibit has grown and become a way for Jackson Junge Gallery to give back and celebrate Chicago’s incredible arts community.”Featured in TEN by TEN are works by Jackson Junge’s in-house artists, whose work the gallery exhibits year-round. Featured artist,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/about/artists/laura-lee-junge/" target="_blank">Laura Lee Junge</a>, created an eye-catching mixed media painting, “<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/store/artists/laura-lee-junge/originals-laura-lee-junge/mixed-media-originals-laura-lee-junge/inward/" target="_blank">Inward</a>”. The painting is done in a 3D style seen in her solo exhibition “CUCKOO: I’M NOT CRAZY, YOU ARE”, earlier this year. This series explores elements of freedom, movement and time. The focus of “Inward” is handmade clay and metal dragonflies, a departure from Junge’s usual butterfly subjects in this series. The background has impressions of clock gears imprinted in thick acrylic paint, an element used in Junge’s mixed media collection.&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/about/artists/kate-hoyer/" target="_blank">Kate Hoyer</a>’s “<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/store/mediums/painting/rainbow-kitty-2/" target="_blank">Rainbow Kitty</a>” is painted in her signature bold and colorful style, utilizing stripes and blocks of color to define the forms of her animal subjects.&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/about/artists/autum-justine-miller/" target="_blank">Autumn Justine Miller</a>&nbsp;has gone with a less cuddly character for her humorous painting, “<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/store/mediums/painting/duck-doctor/" target="_blank">Duck Doctor</a>”, which features a rubber ducky with a plague mask and a skull tattoo. Miller is known for her creepy-cute subjects, and this painting is no exception.Stand-out pieces in TEN by TEN are often using unexpected materials. Jonathan Pruc’s shining piece “<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/store/special-exhibit/too-much-on-my-mind/" target="_blank">Too Much on My Mind</a>” utilizes many colored mirrors to reflect light and draw the viewer in. The mirrored surface gives it a slightly different appearance and color with a change of position or lighting, giving a unique optical effect. Another notable piece this year is Josh Brickman’s “<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/store/special-exhibit/el-oh-el/" target="_blank">El Oh El</a>”, a map of the Loop made entirely of Legos. Brickman’s piece is both playful and well executed; you could almost use it to navigate downtown!Michael Bever’s painting also brings us to the El. His acrylic painting “<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/store/special-exhibit/parked-under-the-el/" target="_blank">Parked Under the El</a>” finds the beauty in a rainy evening beneath the train tracks, focusing on the warm reflections of light from surrounding streetlamps. A car idles in the center of the painting, perhaps waiting for someone to hurry up so they can get home before the weather turns once again.When viewed all together as one large wall of artwork, TEN by TEN becomes an installation representing a year of creation and exploration from hundreds of emerging and established artists. The exhibition is an opportunity for all these creatives to come together and celebrate the hard work and progress that they have made this year.TEN by TEN will be on display November 3rd, 2025, through January 11th, 2026, at Jackson Junge Gallery. Join us in celebrating the wide range of work that Chicago’s artists have to offer!TEN by TEN is curated by Gallery Owner&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/about/staff/chris-jackson/" target="_blank">Chris Jackson</a>, Gallery Director&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/about/staff/kaitlyn-miller/" target="_blank">Kaitlyn Miller</a>, Assistant Gallery Director&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/about/staff/kristen-arcus/" target="_blank">Kristen Arcus</a>, Gallery Assistants&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/about/staff/marisa-taravella/" target="_blank">Marisa Taravella</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(110, 6, 16);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://j2gallery.com/about/staff/maddie-kirmse/" target="_blank">Madeline Kirmse</a>&nbsp;and Gallery Intern Sadie Walden.

Ten by Ten

Public Preview:&nbsp;Friday, April 25, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.&nbsp;&nbsp;Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-taught Art in Chicago,&nbsp;the first exhibition to open in Intuit’s newly-renovated museum, is 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.&nbsp;Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-taught Art in Chicago&nbsp;is the first major exhibition to focus on the importance of immigration and migration in the genre of self-taught art. The exhibition underscores the creative contributions of migrants and immigrants,&nbsp;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.&nbsp;The exhibition aims to be inclusive of the experiences of immigrants and migrants while acknowledging social and legal differences.&nbsp;&nbsp;Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-taught Art in Chicago&nbsp;explores catalysts for leaving home, for coming to Chicago and for pursuing an art practice.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;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.Image credit: Derek Webster, American, born Puerto Castilla (Republic of Honduras), raised in Belize City (British Honduras, now Belize), 1934-2009. Untitled (Turtle with up-turned head), 1990. Paint on found wood and found materials, 12 x 19 x 30 in. Collection of Intuit Art Museum, gift of Madeline Murphy Rabb, 2021.6

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

PATRON is proud to present Long, Shore, Drift, our first solo exhibition with New York–based artist Simon Benjamin. Through a multidisciplinary practice spanning painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking, and video, Benjamin posits the sea and coastal zones as sites of a perennially entangled network of geology and culture. For Benjamin, who is originally from Jamaica, the ecology of the Caribbean becomes a site at which to examine the historical and current relationships between afro-diasporic people and the sea. Emergent from his work to capture his own experiences as an avid surfer and swimmer, Benjamin’s recent work incorporates the physical materials of coastal zones, alongside and in juxtaposition to the visual lexicon of stylized ephemera of tourism produced by an ongoing colonial, commercial economy. Long, Shore, Drift refers to the geological term longshore drift, a natural process that moves sediment along a coastline resulting from the waves’ repetitive actions. Within the context of the exhibition, the pattern becomes a metaphor for examining how coastlines evolve, a concept Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite’s refers to as tidalectics—a framework that conceives of Caribbean identity as cyclical and fluid, shaped not by fixed geography but by movement and exchange. Continually unfolding and falling back upon itself, Long, Shore, Drift offers a repetitive, rhythmic reminder of the series of extractions that continue to shape the world and our perception of it.

SIMON BENJAMIN: Long, Shore, Drift

We are pleased to present Once upon a midnight dreary, a solo exhibition of new works by French-artist Djabril Boukhenaïssi. This show marks the artist's first solo presentation in the United States, and the first with the gallery. This presentation of engravings and paintings meditates on the Night as a space of contemplation and connection where darkness dissolves the boundaries between self and the world. Drawing from literary and philosophical references including Baudelaire, Novalis, Rilke, and Max Milner, Boukhenaïssi’s palette of deep blues and mauves activates abstraction through opacity and illumination. His canvases transform the shadows of night into a site of memory and imagination, asking what emerges under the moonlight when the visible gives way to the unseen. The exhibition will run from November 14, 2025, to January 17, 2026, with an opening reception on Friday, November 14, 2025, from 6 - 8 PM.

Once upon a midnight dreary

The Art Center's Annual Members and Faculty Exhibition.

In View 2026

Bert Green Fine Art&nbsp;is pleased to present our first solo show by Indiana-based contemporary artist&nbsp;Tom Torluemke.Tom Torluemke&nbsp;is known for his ambitious and evocative socio-political paintings. Drawing is the rarely seen starting point and driving force in his practice. It serves as a meditative and relaxing exercise, a testing ground for ideas, and a springboard for the direction the artist takes when pursuing a project. This exhibit features a selection of drawings by the artist stemming from three areas of the artist's work: plein air landscape drawings of the area near the artist's home, fanciful and personal autobiographical graphite drawings, and studies for the artist's large, imaginative, ambitious socio-political paintings.Born in Chicago, Illinois, his practice spans 40+ years and includes works in painting, drawing, sculpture, and installations in various mediums. Torluemke is known for his powerful, no-holds-barred approach to subject matter relating to socio-political, ethical, and humanistic themes. With over 150 solo and group exhibitions and 30 public art commissions throughout the Midwest, his work testifies to the relevance and scope of his ideas and his ability to present them in a meaningful context within their communities. In 2025, Torluemke's work on paper was the subject of a career retrospective,&nbsp;Tom Torluemke: Live! On Paper, 1987 – 2024&nbsp;curated by&nbsp;Dan Cameron&nbsp;at the&nbsp;Chicago Cultural Center&nbsp;with a monograph published by&nbsp;SKIRA Editore, Milan. The show was reviewed in&nbsp;Art Forum&nbsp;magazine in October 2025.&nbsp; All gallery events are free and open to the public. Additional information found at the gallery website at&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://bgfa.us./" target="_blank">https://bgfa.us.</a>&nbsp;Please forward to any interested parties.

Tom Torluemke: Sorted Sheets

Pistachios is hosting a solo exhibition with critically acclaimed artist, Sowon Joo. The work featured involves a labor-intensive metal weaving process that requires a tremendous amount of time and effort, resulting in sculptural jewelry that is in perfect harmony with the wearer.&nbsp;"I pour my thoughts, memories and spirit during the process of weaving, and the fragile and delicate nature of weaving with silver wire represents the vulnerability and fragility of life, especially in the early stages, which demands our care and protection. I design each piece as a subject within the context of the human body and consider it complete when the subject and the context are united in harmony and balance. In that sense, each person wearing my work is a part of my work; and my work, hopefully, is a part of the life of each person wearing it. By this relationship, even without direct communication, the user and I are part of each other’s life and experience." - Sowon Joo

Sowon Joo: Whispers of Winter Blooms

In 2022, RAM organized a landmark exhibition for its street-facing Windows on Fifth Gallery. With artworks chosen from RAM’s collection,&nbsp;<a style="color: var(--link_color);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ramart.org/exhibit/on-fire-women-glass/" target="_blank">On Fire: Surveying Women in Glass in the Late-Twentieth Century</a>&nbsp;offered a cursory look at how women were shaping glass as an art material in the 1980s and 1990s. The exhibition title alludes to certain techniques of physically working with glass as well as the idea that some artists were innovating and making names for themselves—that they were “on fire” in their art world trajectory. This exhibition, an expanded version of the 2022 show, offers a deeper dive into this vital period in contemporary craft by outlining the concerns of artists who explore the sculptural, visual, metaphorical, and creative potential of glass. Seen through the eyes of women, it reflects developments with the medium as an art material two and three decades after studio glass concepts were being implemented into university programs and contemporary practices. Notably, a portion of the gallery is dedicated to supporting materials, such as images, articles, and books, which offer a broader context for understanding the artists, medium, and field.Glass does not have a single history as it has been used in many different ways. Its usage in a decorative context still exists, but the twentieth century also saw the academic establishment of it as a viable art-making material. This exhibition includes various examples of work produced within the studio glass framework—as self-consciously made art reflecting artistic investigations of materials, processes, and ideas. Artists represented include Sonja Blomdahl, Kimiake Higuchi, Concetta Mason, Flo Perkins, Kari Russell-Pool, Ginny Ruffner, Acquaetta Williams, Ann Wolff, and Toots Zynsky. Expanding on the 2022 exhibition, this iteration also features examples from collaborative teams, such as John Littleton and Kate Vogel and Benjamin Edols and Kathy Elliott. These artists explore numerous topics, including identity, beauty, color, pattern, nature, abstraction, form, the figure, metaphor, process, and the properties and abilities of glass as a material. There is also a range of techniques represented, including blowing, lampworking, casting, fusing, carving, polishing, pâte de verre, assembling, and various surface treatments. In essence, the exhibition summarizes the experimental nature of the artists and studio glass in general. A critic of another recent all-female glass exhibition lamented about needing to draw attention to the fact that all of the artists were women—are they artists first or women first? These conversations can also be limiting as they sidestep more fluid gender dynamics. Yet, in this particular moment in time, it is indeed important to draw attention to components beyond the objects themselves. Who the makers are and how they move through the world influences the work even if it is not the identifiable subject matter. Image: Ginny RuffnerTempest in a Spoon&nbsp;from the&nbsp;Structuring Beauty Series, 1999Glass and enamel paintRacine Art Museum, Gift of Stanley and Evelyn AsraelPhotography: Jarvis Lawson

On Fire Part II: Surveying Women in Glass in the Late-Twentieth Century

City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago&nbsp;is an intergenerational group exhibition that highlights Chicago’s essential, yet often underacknowledged, role in the story of queer art and activism. The exhibition examines this history from the mid-1980s, when activists radically mobilized in response to the US government’s disastrous handling of the AIDS crisis. In this moment of change, activists reclaimed the historically pejorative epithet “queer” as a liberatory term, encompassing all who purposefully deviate from heteronormative society. Drawn from the MCA’s collection and other local collections,&nbsp;City in a Garden&nbsp;follows this paradigm shift in LGBTQ+ history by bringing together work from over 30 artists and collectives working in Chicago from the 1980s to the present.These artists address queerness through diverse media and methods: documenting clandestine queer spaces in photographs, creating sculptures that challenge normative depictions of gender and sexuality, and exploring queer intimacy through drawings, paintings, and videos.&nbsp;City in a Garden&nbsp;also features archival materials related to groups who innovatively combine artistic practices with their activism. The exhibition takes its title from Chicago’s official motto,&nbsp;Urbs in Horto, which translates to “city in a garden.” In the context of this presentation, this motto speaks to the exhibited artists’ and activists’ utopian visions of a metropolitan sanctuary for people of all races, genders, and sexualities. As queer people continue to fight for their lives and livelihoods under ongoing and renewed political threats, these visions remain as urgent today as ever.City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago&nbsp;is curated by Jack Schneider, Assistant Curator.

City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago

Dec. 13 – Jan. 30, 2026 CSI Project Space: Little, but Bold! CSI Member Benefit Art Auction

CSI Project Space: Little, but Bold! 

25 Years: Art + Design Alumni, 2000–2025, showcases the breadth of creativity and talent that emanates from the Department of Art + Design at Eastern Illinois University. As a quarter-century survey, the exhibition welcomes back former students and families to reflect on and celebrate what it means to have "bled blue"—on canvas, in the round, or anything in between or beyond—while inviting current and prospective students and community members to see what is possible after graduation.&nbsp;

25 Years: Art + Design Alumni, 2000–2025

Begins Dec 12: The Perpetual Feast, our third annual&nbsp;dinner party series

3rd Annual The Perpetual Feast

The exhibition showcases Lustig's multifaceted creative force spanning from childhood to the present day. The showcase includes drawing, painting, sculpture, and more. Highlights include her&nbsp;Surreal Tree Paintings, oil works revealing anthropomorphic qualities in nature; Abstract Illusion Paintings, spontaneous landscapes evoking music and motion; and&nbsp;Zofscape, a multimedia installation combining LED light sculptures, animated video, and original music composition.A graduate of California College of the Arts in Oakland, Lustig has built a remarkable career as a caricature artist, ceramic sculptor, mural painter, and puppet maker. Her work reflects the influence of Bay Area underground comics culture and the Chicago Imagist movement, blending whimsy with deeper commentary on contemporary life. Her signature Pop Surrealism style transforms ordinary subjects into dreamlike scenarios that are simultaneously playful and profound. About the artist:&nbsp;Ellen Lustig is a multi-faceted artist and composer working in variousmedia to create her dynamic installations. Ellen’s light sculptures are a fabrication of acrylic etchings enhanced by LEDs and music, producing what feels like an all-immersive voluminous 3d space. Her animation series includes digitally rendered passages that mimic the designs seen in her sculptures and also have the effect of an other-worldly landscape. A graduate of California College of the Arts in Oakland, California, Lustig has spent decades as a caricature artist, ceramic sculptor, mural painter, and puppet maker, creating unique pieces that are sought after nationwide. In addition to numerous one woman and group shows with her sculptures and paintings, she dedicates time by regularly teaching art to cancer patients and their families in hospitals and wellness centers such as Gilda’s Club of Chicago. Ellen can also be found playing blues keyboards at open mic nights in Chicago and the suburbs.Ellen Lustig's paintings are a collection of Pop Surrealism art. Her subject matter is forever transforming as she delves into toys, nature, and abstraction. The imagery in Ellen's paintings is a combination of whimsy, pop and realism. The subjects in her paintings also vary between baby boomer toys in uncanny situations, anthropomorphic trees, or quirky abstractions.Throughout Ellen's paintings including her early work, tree paintings, toy paintings or abstractions, Lustig creates a variety of subjects and styles. Her continuous theme is Pop Surrealism Art.The Pop Surrealism/Lowbrow art movement originated in the 1960's with hot rod culture and underground comics. It has evolved into a vilified, vital, and exciting art movement.Having been schooled in the Bay area for College, Ellen was definitely influenced by the comical area surrounding her. She then moved to Chicago where the Hairy Who and Imagists were prevalent in the art world which also had an effect on her subject matter. Lustig still resides in Chicago where she has made a lifelong career as a multimedia artist. Her work has been shown nationally in galleries and museums along with private collections. About the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art:&nbsp;The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (UIMA) preserves and promotes contemporary art as a shared expression of the Ukrainian and American experience. UIMA develops, utilizes and encourages artistic talent through exhibitions, concerts, readings, lectures and films to serve the cultural needs of our community and city, and thereby strengthen cultural understanding and diversity. <ul><li>Artist Talk: Saturday, January 17, 1–2 pm</li></ul>

Ellen Lustig

Witches are guardians of suppressed forms of knowledge; they channel ancestral wisdom and embodied practices that have long been dismissed or feared. Visionary agents of transformation, spiritual practitioners conjure alternative futures through acts of resistance, imagination, and care.&nbsp;Witches, Bitches: Witchcraft as Empowerment&nbsp;explores the rise of the occult, new spirituality, and magic in contemporary culture, and reads it as a symptom of undergoing social transformations. Featuring contemporary artists who challenge dominant systems of patriarchy and colonialism to reclaim power on their own terms, this exhibition situates the practice of witchcraft into the past, present, and future acknowledging it as a form of feminist and political empowerment, and a radical proposition for a fully decolonial way of being.&nbsp;Witches, Bitches&nbsp;brings together works that engage with the iconography, stereotypes, and active practices of witchcraft to explore themes of spiritual power, collective energy,&nbsp;alternative cosmologies, and environmental consciousness. The exhibition features works spanning from the 1970s to the present by about thirty women-identifying international artists from different generations. Some of them self-identify with witchcraft or draw on practices of magic and spirituality, while others engage these themes through a critical and defiant lens. The exhibition will be accompanied by a robust public program including a talk series with public scholars and authors specializing in witchcraft, workshops in spell-casting with witchcraft practitioners, programming for families, performances, panel discussions with artists from different generations, and film screenings.&nbsp;Witches, Bitches: Witchcraft as Empowerment&nbsp;is co-curated by Ionit Behar, PhD, DPAM Curator, and Magdalena Moskalewicz, PhD, Chief Curator and Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs, Sheldon Museum of Art, and organized by DePaul Art Museum. Support for this exhibition is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts.&nbsp;More <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://resources.depaul.edu/art-museum/exhibitions/Pages/witches-bitches-witchcraft-as-empowerment.aspx" target="_blank">Details</a> Image credit: Tirtzah Bassel,&nbsp;Four Sweepers of the Apocalypse,&nbsp;2025. Oil on canvas. 72 x 96 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Witches, Bitches: Witchcraft as Empowerment

Image: Herman Aguirre,&nbsp;¡Ni uno mas!, 2023, Oil and oil/acrylic skins on panel, 63" x 98" x 4.5"

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