Past Exhibitions
John Nicholas – September 2024
“I like to travel, and I take numerous photographs, almost always thinking they might become part of a painting. Favorite subjects: mountains and rushing water, waves, city life, panoramas, and vistas; sometimes people. My paintings are all of places I’ve travelled. Favorites are the American West and especially Colorado.”
John is an engineer by training and a college professor in business by trade. All of his paintings are pastels, and he devotes a lot of time to thinking about and planning each painting, though he frequently tweaks the painting and deviates from the plan. Working evenings and weekends, each painting takes 3-6 weeks to complete. John is largely self-taught and became interested in art before grammar school. He considers each painting to be a new learning experience and somewhat of an experiment.
Bruce Riley – August 2024
Phantasma is an exhibition of hypnagogic paintings by Bruce Riley. The paintings range in date from a couple of years before the Coronavirus to the present. Riley’s luminous visions blur the line between abstraction and figuration. Working without preconception, his paintings are developed as much as painted. With no sketches to guide him, Riley works on multiple paintings that help to define each other as they grow. Bruce would like to thank the city of Chicago for his 2023 Individual Artists DCASE grant.
Priya Tripathi – July 2024
With over 15 years of experience, Priya found her passion in the subject matter of still life (and occasionally, landscapes). Her love of vibrant color and impasto led her to the Old Masters and the style of impressionism. Through expressive brushstrokes and careful placement of color, Tripathi can portray three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface.
Michael Turner – May 2024
Mike Turner’s work revolves around the theory that what free time technology provides us with results in the need for more activities, entertainment, and distraction. This desire to not be alone in our own thoughts permeates into our architecture and landscape. Our needs and their physical expression then share an everbonded relationship growing and altering each other through time.
Patricia Patterson – April 2024
Patterson’s paintings create narratives with collected objects, collective memory, and a nod to art history. While the objects are chosen for their color, their placement results in relationships that suggest complex human relationships, archetypes and messages. The series was created in Mexico City and many of the rich cultural traditions of Mexico can be seen in the work.
Patterson, born in Illinois, is currently the Chair of Fine Arts at Loyola Academy. She worked and painted in Mexico City for the last 25 years and has a new studio in Evanston.
Angela A. McElwain & Sheryl Nieman – March 2024
Angela A. McElwain is a multi-media artist whose studio is in Chicago. Her media includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, and, recently, graphic novels. She was an Artist in Residence in Chicago when she created and installed a series of interior murals for the Logan Square Library. The selected work is from Angela McElwain’s NAL (Not A Landscape) Series. The work is drawn from real places which are then reimagined with color, texture, and atmosphere creating a sensation, mood or energy. No landscape exists here except for the one implied in the imagination.
Sheryl Nieman is a painter working in oils and acrylics. Her canvases are chosen to compliment the story being told and have varied from linen, muslin, board, and glass to walls, ceilings, floors, and objects. Her current style of painting has an obvious division of space, no longer a dash or a dot but a fragmentation using line and flow to divide areas of color. The effects of color and light are examined and explored to create the appropriate mood of the story.
Amber Keene – February 2024
Amber Keene is an art teacher in Northbrook. Her background includes a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Art Education From University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Art Education from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“I am in constant awe of the beauty that can be found in this world we live in. As an artist I try to capture that feeling of inspiration, using oils and a mixed media approach. My landscape paintings are a result of my travels in the U.S. and abroad and the pieces in my self-portrait series consist of resin, oils, and collaged images from nature. The photo portraits were taken by photographer Bill Furlong, resulting in a beautiful collaboration between two artists.”
Beverly Alice Nash – January 2024
Beverly Alice Nash is a Chicago-based painter with a BA in English and an MA in Gerontology. She is also a member of the Chicago Alliance of Visual Artists (CAVA) and the Art Encounter Critique Group.
“I paint the things that come into my eyes. Lately I’ve been focused on full length portraits of my friends and family. I especially like to paint big men because I am moved by the solidity and sensuousness of their bodies. My portraits should penetrate the surface and recognize the temperament and personality of the person portrayed. I slightly alienate viewers from reality so that they can see reality freshly through my eyes.”
Annual Students & Instructors Show – December 2023
We are celebrating the return of our Student Show! Stop by for a wide selection of artworks in all mediums from our most proficient artists to our first-time students, and some items from the vault!
This exhibit and sale are a perfect opportunity to get started on your holiday gift list! Artworks in pastel, oil, acrylic pencil and charcoal will be on display.