New works by Patrick Wilkins Opening reception Friday, November 6, 5-8pm Image courtesy of the artist and Elise Seigenthaler Gallery.

Patrick Wilkins: Singing Into The Void

Elise Seigenthaler Gallery

Elise Seigenthaler Gallery is pleased to present&nbsp;No Such Thing, an exhibition of eight medium-format photographs by Chicago-based artist Nolis Anderson. Anderson’s first show with the gallery,&nbsp;No Such Thing brings together a series of works that consider the idea of perfection through the lens of portraiture and material process.&nbsp;Shot over the course of three years, this series of work represents Anderson’s desire to shift away from the clean, intentional, and manicured visual language that had come to define his photography. Each image grew from a conversation with the subject about the role of perfection in their creative practice, which expanded into questions of self-image, lived experience, and personal understanding of what constitutes perfection, how it shapes our relationship to the act of existing. Excerpts from the conversations accompany the photographs in a zine, bringing the multiplicity of Anderson’s subjects’ perspectives into relation with his images.The material qualities of each photograph are central to the exhibition. Rather than meticulously controlling every element of the photographic and development process, Anderson has allowed the unpredictability and imperfections inherent to working with film fold in to the rich beauty of his imagery. Erratic scratch marks, dust, and squiggles dance across the surface of certain photographs while in others ghostly, shimmering rays of white light envelop the subjects. Faint, spectral shapes irregularly dot the images, imbuing them with a textural depth that complicates any expectation that a photograph should feel impeccably neat and fully resolved. Rather than treating these effects as flaws, Anderson embraces each unexpected mark or blemish and incorporates it into the finished image, reflecting his interest in the space between intention and accident. Image: NOLIS ANDERSON, SA, 2026, Archival pigment print, 34 x 26 in, 86.36 x 66.04 cm

Nolis Anderson: No Such Thing

Elise Seigenthaler Gallery is pleased to present “The Soccer Show: A Celebration of the World Cup”, a group exhibition bringing together eight artists whose work explores the passion, politics, and cultural power of the world’s most followed sport. On view from June 12 through August 22, 2026, the exhibition opens in the spirit of World Cup season, a global moment of collective attention and anticipation as billions of viewers turn toward the game.The exhibition features new and recent work by Gabrielle Bianco, Chris Cosnowski, Adehle Daley, Modou Dieng Yacine, Aaron Eskridge, Sébastien Johnson, Duncan McGillivray-Smith, and Ed Oh. Working across diverse practices and perspective, these artists approach soccer as both a subject and a lens.From the roar of the stadium to the intimacy of a neighborhood pickup game, from the elation of a last-minute goal to the weight of systemic inequalities within the sport’s governing bodies, the works on view capture what makes soccer so enduringly powerful: its ability to contain multitudes. “The Soccer Show” invites visitors to engage with the game not only as spectators, but as witnesses to something larger: a cultural language that is ritual, entertainment, and social force folded into a game.

The Soccer Show: A Celebration of the World Cup

Sarah BedfordDay BrièrreJosiah EllnerLéa LeFloc'h Elise Seigenthaler Gallery is pleased to present&nbsp;Before We Knew Better, a group exhibition featuring Sarah Bedford, Day Brièrre, Josiah Ellner, and Léa LeFloc’h, whose practices draw on narrative, folklore, and personal mythology to explore our enduring relationship with the natural world. Across painting, ceramics, and works on paper,&nbsp;Before We Knew Better&nbsp;gathers works that feel at once intimate and mythical, suspended at the intersection of memory, imagination, and observation.&nbsp;Before knowledge becomes fixed and ingrained, the world is encountered through instinct and emotion, narrative and storytelling. The works in&nbsp;Before We Knew Better&nbsp;echo this sensibility, evoking a time when the boundary between the real and the imagined was more diaphanous and permeable. Throughout the exhibition, flora, fauna, and landscapes are depicted across varied materials. Simplified forms, vibrant color palettes, and illustrative gestures imbue the works with a tone that feels both immediate and out-of-time. A close-cropped painting of a unicorn’s milky eye, ringed with fur, reflects a shooting star passing through the luminous sky. Insects and birds adorn intricately patterned vessels. Winding golden roads meander through softly-rendered mountains.&nbsp;Rather than depicting nature as a fixed or distant subject, the artists approach it as a living presence shaped by memory, experience, and intuition. Their works suggest environments where traces of human life appear alongside vast or mysterious forces: secret gardens, shifting terrains, and intimate moments of quiet grandeur that seem to exist just beyond the veil of ordinary perception.As the gallery’s second exhibition,&nbsp;Before We Knew Better&nbsp;continues Elise Seigenthaler Gallery’s interest in work that feels imaginative, and open-ended. The exhibition invites viewers into a space where imagined worlds that feel at once ancient and visionary.-Malena Steelberg

Before We Knew Better

Please join us for an artist talk with Ava Peterson&nbsp;on&nbsp;Saturday, February 21 at&nbsp;2PM.This conversation offers a chance to hear directly from the artist about her practice, themes, and the work currently on view. Guests are encouraged to engage and ask questions, creating an open dialogue around the artist's process and ideas.&nbsp;This event is free and open to the public.Tea and snacks will be served. We hope you’ll join us! ABOUT THE ARTIST:Ava L. Peterson (B. 2002, Columbus, OH) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago, IL, who investigates the consequences of opulence and excess. Through the lens of painting, Peterson re-examines imagery sourced from contemporary interior design magazines and historic upper-class interiors, allowing these idealized tableaux to stain, bleed, and drift apart until ornament deteriorates into abstraction.Peterson received a BFA in Studio Art from Denison University (‘24) and is an MFA candidate in Painting &amp; Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (‘26). Notable exhibitions include solo shows, "House &amp; Garden" (Incubator Gallery, IL) and “Clear the Kitchen Table" (Bryant Arts Center, OH). Recent group shows include "Housewarming" (Elise Seigenthaler Gallery, IL) and "In a Child's Place" (Purple Window Gallery, IL). Peterson has also received the Nan Nowik Memorial Award for Outstanding Artistic Expression ('24) and was a Luminarts Visual Arts Fellowship Finalist ('25).

Artist Talk: Ava Peterson

Please join us for an artist talk with Rebekka Federle&nbsp;on&nbsp;Saturday, February 7 at 2 PM&nbsp;at the gallery. Tea and snacks will be served. We hope you’ll join us!This conversation offers a chance to hear directly from the artist about her practice, themes, and the work currently on view. Guests are encouraged to engage and ask questions, creating an open dialogue around Rebekka’s process and ideas.This event is free and open to the public. About the Artist:Rebekka Federle is a sculptor working primarily with wood and paper to explore the limits of empathy, domination, and the inconstancy of truth and language. Her work seeks to position the viewer in a state of benevolence from which they can decide whether or not to extend care. She is particularly interested in slapstick, peasant craft, and dogs.&nbsp;She earned her MFA from the University of Chicago, and holds a BFA in Woodworking and Furniture Design from the Maine College of Art. Her work has recently been shown at The Lawn (Chicago, IL), Cochran Woods Art Center (Chicago, IL), The Logan Center (Chicago, IL), and she has upcoming shows at Heaven Gallery (Chicago, IL) and Stove Works (Chattanooga, TN). She is currently a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.&nbsp;<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1769633421/bhr8cyhnie4vo5jtceub.jpg">

Artist Talk with Rebekka Federle

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

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