RECOMMENDED Slightly more than just a hole dredged during the last Glacial Maximum, subsequently filled with water, Lake Michigan stands prominently in the Chicago consciousness. Seeking to express the soul of perhaps the city’s single most common muse in his latest series of work, artist Jim Dee employs countless layers of swath-like strokes to embody this body’s chaotic and complex nature. The show consists of a six-by-eighteen-foot conceptual oil painting of Chicago’s aqueous centerpiece, surrounded by a constellation of fragments that seem directly sourced from the original. Though grand in scheme, the palpable result pans out to a cyan, cerulean and otherwise blue homogeny draped across the wall space of Marco Logsdon’s Pilsen gallery. In the central painting, the layers are in fact so liberally applied that the piece emulsifies completely, abandoning any sense of the diverse colors that lie beneath the surface. Chromatic similarities aside, the series feels, unlike Lake Michigan, utterly prosaic. (Patrick Klemz). Through January 5 at Logdson 1909
For Us: A Review of "Something from Something" at Engage Projects Kushala Vora and Adia Sykes’ collaboration "Something from Something" tells us as viewers that knowledge, art, creation, inspiration, love—really anything you can think of—has a place of origin.
Women Behind the Lens: A Review of "From Her to Eternity" Courtney Love curates on the street. Just west of Wabash on the corner of Eighth Street, there is a wall of stellar rock star images that includes a special collection made by women photographers over the years.
Looking Down: A Review of Bob Tanner at Perspective After the loss of his wife, Bob Tanner made two photography series, “At Ocean’s Edge” and “At Winter’s Edge,” that are shown in this meditative show filled with graceful visual poetry.
Microcosm: A Review of “Dialogues” at Patron Through each artist-relationship, "Dialogues" offers the viewer a rare opportunity to witness the direct connections that flow through the electric nervous system that both infiltrates and generates Chicago's art world.
Excavated Images: A Review of “Life Against Itself” at Patron For the better part of a decade, the L.A.-based artist has used a variety of bladed tools to make her signature alla prima monochromatic gestural abstractions. In the last year, however, the hand has cut off the knife.
