Heaven Gallery

The Height Below
Elizabeth McCarthy, Soo Shin

“The body is our general medium for having a world.” - Maurice Merleau-Ponty
How do we move forward in the world where there is no definite answer or direction ahead? Often we have to reason and grasp at reality through the debris of our own darkness in which we cannot see our path. The exhibition The Height Below presents Chicago-based artists Liz McCarthy and Soo Shin’s recent works that explore the fear of uncertainty, and the struggle in having faith in something we cannot prove. This collection works reference body and ritual as mediums in search for small epiphanies in the unknown path ahead of them.

Liz McCarthy is an artist and arts organizer based out of Chicago. Her work combines photography, sculpture, and performance to explore our psychological framing of experience. She regularly shows work throughout the Midwest, most recently at the Comfort Station in Chicago. She has participated in residencies such as Atlantic Center for the Arts, ACRE, and High Concept Laboratories, and has been honored with fellowship support from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Illinois Arts Council, and Chicago’s Department of Tourism.

Soo Shin was born in Seoul, Korea and currently lives and works in Chicago. She holds an MFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago. She is interested in the uncertainty in having faith in the unknown and turns the psychological struggle into physical experience through the latency of body in her sculpture, painting, and drawing. Her work has been shown in various locations in the states as well as abroad.

Katie Klocke and Minji Kwon in Concert
Featuring works by
Bach
Cage
Mozart
Sibelius
Paganini

$5-10 Suggested Donation

Violin recital featuring McKenna Glorioso.

Program:
-Paganini Caprice No. 5
-Dvorak Violin Concerto, 1st movement
-Mozart Violin Concerto No. 4, 1st movement
-Bach Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, 1st and 4th movements

Accompanied by Mary Drews

McKenna Glorioso is an American violinist based in Chicago. She first studied violin with Frances Simpson in Michigan and, most recently, has been studying with Aurelien Pederzoli and Ilya Kaler in Chicago.

She has worked on the chamber music repertoire with Stephen Balderston, Janet Sung, Elias Goldstein, Jason Moy, Olga Kaler, and George Vatchnadze.

In the past season, she has had the privilege to play for Shmuel Ashkenasi, Gerardo Ribeiro, Desiree Ruhstrat, Cyrus Forough, Mimi Zweig, and Aaron Berofsky.

McKenna has held the position of Concertmistress of the DePaul Chamber Orchestra and was Assistant Concertmaster for the North Shore Chamber Orchestra and the MasterWorks Festival Philharmonic Orchestra. She has played under the baton of conductors such as Dr. Cliff Colnot, Michael Lewanski, Mischa Zupko, Delta David Gier, and Darryl One.

An avid proponent of New Music, McKenna was a part of Ensemble 20+, the DePaul University School of Music New Music ensemble.

She plays a violin on generous loan by Dr. Wilhelm Schlag.

$10 suggested donation ($5 for students)

Long Fall: work by Meghan Grubb
&
Resistant Structures: work by Peter Hammar

October 17-November 30

In Long Fall Meghan Grubb engages in a process of translation, giving formal consideration to the experience of physical phenomena and unseen natural forces through her sculpture, photo, video and installation work. In her sculpture series, Grubb collaborates with the forces of gravity and magnestism to create pristinely composed sculptural wall pieces. Viewers are invited to interact with these pieces, to break the magnetic attraction at play. The pieces are transformed in this way, shifting between a show of strength and weakness. There is a sense that she is searching for equilibrium, embracing the power of these energy forces, yet drawing out a precariousness in trying to harness them in physical form. It is the tension, the push and pull, created through this attempt at balance that makes for the most compelling moments in this series.

Resistant Structures, a new series by Peter Hammar examines ideas of physical structure in parallel to the inner-workings of an artist’s process. In “The Naked Blind Paintings” video piece, Hammar is blindfolded and sequestered to a corner of a room with canvases on the walls and paint filled glass containers all about. The artist stumbles through this space, covering himself and the canvases with paint, removing the clothing as it becomes saturated and ultimately painting himself into a corner, naked and alone with the resultant art work. The subsequent corner canvas and clothing worn by the artist are exhibited alongside the work itself. Hammar’s works allow a glimpse at the often hidden engineering of an artwork, both through revealing the literal construction of an artwork and nodding to the emotional and psychological underpinnings of an artistic practice. As the work oscillates between form and content, and ideas such as destruction, entrapment and impermanence come into play, ultimately we’re lead back to the physicality of creating.

MEGHAN GRUBB received her M.F.A. Art + Design from the University of Michigan in 2012, and her B.A. History + Studio Art from Wellesley College in 2005. Meghan’s exhibition record includes group and solo shows, collaborations, and site-specific installations. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Norway, Finland, Spain, and Thailand, and nationally at the Sculpture Center in Cleveland, the Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Los Angeles, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Meghan has received numerous awards and grants, including the American Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship for 2012-2013 and a recent nomination for the Joan Mitchell Foundation 2014 Painters and Sculptors Grant Program. In 2014 and 2015, she will participate in residency programs at Paul Artspace in Saint Louis, the Wassaic Project in New York, and Vermont Studio Center.

More information about Meghan Grubb can be found at meghangrubb.com.

PETER HAMMAR was born in Sweden and combines his work between Stockholm and Miami. Hammar graduated with a Master in Fine Arts from Florida International University 2012. Peter has exhibited his work extensively at institutions all over the US. Recent exhibitions include such as; 'Zeitgeber' - Time Giver, Solo Exhibition Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, '6th All-Media Juried Biennial' Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, 'Off The Wall' Danforth Museum of Arts, 'Discrepant Modernism' The Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum in Miami, 'International Arts Festival' 2012 - MORA The Museum of Russian Art New Jersey. Peter Hammar's first solo museum exhibition 'Mapping Empty Spaces' was at the Swedish American Museum in Chicago in 2014. Peter is the recipient of several awards such as; 'GRAND PRIZE' winner of 'Art Takes Miami', ‘1st Prize in painting’ from both Alexandria Museum of Art and The National Arts Club in New York, ‘Honorable Mention’ from Art and Culture Center of Hollywood’s ‘All Media Juried Biennial’ in Florida 2013 and most recently Peter was awarded a Honorable Mention in Miami New Times Master Minds Awards, for being one of Miami's 30 most inspiring creative persons 2013.

More information about Peter Hammar can be found at www.peterhammar.com.

Artist featured include:
Academy Records
Benjamin Zellmer Bellas
Judith Brotman
Ann Chen
Laura Davis
Meg Duguid
Jason Dunda
Andreas Fischer
Charles Fogarty
Jeffrey Grauel
John Henley
Andrew Holmquist
Carol Jackson
Kevin Jennings
Larry Lee
Jinn Bronwen Lee
Steve Reber
Daniel Schmid
Mindy Rose Schwartz

Curated by: Paul Hopkin

Chicago redesigned itself after the Great Fire. That was just the first rebirth of its cultural scene. More recently, there was the grand fire that devastated the River North gallery district in 1989 that gave rise to dirtier, scrappier, more independent artist venues. Other fires, other afters. After always tries to be better.

Sometimes we get impatient. We want better sooner. We want to redo the f****d up parts so the sewage doesn’t back up into our bathrooms. To fix that deeply, we have to clear away.

The fires of our history were terrible accidents that devastated who and what was there. It's an entirely different beast that sets the blaze in defiance. Does the end justify the means? We hardly think so. No guarantee that our end will approximate our better intention, just as likely paving the undesired path.

Mutual Ruins

Daniel Luedtke
Sarah Mosk
Nicole White

Mutual Ruins presents recent work by Daniel Luedtke, Sarah Mosk, and Nicole White. Through collage, sculpture, and photography, each artist creates work that emphasizes the elimination of a previously held idea of space. Through both literal and conceptual destruction, the work repositions elements, often abstracting the pictorial plane. Taking seeming neutral surfaces, such as walls, corners, and windows, theses works use geometric composition to illuminate and embrace this previous life, creating insightful ruins in their wake.

Daniel Luedtke lives, labors and loves in Chicago and makes art between several mediums such as drawing, sculpture, video and music. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute in 2013 and has exhibited work nationally and internationally in spaces such the Walker Art Center - Minneapolis, Devening Projects - Chicago, the Tom of Finland Foundation - Los Angeles, Sue Scott Gallery - New York and NP3 Gallery - Netherlands.

Sarah Mosk was raised in the suburbs of Chicago and received her BFA from Northern Illinois University. Her work has exhibited internationally and in Chicago at the the Midway Art Fair, The Hills Asthetic Center, Western Exhibitions, Ben Russell, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Roxaboxen, Nudashank in Baltimore and Nada art fair in Miami.

Nicole White is a photographer, curator, historian, and writer. She currently works as Assistant Director of Schneider Gallery, Adjunct Faculty at Wilbur Wright College, and equal operator of 3433, an experimental arts space in Old Irving Park. She holds a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art (2002), an MA in Art History from the University of Connecticut (2010), and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2012). Recent selected exhibitions include: High Tide, Dossier Outpost, New York, NY (2014), Chicago Style, David Weinberg Photography, Chicago, IL (2013), and Process of Subtraction, Chicago Art Department, Chicago, IL (2013), Homeward Found, Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY (2013).

TJ Proechel and Daniel Shea present an exhibition which explores notions of history, landscape and mythology. Their installation of objects, images, and texts considers landscape's ability to create national and social identities. Proechel's project reimagines the historical process of translation by considering it as a site of colonization. His project traces the first Spanish missionaries in the San Francisco Bay, the character, "Worf," from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and his grandfather, Reverend Glen Proechel's, translation of The Bible into the Klingon language. Shea's photographs explore the meaning and social value of post-industrial debris and conditions as told through the narrative of a fictional coal town, Blisner. The work is extracted from a forthcoming monograph that focuses on the facade of Blisner's downtown area and the city's attempts to maintain the veneer of a former and more prosperous moment. Anchored by two opposing landscape photographs that establish sites of locality and research, the exhibition presents a collaborative selection of objects and individual works that compile recent projects and possible new directions.

New work by:
Christopher Ottinger
Bea Fremderman
Adebukola Bodunrin
Matthew Schlagbaum

In the land of thieves and ghosts

Historically, the proto-science of alchemy signified an effort to sublimate base metals into gold, distill life-extending elixirs, and divine universal solvents out of common, household items. Alchemy is a “sciencey” practice that deals in paradox, wonder, and the transmutation of the mundane into the miraculous. Similarly, artists are in the business of creating works that transcend their material origins, pose nebulous questions, and embrace the improbable.

The alchemists of the old world shrouded their work in mystery and mysticism. Alchemical texts, like some artworks, are notoriously inscrutable, often written in a language of symbols only decipherable to their authors. Alchemical artists are not explicitly invested in the practice of being obscure or secretive, but they do encourage speculation concerning the overall meaning of a particular work. Alchemical artists conjure more than they create, summoning unfamiliar apparitions from familiar materials.

Not unlike the specters in one of Etienne Gaspard Robertson’s 19th century phantasmagoria, F.W. Murnau conjured demons and magic for the screen in his 1922 film, Nosferatu. (The phrase, “In the land of thieves and ghosts,” is taken from a title card in the film and refers to the homeland of Nosferatu’s vampiric antagonist, Count Orlok). The flickering of light and shadow in Murnau’s film transports viewers from the black cube of the cinema to a land that is both wondrous and alien. IN THE LAND OF THIEVES AND GHOSTS has similar goals in mind.

Like Murnau, artists Buki Bodunrin, Bea Fremderman, Christopher Ottinger, and Matthew Schlagbaum create works that are at once familiar and strange and that elicit something ethereal from the materials they use in their artistic concoctions. Fremderman and Schlagbaum, for example, frequently make use of construction materials and kitsch artifacts, creating ghostly forms out of readymade objects and images. Bodunrin and Ottinger, conversely, deal more with the interplay of light and shadow, optics and illusion. The spirits they summon function as non-corporeal foils to Fremderman and Schlagbaum’s concretized ghosts.

A contemporary notion of alchemy—mandala-wielding metaphysicians and mystics aside—signifies an impulse towards experimentation and discovery unencumbered by the restrictions of institutionalized thinking. Likewise, the images and objects here are not designed to satisfy a particular hypothesis or prove a theory. Rather, these works represent the unexpected results that can emerge from free-form experimentation and play. Though varied in form, the mark of the alchemist is present throughout the exhibition, lurking in the shadows like the iconic and haunting silhouette of Count Orlok himself.

HERE LIES SPACE
April 4th-May 11th

work by Robert Burnier, Aron Gent, Heather Mekkelson, Robert Chase Heishman and Jessica Taylor Caponigro

An excursion longer than the journey. A mudslide over a mountain pass. A road sign blown over by the wind. Something taken, put back, and taken again. A badly worn fragment of carpet. An archipelago.

Aron Gent is an artist, photography printer and art organizer residing in Chicago, IL. He received a degree in photography from Columbia College Chicago. Gent is a co-founder of MDW Fair, Director/Founder of printing/exhibition space DOCUMENT and Board member for the ACRE Residency. His photographic work is built around project-oriented investigations including images of family, familial settings, self, and intimates that are both poignantly quotidian and quietly surreal. Gent’s work is in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum and has been exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center, Houston Center for Photography, Chicago Cultural Center and the Kohler Arts Center. His curatorial experience includes Transparent Reflect (2009), an exhibition of nine artists exploring portraiture and self-portraiture, and Hic et Nunc (2008), a survey of new guard photography. He currently teaches photography at the School of the Art Institute and Columbia College Chicago.

Heather Mekkelson lives and works in Chicago. Solo and two-person exhibitions include Now
Slices at 65GRAND, Invisible Apocalypse at Roots & Culture; Heather Mekkelson at +medicine
cabinet; Limited Entry at Old Gold; Debris Field at threewalls; and Out Land at STANDARD (all
Chicago, IL.) Her work has also been in group shows at The Museum of Contemporary
Photography (Chicago, IL), The Figge Art Museum (Davenport, IA), The Poor Farm (Manawa,
WI), Raid Projects (Los Angeles, CA), and Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA). Mekkelson's work has
been written about in Art Journal, Broadsheet, Time Out Chicago, New City, Chicago Tribune,
Artforum.com and others. In 2012 she became an Artadia Award Chicago awardee.

Robert Burnier is an artist and writer who lives and works in Chicago. He is an MFA candidate in Painting and Drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. He is currently represented by Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, and has shown his work in numerous exhibitions in Chicago, New York, Miami and Los Angeles. He writes for Bad at Sports and Chicago Artist Writers, and has lectured at several Chicago area universities.

Born in 1984, Robert Chase Heishman completed his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2008 and his MFA from Northwestern University in 2012. Utilizing photography, sculpture, and video, his artwork explores self-referentiality, conditions of framing, flatness, and the peripheral. He has collaborated with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as a Décor Artist on the work, Split-Sides, provided artwork for Icelandic band Sigur Rós’ album BA BA TI KI DI DO, in addition to exhibiting both nationally and internationally. Heishman's work is held in the collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Walker Art Center. He currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.

Before receiving her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Jessica Taylor Caponigro attended Bryn Mawr College where she earned her BA in the History of Art. She has taught classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Olive Harvey College and currently teaches at Harold Washington College. Caponigro is also the director of Andrew Rafacz Gallery. In addition to solo and group shows in Chicago, her work has been exhibited in Long Beach, Philadelphia, and Rome. Her work is in the permanent collections at California State Long Beach and the Joan Flasch Artists’ Books Collection. More of her work can be seen at www.jtaylorcaponigro.com.

Heaven Gallery and DOCUMENT are pleased to present, Layered and Exposed, a group exhibition with artist’s Elizabeth Atterbury, Scott Cowan, Owen Kydd, Phillip Maisel and Erin Jane Nelson.

Layered and Exposed is a group exhibition exploring collage in contemporary video and photographic practices. The artists in the exhibition vary from studio-based constructions, digitally made collages and visual assemblages made using the camera.

www.wikihow.com/make-a-collage

How to Make a Collage

A collage is a work of art composed of numerous materials, such as paper, newsprint, photographs, ribbons or other objects attached to background support, such as plain paper. A collage can even be made with physical materials or electronic images, attaching them to a digital background. Originating from the French word "coller", meaning "to glue", the collage allows you to experiment with a wide range of materials to achieve amazing end results. This article provides a sample of the many possibilities limited only by your creativity and imagination.

1- Choose a style of collage. By definition, a collage should be made up of several different pieces. Those pieces can be made of all sorts of items, such as paper, yarn, fabric, stamps, magazine cut-outs, plastic, raffia, foil, labels, lids, matchsticks, corks, natural items (bark, leaves, seeds, eggshells, seashells, twigs, etc.), buttons, and so forth. You can either choose one medium such as paper or fabric, or you can make an eclectic mix, such as paper, buttons and foil

2- Choose a suitable backing. While a paper or cardboard backing is the usual choice, the backing can be anything you consider will work well. For example, a backing could be blotting paper, card stock, fabric such as a piece of hessian (burlap), newspaper, old book covers, wood, smooth bark, plastic, etc. If the surface is usable and items can be stuck to it, you can probably use it for making a collage.

3- Hoard the materials for future collages. As you become more proficient at and enthused about making collages, you'll probably start seeing opportunities in all sorts of materials. Be sure to keep a special collage materials box for collecting the pieces in.

Elizabeth Atterbury received her MFA from MassArt in 2011. She has shown her work recently at Bodega (Philadelphia), Tyler School of Art (Philadelphia), The Center for Maine Contemporary Art, and the Chelsea Art Museum (New York, in conjunction with The Collectors Guide, Vol. 2, Humble Arts Foundation). She lives and works in Portland, Maine and is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Art at Bowdoin College.

Scott Cowan lives in LA and is pursuing a masters degree in theology and philosophy. Scott was born in 1986 in Kansas City (he grew up on the Kansas side). His interests include political theology, cultural criticism, philosophy of mind, and investigating the social structures of language. Previously Cowan completed a BA in photography.

Owen Kydd lives and works in Los Angeles. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and a Masters degree from UCLA. His works have been exhibited in soloexhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery and Nicelle Beauchene Galleryin New York, and in group exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Galleryin Vancouver, the Surrey Art Gallery, and the Daegu Biennial in SouthKorea.

Phillip Maisel was born and raised in Chicago. He graduated from McGill University in Montreal with a B.S. in Psychology and from California College of the Arts in San Francisco with an MFA in Visual Arts. He is the only two-time recipient of the Yefim Cherkis Scholarship for Photographic Excellence. His work has been shown in galleries both nationally and internationally and is included in multiple collections. Phillip resides in San Francisco, and he teaches photography at California College of the Arts and The Nueva School.

Erin Jane Nelson is an artist and writer based in Oakland, California. She studied at The Cooper Union School of Art, Malmö Art Academy (Sweden), and Oxbow School (Michigan). Recent Projects include Kantan An Libe Tavleau at Forever & Always (Chicago), Love's Labor's 1 at Important Projects (Oakland), Broon published by Gottlund Verlag (Los Angeles), and www.stilllifelive.com.