On Anxiety at the College of DuPage-- August 31st to October 13th, 2018

I curated a show at the Cleve Carney Art Gallery at the College of DuPage titled, On Anxiety. 

ON ANXIETY
AUGUST 31 - OCTOBER 13, 2018

Reception: Saturday September 8, 3 to 5 p.m.
Curator Talk: Monday, September 10, noon to 1 p.m.
Artist Talk Moderated by Scott Hunter: Saturday October 6, 1 p.m.

Some artists make funny paintings, some make sexy paintings, and others make serious paintings. This however, is a group show about anxious paintings. The work in this exhibition was not created to help us deal with the anxiety we may have. Instead anxiety is baked into the work and is largely responsible for its content. This show may answer questions like, “What are some of the causes of anxiety and what does anxiety tell us about ourselves? Does anxiety have a purpose? Can it be funneled into something useful?” There is plenty to be anxious about right now-- health care, immigration status, reproductive rights, and the environment are just a few subjects that might occupy your thoughts. But what about that low-grade, ever present anxiety, the kind that you wake up with and have learned to ignore? Soren Kierkegaard wrote extensively about that kind of anxiety and the danger of losing yourself. If you lose your wallet or your keys, it doesn’t take long to realize they’re missing, but when you lose yourself you can go months or even years without noticing.

Featuring work by: Matthew Bollinger, Alexander Bradley Cohen, Jennifer Dierdorf, Ethan Gill, Justin John Greene, Mika Horibuchi, Hai-Hsin Huang, Ben Murray, Veronika Pausova, Celeste Rapone and Brandi Twilley.

Hai-Hsin Huang, Birthday Party, oil on canvas, 2014

I was written up in the Chicago Tribune:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-on-anxiety-show-dupage-20180820-story.html

Windows, Doors, and Mirrors-- September 1st - 22nd, 2018

My solo show, Windows, Doors, and Mirrors, opens September 1st from 6 to 9pm at Roman Susan Gallery and runs until September 22nd. It was chosen by Bad At Sports as a top five weekend pick!

What color is a mirror? A perfect mirror is white, but real mirrors are not perfect. Real mirrors have a slight greenish tint that is barely perceptible, but we don’t really see that. The color of a mirror appears to be the color of whatever surrounds it. Making a painting of a mirror is an attempt to paint the unseen and unnoticed. It is an exercise in looking and an attempt at real awareness.

When systems function well, we hardly notice them, but when they break they become visible. For example, our bodies work continuously to maintain homeostasis, but when we become ill is when we become aware of all of this invisible effort, of how good we used to feel. Mirrors become more visible when they are dirty or dripping with streaks of glass cleaner, when the mirror is not functioning how a mirror is supposed to function.

In these paintings, a window is reflected in the mirror. A window is another framing device. It is an object that is hard to see. We don’t see the window, but we see through it and we see the things around it. We are compelled to look out a window, even if the view is not picturesque. Schopenhauer wrote that when we look out a window that view lets us forget our striving for a moment. The light hits our eyes and we use that moment to relax. The window is a respite from the struggle to see the mirror and makes the mirror understandable.

These mirror paintings come from of a larger series about cleaning. They deal with surface – streaky wet mirrors, glassy windows, and sun-streaked floors. They also reflect what is just beneath that surface – that women give thousands of hours of unseen physical and emotional labor to the people around them. Learning to paint is about learning to see – to notice the hue, saturation, and value of the objects around us. But I would add that painting is also about learning to acknowledge these things that are right in front of us and to care about them.

–Gwendolyn Zabicki