Simple Pleasures
Liz McCarthy, Caleb Yono, Selina Trepp, Raul de Lara, Ryan Pfeiffer & Rebecca Walz
Curated by Iris Bernblum

This show is a love letter. From one artist to another. To those who give me hope in the wake of a new post-election reality. Absorbing the pain I was feeling myself and from those around me, I realized it’s more important than ever to speak to the issues presented here. I came to this show with the body and pleasure in mind.

To put it simply: These artists work with the body, sexuality and gender in ways that push, seduce, and play with us. They bring forward the complexities of our bodies and minds with what it means to be seen, touched, hurt, and loved. What it means to be human.

For me they are magicians in the studio, taking us to places that feel true and full of life. They all invite us to engage on an intimate level; one cannot look and look away. The afterimage stays. It sinks in.

“And now, after living beside you all these years, and watching your wheel of a mind bring forth an art of pure wildness - as I labor grimly on these sentences, wondering all the while if prose is but the gravestone marking the forsaking of wildness (fidelity to sense-making, to assertion, to argu- ment, however loose) - I’m no longer sure which of us is more at home in the world, which of us more free.”

-Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

Heaven Gallery 
1550 N. Milwaukee Ave, 2nd Floor
Chicago, IL

Recital featuring Henry Zheng, Dmitriy Melkumov & Ilya Vanichkin

works by Brahms, Dvorak, Vitali, Kreisler, Rossini and Shostakovich 

Henry Zheng dedicates himself to making Western art music accessible and relevant to all audiences, with a heavy bias towards the repertoire of the violin.  Henry also has a special interest in cross-discipline collaborations and performing in diverse settings – recent performances include a fashion show, a live liquid latex-painting event, and a candle-lit midnight performance in a renaissance era church.  Born and raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Henry moved to Chicago in 2010 in study with nationally renowned pedagogues Olga Kaler and Janet Sung at the DePaul University School of music.  Other notable teachers include Desirée Ruhstratt, Anne Shih, and Aurelien Pederzoli, as well as performances in master classes for Midori Goto and Almita Vamos.  Henry has performed all over the world, notably as a soloist at the Casalmaggiore International Music Festival in Casalmaggiore, Italy, and the Vegas Cultural Exposition in Zhu Hai, China.  He has also toured the continental United States extensively as a featured violinist with the Eric Genuis ensemble.

Dmitriy Melkumov holds degrees from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and the DePaul School of Music, where he studied extensively with legendary violinst Ilya Kaler. He began playing violin at the age of 7. In 1994, Dmitriy was invited to attend the Uspensky Music School in the city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he joined the studio of Professor Nathan Mendelssohn. In 2001 Dmitriy immigrated to the United States.  Shortly after, he made his US performance debut with the Ars Flores Symphony Orchestra, playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. The following year Dmitriy was a winner of the New World Symphony concerto competition and most recently he won DePaul University Concerto Competition. 

Ilya Vanichkin, born in Moscow, earned his Bachelor's degree at the Moscow Conservatory, Master's degree at Eastman School of Music, Performer's diploma at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, and Artist's diploma at the Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts at IU South Bend where he was a member of the Toradze Piano Studio.  Currently, he is pursuing a Performace Certificate at DePaul University School of Music. Among many awards, Mr. Vanichkin is a prize winner at Citta di Barletta," "Maoro Paolo Monopoli Prize" (Italy 2006), "Corpus Christi" (United States 2007) and "Chautauqua" International Piano Competitions, IU South Bend and Andrews Concerto Competitions in 2012. He has appeared in many concerts and recitals throughout the United States, Russia, Japan and Italy.  

Heaven Gallery, 1550 North Milwaukee 2nd Floor, Chicago, IL 60622
Hours: Friday & Saturday 1-6 pm 

Opening Reception: March 18 2016, 7 - 11pm
Show Date: March 18 2016 - May 8 2016

For this is the place, Jenny Buffington and Jessica Harvey explore mysterious geographies with sculpture, installation, and photography. Using artifacts and layers of artifice, these landscapes are deconstructed and re-examined, projecting a human element in environments void of people. Both artists implore the viewer to question what is ‘real’ in nature, accentuating the unattainable feat of re-creating these natural monuments and environments. These photographs and sculptures are the tipping point in the search for something greater. 

Artist Statements

Jenny Buffington
Within Jenny Buffington’s practice, she is examining humanity’s complex relationship with nature: how we project ourselves onto it, see images in it, search for the best view point, attempt to enhance it, and attempt to conquer it. It questions how we relate our bodies to nature and how our sense of self is altered in or by nature. She is seeking to address time, space, and the human condition; simultaneously using the environment as a metaphor for the self and as a method for escapism. These current sculptures reference geological formations that investigate material, color, texture, scale, and shape. This work questions how these formal aspects can be a relation to the canon of sculpture while still examining the topic of how we see and perceive our environment.

Jenny Buffington is an artist based in Chicago. She received her MFA from Tyler School of Art in 2008, and a BFA from Herron School of Art in 2005. She was a full fellow at Vermont Studio Center in Burlington, VT and an Artist in Residence at CAC Woodside in Troy, NY. Buffington was awarded a public commission for Pogues Run Park in Indianapolis and has exhibited at Crane Arts, PA; Temple Gallery, PA; Flux Space, PA; and the VCU FAB Gallery, VA. 

Jessica Harvey 
Jessica Harvey is a Chicago-based artist who explores the myths we create for ourselves and nature while trying to preserve a more desired history. Digging through public and private archives, she conducts long-term investigations on historical and personal events based on “facts,” reinterpreting these stories through the use of photography, video, archival resources, and objects constructed from everyday materials. The images and installations act as a catalyst for a fantastical exploration of the psychology that one attaches to memory and place, In this particular body of work Harvey uses the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop to the UFO Watchtower in Hooper Colorado, turning the lens onto fragments of one woman's search for something greater. This Colorado site was built atop two vortexes in the mystical San Luis Valley, where people look to the mountains and skies above for answers.Jessica Harvey received an MFA in photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2009 and a BA in film and video from Columbia College in 2005. She was awarded a Fulbright Grant to Iceland for the 2011-2012 year. She has attended residencies at ACRE, Anderson Ranch, Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, Hardesty Arts Center, The Luminary, and Vermont Studio Center. She has participated in group shows at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (Grand Rapids, MI), Johalla Projects (Chicago, IL), The Center for Contemporary Photography (Detroit, MI), and the Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI). Recent solo and two person exhibitions include shows at Black Hills State University (Spearfish, SD), Hardesty Arts Center (Tulsa, OK), ACRE Projects (Chicago, IL), Good Weather (North Little Rock, AR), and The Luminary (St. Louis, MO).