Sunday, February 25
1PM

HEAVEN IS A PLACE is proud to present a halo of talks, presentations and performances on and for other exhibitions and contexts. Including but not limited to Ross Jordan, Hope Esser, Lorelei Stewart, Tamara Becerra Valdez, Stella Brown, Ruslana Lichtzier, Kathe Bowen, Brandon Alvendia, Anna Showers-Cruser, Becky Bivens and Danny Floyd, our bill includes artists, art historians, curators and critics drawing from and on and into the great beyond, a multitude of media and mediums, feminist futures and what an art is even for. Or from. Doors open at 12, performances start sharply at 1. Be there or -ware.

Coffee donated by Starbucks.

There is also a film screening at the Nightingale Tuesday, March 6 at 8PM

Join Heaven Gallery and Dove Muzik for a musical performance with Princess Kazayah featuring Wadadah and Ras I-Dre.
Gather your closest friends and celebrate the new with positive vibes.

Princess Kazayah's aims to touch as many hearts as possible and point them to a better tomorrow. Through her music, she wishes to show the people a positive way to live and to look at life no matter what circumstance they are facing. Her music brings light, joy, and most of all peaceful vibrations. With the voice of an angel mesmerizing her audience with soothing sounds & harmonies, she causes automatic “feel good” vibrations and thought provoking meditations. Her music is one of a kind and is a blend of R&B, Gospel, Roots-Reggae, Lovers Rock & Dub.

Doors open at 9
Performance at 9:30pm
$10 suggested donation
Refreshments provided

Shanelle Mitchell "Princess Kazayah" was born & raised in the city of Evanston that borders Chicago. She was born to two Jamaican parents and grew up in the 7th Day Adventist Church from her youth. That has given Kazayah a deep spiritual essence in her music. She is used to singing at her church from a very young age. After connecting with local producer Ras Wadadah II, who exposed her to original roots-reggae, she found a deep love for the King's music. Her music is regarded as angelic when hearing her soft melodic voice and her uplifting lyrics in praise of the Most High.

Kazayah is busy working with D.O.V.E Muzik's band as well as working hard in D.OV.E Muzik studio on projects of her own as well as collaborations with various artists. In Summer of 2014 she released a mixtape entitled, "Troddin: The DubTape" with 12 songs on the project. She then went on to be featured on a new release by D.O.V.E. Muzik & Riddim Yut Productions called "Chimurenga." She has even indulged in the craft of producing her own music as well as others for her musical family.
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After performing live for the first time in 2013 locally in Evanston she has went on to perform on stages all around the Chicagoland area as well as Jamaica, Belize, Mexico, California etc. In 2015 she performed alongside some of Reggae music's top up & coming artists such as Dre Island, Cali P, Micah Shemaiah, Mr. Williamz, Keida, Exile Di Brave, Suns of Dub, Pentateuch, The Uprising Roots Band, Kelissa McDonald and more. Recently in Chicago Kazayah has performed at the Wild Hare, "the reggae capital of the Midwest," alongside her D.O.V.E. Muzik family. Since the she has performed at various shows around Chicago, also opening up for Sizzla along side her D.O.V.E muzik family when he came to Chicago. Most recent Kazayah has teamed up with Warrior King for a single (remix)/ music video that was released on June 9th 2017 distributed by VPAL music.
 

Alchemist

Cole Pierce, Esau McGhee, Kelly Kaczynski 

Presenting three alchemical practices, each focusing on construction and speculative philosophy, working intuitively to transmute materials and language into the experiential equivalent of turning lead into gold. Coming from different contexts and conceptual bearings, these artists begin with base elements: simple geometry, primary colors, and raw materials.

Pierce implements a relief painting process by taping off geometric-based grids and applying several bold gradients of acrylic. The tape is removed to reveal rigid layers of accumulated paint that have formed triangle, square, and circular shaped patterning across the canvas. Although his use of geometry is informed by the Op Art movement of the late twentieth century, he dedicates his practice to confronting the expectations of the errorless, measured precedent set by Op Art. His subtle inconsistencies and evident brushstrokes violate this expected, calculated abstraction and lend itself toward a more unpredictable form. The interruptions circumvent the viewer’s perception and create a phenomenological experience by challenging the viewer’s ephemeral transition between comprehension and delusion.

Esau’s studio practice represents an archive. Years of accumulated and excavated material rest throughout the space similar to an anthropological study. This approach allows Esau’s work to move through materials and work across multiple mediums to invent new ways to give material form to language. Dealing with current concerns ranging from displacement to systemic violence on those deemed as other… There is a misnomer that through project “completion” some ideas are laid to rest, but over time these things are always present as material and remnants or actions are reassessed and reintroduced, catalyst are created between works from the past and present ideas.

Kelly Kaczynski is an artist working within the language of sculpture.

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Cole Pierce received his MFA from Northwestern University and received his BSS in Art and Sociology from Cornell College. He has recently exhibited at THE MISSION, Roman Susan and Johalla Projects. He received a DCASE (Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events) grant in 2016 and was a SÍM (Association of Icelandic Visual Artists) resident in Reykjavík, Iceland. He recently completed a 60’x11’ mural in the Rogers Park neighborhood, funded by the 49th Ward. He lives and works in Chicago, IL.http://www.colepierce.com/

After receiving an MFA from Northwestern University in 2013, Esau has gone on to be a HATCH resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition. He’s also turned out challenging exhibitions such as Economy of Movement at Harper College, Blackitolism at Sector 2337 and 80 Blocks From Tiffany’s at Elastic Arts. Esau has also exhibited in New York and Los Angeles. http://esaumcghee.tumblr.com/

Kaczynski received an MFA from Bard College, NY and BA from The Evergreen State College, WA. She has taught with Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Chicago, University of Pennsylvania and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Kaczynski is currently a Lecturer with the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, IL. http://kellykaczynski.com/

This project is partially supported by an Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, as well as a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, a state agency through federal funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Façades

An exhibition by Frances Lightbound and Ella Wearing

Ella Wearing and Frances Lightbound are UK-born artists who have been residing in the US for the past three years - Frances in Chicago, and Ella in New Jersey and New York. Centring upon a shared interest in notions of the façade - as it relates to appearance, perception and reality, as well as in the architectural sense - this exhibition shows recent sculptural, installation, and lens-based works by each artist, as well as works on paper. Having previously collaborated in 2014 on a three person show in London, in which they explored connections between their immediate urban environments of London and Glasgow respectively, the two artists come together to find new points of conversation amongst their approaches to urban space in their specific, but potentially disparate, locations. 

On recent trips back to London in 2017, Ella Wearing has been re-engaging with her home neighbourhood, which has featured as a point of research in previous work. She seeks to grapple with memories of home amidst ferocious urban change, and begins to look further back into the rich local history of her neighbourhood, and the monuments that have survived - namely a 151 foot Victorian clock tower that stands at the centre of it all. She uses google maps to create drawings and videos, which become virtual simulations of a memory, such as the walk to school. This once recurring route is mapped out onto its present architectural configuration of the area, since its past one is no longer accessible. By using devices of repetition and cyclical patterns in her work, as well as visual layering, merging, and fragmentation of architectural forms, Ella attempts to piece together some of the complex attitudes and associations we have towards our urban surroundings, and how these relate to other places we might have inhabited with varying degrees of intimacy; nostalgia, alienation, detachment, powerlessness, order, design, pathos, play - all become intertwining thoughts that drive her work. 

Frances Lightbound’s work examines objects, structures and materials that effect and enforce divisions of space with varying degrees of subtlety – barriers, fences, thresholds, window shades. Remaking, fragmenting and shifting the context of these familiar forms, she produces two- and three- dimensional work that employs degrees of abstraction to encourage multiple associations while retaining a critical subtext. Her work is driven by an interest in the spatial, social and linguistic roles of objects and structures: how elements of a built environment produce space in both the physical and psychological senses of the word, and how these objects materialize (and support the functioning of) more abstract systems such as law, capital and property ownership. Recent works combine domestic references with those drawn from urban space, introducing elements of uncertainty to delineations between personal and public spaces and considering the varying degrees of agency we may or may not have over our surroundings. 

Ella Wearing has exhibited in and curated various group exhibitions in the UK and the US, and was most recently included in an exhibition at Ille Arts in Amagansett, NY in April 2017, and an exhibition in London called Monopoles in October 2016. In 2014 she was a contributor for Central Saint Martins academic arts journal ‘Unknown Quantities’, before moving to the US to pursue her MFA at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, where she graduated in 2016. She obtained her BA (Hons) in Painting and Printmaking from The Glasgow School of Art in 2012.

Frances Lightbound is based between Chicago and Glasgow, Scotland. Her work has been exhibited in venues in the US and UK, including a solo exhibition at DEMO Project, Springfield, IL in 2017, and she has recently curated projects for Kruger Gallery (Chicago) and the Terrain Biennial at Enos Park (Springfield, IL). Frances has been awarded the Luminarts Visual Arts Fellowship, Field Notes Fellowship, EAGER Grant and the New Artists Society Award, and is a 2016–2017 HATCH Projects artist resident at Chicago Artists’ Coalition. She earned her MFA in Printmedia from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016, and a BA (Hons) in Painting and Printmaking from The Glasgow School of Art in 2012. 

Image, Provisional Construct I, by Frances Lightbound.