The new nature photography, which is quickly gaining space on Chicago gallery walls, comes in myriad forms and sensibilities, marking a genuine rebirth of the genre. In this exquisite show, Jeff Krolick shows us dense thickets of sere brush, berries and weeds in crystal-clear muted color prints; Brian Manci presents elegant minimalist black-and-white images that are dominated by off-white skies, except for bands of objects—a row of tree tops, a breakwater and a line of distant gulls—occupying the bottom eleventh of the print. Tim Schultz offers meditative color macro-studies of tiny objects—pebbles and bits of driftwood with intriguing shapes, variegated colors and multifarious textures—that he finds on the lakeshore and arranges in arresting sculptural ensembles in his studio, enlarging the shots that he takes of them to ten times their original size. All three contributors are masterful practitioners, each with a distinct sense of beauty and a critically reflective approach to their art; together they display the encouraging side of contemporary art’s freedom from convention and opportunity to individualize. (Michael Weinstein)
Through April 17 at the Illinois Institute of Art Gallery, 180 N. Wabash.
