I currently have 15 drawings showing in the gallery at The Illinois Institute of Art-Schaumburg. The exhibition will run through March with an Artist’s Reception on Thursday, February 9 from 2:00-3:00 PM. The drawings include my series of 12 works entitled Sway and a series of 3 works entitled Adaptation.

I have a sketchbook included in Art House Co-op’s The Sketchbook Project. Each participating artist was sent a sketchbook with a unique barcode and chosen them to finish and send back. Once finished, the sketchbooks will be exhibited in major cities around the country starting at the Brooklyn Art Library and ending there in their permanent collection. Once back in the Brooklyn Art Library, patrons are able to check out the sketchbooks to view them in the library. The exhibition will be coming the the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago on May 3-4.

Time Signatures, the Coalition Gallery Resident’s last group exhibition, will be shown at 217 North Carpenter Street in Chicago’s West Loop through Friday, September 16. There will be a closing reception on September 16 from 5-7 and we will be open for the West Loop’s Gallery Crawl on Friday, September 9 from 6-8.

Different artists approach temporality in a variety of ways, but it is nonetheless an ever-present factor throughout the creative process. Artists navigate multiple temporal planes simultaneously, thereby creating unique “time signatures” that are particular to their process and subsequently embedded in the work of art itself. One can look at the brush strokes, scratches, and layerings of a painting and easily see the residue of these signatures; but they are also present in the editing techniques of the videographer, the collagist, the installation artist, and so on.

For Time Signatures, the metaphor of this musical term lends itself to a deeper reading of the group dynamic. The exhibition draws together artists of different backgrounds and working methodologies, each with their own unique artistic signature (with the temporal being one component of the sense of authorship and authenticity). When brought together in this group exhibition format, the different artists and their individual time signatures relate to one another in unexpected and exciting ways. Moments of harmony and discord allow the works to take on additional meanings as they relate to the works around them, whether in opposition or in unforeseen moments of synchronicity.

Coalition Gallery Artists participating in Time Signatures include Bryan Boomershine, Robin Dluzen, Jori Foreman, Nathalie Gribinski, Christie Helm, Bernell Loeb, Zach Mory, Brad Nugent, Dimitri Pavlotsky, Adrienne Pike, Sarah Rehmer, Shawn Stucky and Connie Wolfe. Time Signatures is curated by Steven L Bridges, Coordinator of Exhibitions and Teaching Artist at Marwen and Editor of the exhibition journal series Exchange Radical Moments.

An exhibition featuring work by Connie Wolfe, Christie Helm, and Andrienne Pike.

An exhibition featuring the work of Zach Mory and Robin Dluzen will be on display in the Project Space for the duration of Trail Mix.

Curated by Angela Bryant. Trail Mix continues through Tuesday, July 5:

Chicago Artists’ Coalition

217 N. Carpenter St.

Chicago, IL 60607

Take a hike in the new CAC exhibition space and encounter the nature-based work of Christie Helm, Adrienne Pike, and Connie Wolfe.

Through three separate mediums, these artists engage with the age-old tradition of artworks generated by our experience of the natural world. The paint, clay, inks and paper of Helm, Pike and Wolfe also push the boundaries of the visual tradition of nature, capturing and highlighting aspects of the natural environment with unique points of view. Helm’s bold palettes and brushstrokes are contrasted by Wolfe’s effortlessly subtle layering of tones and shadows, while Pike’s incorporation of physical indexes from the landscape helps bring the outdoors in.

Christie Helm’s abstractions of tree trunks employ vivid colors that quickly draw the viewer in, but it is their textured surface that encourages a longer stay.  Helm’s trees are symbolic of both growth and life, and she conveys this idea through her careful layering process.  Building up each surface through multiple layers of paint, the artist makes the journey just as important as the destination.

Natural elements are constantly infused into Adrienne Pike’s process of harvesting her own clay from a local creek to make her pottery, and her unique usage of horsehair brings an unexpected visual treat.  By allowing the hair to singe onto the newly fired pot, she creates an innovative mark-making tool that mimics both the beauty and unpredictability of nature.

Inspired by the rich textures and colors found in nature, Connie Wolfe uses paper to translate her meditative observations. Wolfe pays careful attention to shadows and negative space, always allowing plenty of breathing room within her work.  Viewers are not only left with a feeling of peace, but hopefully a desire to view nature in a more thoughtful way.

The Fire House Gallery
April 27-May 29, Opening on April 30 from 7-9 pm
605 Mulberry Street
Louisville, GA

Feb 25 – Mar 3
Centro Cultural Nicaragũense Norteamericano
Managua

Mar 9 – 16
Casa de los Tres Mundos
Granada

Mar 24 – Apr 8
Universidad Americana – Biblioteca
“Pablo Antonia Cudra”
Managua

Four drawings, Ghost Series, are also featured in Creating in the Wild Zone at the H.F. Johnson Gallery of Art located at Carthage College. This exhibit highlights the works created by female faculty and staff working at Carthage and I was the guest juror for the exhibition. It will be up through March 12.

An exhibition featuring works by three of the 2010-2011 Coalition Gallery artists: Connie Wolfe, Zach Mory and Robin Dluzen.

Opening reception Friday, November 12, 2010 (5:30 – 8:30pm)
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Light & Air addresses the notions of actual and illusionistic space through the work of three different artists who practice in a range of media, from the two-dimensional and the wall-bound, to the three-dimensional installation.

Connie Wolfe is inspired by the rich colors, patterns and textures in natural environments that typically go unnoticed. The resulting art becomes an emotional response to getting lost in the intricacies and layers. Organic shapes and tonal structures transform these realities into obscured identities through abstraction and enlargement in the artist’s work.

Zach Mory uses systems as his departure point, working on each piece until it feels exhausted. The mechanical nature of the rules he imposes is tempered by an instinctual awareness of the space in which he hopes each piece will go. His work becomes an unpredictable interpretation of each system through his hand rather than a pre-ordained conclusion.

Robin Dluzen’s interest is in “building” pictures using materials that do not reside completely within the field of art. Industrial and construction material are integrated into the artist’s content: contemporary and historical labor and industry. In addition, the nature of the material and imagery necessitates a laborious making process that is vital to the overall unification of meaning.

Light & Air continues through Friday, December 3, 2010. The reception and the gallery are free and open to the public.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday, 12pm to 5pm and Saturday, 12pm to 6pm, or by appointment. Ph. 773.772.2385. (Also open until 8pm on the first Friday of each month).