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13/1/2003

Chicago Artists

Viridian Artists, New York

Viridian Artists is pleased to present a group exhibit of works featuring 18 artists from the Chicago area represented by the Fine Arts Building Gallery, located in downtown Chicago. The show opens January 14th and extends to February 1, 2003. There will be an Artists' Reception on Thursday, January 16th, 5-7pm and a second opportunity to meet the artists will occur over coffee, conversation and slides on Saturday January 18th, 3-5pm. This exhibit is the first part of a two part exchange, the second to be an exhibit of Viridian Artists showing in Chicago at the Fine Arts Building Gallery in July of 2003.

Featured are the works of nineteen artists from the Chicago area: Mary Ellen Bartyzel, Roger Bole, Bob Brasher, Charles Gniech, Daniel Godsel, Mary Graham, Tom Graham, Kathleen King, Marion Kryczka, Roland Kulla, Elizabeth McKay, Irene Maloney, Sophia Pichinos, Diane Pivonski, Deborah Pieritz, Jim Tansley, Mel Theobald and Blair Trueblood, and Frank Vodvarka.

The group shares a commitment to the vitality of the visual image that extends from traditional formats and materials to those more contemporary and technology driven work. The works range from smaller, paper-based media, such as pencil and watercolor to large paintings in oil and acrylic, and from semi-sculptural works in mixed media to freestanding sculpture.

As the formats and media of these 19 artists reflect a wide variety, so too does the content. Primary themes are the special character of particular places, the urban experience, and the content-laden quality of materials. Another common characteristic is that of introspection, the powerful quiet of a time and place critically examined. Thus Godsel, McKay, Tansley, Krycka and Tom and Mary Grahams' recent work describes those brief encounters with very specific places, and the dark side of the seemingly ordinary.

The dynamic inherent in urban sights is explored by Bole, Brasher and Kulla through the use of concentrated attention and, in Kulla's case, heroic scale. The whimsical, poetic constructions of King, Pieritz, Trueblood and Vodvarka, and explorations of materials by Bartyzel all address the magic inherent in the nature of things, and the rich, even spiritual metaphors that result. The same references to timeless values and the power of place may also be found in the work of Gniech and Pivonski, although in a very diverse form.

All the artists confront the inherent drama in looking hard at the world - in this case an urban world - and drawing imagistic inferences. Bole refers to Chicago's sense of history and human drama, and Brasher to the "imposing structural surroundings," while Gniech, in reference to decidedly non-urban phenomena, refers to "markers of time and transition." Structural, even architectural details appear in the work of several of the group, including the Grahams, Kulla and Vodvarka, and spatial fantasy appears in the richly painted surfaces of King and Trueblood.

While the work of this group of artists is diverse in format and media, it is grounded in a mid-western appreciation for the coupling of poetic vision with solid, serious craft. Appropriately, the Fine Arts Building Gallery is located in a National Landmark building on Chicago's Michigan Avenue, designed in 1885 by Solon Beman. The words encountered as one enters the building are: All Passes - Art Alone Endures.

Image: Kathleen King, INSIDIOUS, TOO, 2002, 36" x 36" x 1" mixed media on canvas

For more infomation, please contact the gallery.

Hours: Tues. - Sat., 10:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.

VIRIDIAN ARTISTS, INC.
530 West 25th Street #407 New York, NY 10001
tel/Fax: 212-414-4040

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