August 4 -September 8
JUSTIN NALLEY - THIS IS NOT A RAMP
Opening Reception: August 4, 2-6p / Closing Reception: September 8, 2-6p
This is Not a Ramp is:
- notice what’s important
- friends / fun / collab with past self
- boredom as beauty
- making things easy
- 4 cards Rhonda pulled for me - rejoice in celebration
- SPRINKLES
- the first hour of every diet
- the last chapter of every self help audio book mom suggested
- drawing / poetry / starting an Etsy account
- lower the feed dogs
- be uncomfortable
- do almost anything you want
Justin T. Nalley is an over sensitive, sober alcoholic, hypochondriac artist and poet working in the field of humanistic confessionalism. With an interest in human struggle and sentiment, his whimsical, often self-deprecating works explore the tribulations of one seeking 21st century self-actualization. Inspired by his desire for and aversion to health, Nalley’s work (often autobiographical) examines human thought, feeling and action; specifically, around topics such as addiction, love, food, hope, fear, shame and identity. Nalley works primarily through poetry, drawing, book making, installation and ephemera. Public poetry readings act as a gesture of vulnerability, a mission born from his belief in art making as therapy and communication. Through this process, Nalley simultaneously seeks to empower and become empowered. As an educator, he expands on these missions by integrating healing art practices into his teaching. Justin holds a BA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago and currently teaches ArtShop, a teen program at Hyde Park Art Center. He is an Adult Education Instructor of Photography at SAIC, where he also audits courses with a desire to strengthen both his personal practice and pedagogy.
June 2 - July 6
HOLLY HOLMES - ALL THOU LOST, BRING IT TOO DAY
Opening Reception: June 2, 2-4p
This is an exhibition of new work by Holly Holmes thinking about craft, process and care. Holmes uses hand altered porcelain casts to make stitching needles that vary by size, color and shape. At once fragile and strong, bold and delicate, she uses the needles to create a series of sculptures and a hand woven wall work. This new work marks a significant progression for Holmes as she begins to stake out new territories of representation and fabrication in her practice.
April 6 - May 11
PRISON + NEIGHBORHOOD ARTS PROJECT - THE LONG TERM
Opening Reception: April 6, 5-8p / Closing Reception: May 11, 2-6p / Film Screening and Discussion of “The Sentence” May 11, 4-6p
Between 2016-2018, artists, writers and members of the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project created a series of thematic works around long-term sentencing policies and the other long terms they produce: long-term struggles for freedom, long-term loss in communities, and long-term relationships behind the prison wall. These projects emerged out of classes and collaborative work at Stateville prison, where people are serving extraordinarily long prison terms (60, 70 and 80 years), often for crimes for which they would have already been released, had they been sentenced 30 years earlier, or in a different country.
The Long Term exhibition is travelling around Chicago to create discussion about life and long term sentencing, with the voices of incarcerated artists and writers at the center. The exhibition includes: an 13 minute hand-drawn animation and a series of works on paper made by artists at Stateville prison; a series of video interviews with people impacted by long term sentencing; an audio installation with formerly incarcerated people about carceral policy; and a portfolio of risographic prints made by 15 Chicago artists that accompanies a book titled The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Toward Freedom. The works in this exhibition examines the impacts of life and long sentences and demands an end to death by incarceration.
Curated by Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project
February 9 - February 23
MICHAEL LOPEZ and RONI PACKER - TWO SPREADS
Opening Reception: February 9, 3-6p / Closing Reception: February 23, 3-6p
Resisting boundaries that dictate convention within the arts, Lopez and Packer use the un-archival material of food with the hopes of forming memories; for this exhibition, the end game is anything but a sale. Typically known as object makers, they choose to explore new mediums as a supplement to those they are most comfortable using in the studio, opting instead to explore the mutual connections in which their friendship is grounded: a love of eating and a love of creating.
Inspired by the relationships between food and art, two of the artists’ great loves, Two Spreads highlights their passion for color and form. Creators in every way, Lopez and Packer pile mounds of homemade edible color onto a plate of canvas. Though these foodstuffs are the focus of the opening and closing events, they are unable to overpower the audience’s presence.
Lunch table as artwork, these spreads are made for sharing.
Michael Lopez is an interdisciplinary “bi-racial” UIC MFA native of Chicago. His mother is a public school teacher and last year he claimed only $3,400 on his taxes. For a detailed breakdown of his genetics and artwork please visit www.michaelplopez.com
Roni Packer is a painter who prioritizes the paint over the image. Her spacious paintings and installations are a terrain for material and formal explorations that invariably put color at their core. Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Packer moved to the United States in 2014. She received her MFA from The University of Illinois-Chicago in 2017, and was a BOLT resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition in 2017-2018. www.ronipacker.com
An essay by Lauren Leving will accompany the exhibition.