Renee McGinnis's, in her paintings show "Empirical Eternity", presents the ominous and its positive aftermath, the overgrown. In the Lab: "Automatic Embroideries" (drawing with thread) by Deborah Slabeck Baker.
MAIN GALLERY: Renee McGinnis Empirical Eternity paintings
Renee McGinnis¹ Empirical Eternity presents the ominous and its positive
aftermath, the overgrown. Impending disasters, painted with a luscious
hand, confound the viewer. What is made in that factory and what event led
to this huge billowing cloud of smoke? Why do these power plants look like
they are about to burst into flame? And who set the wheels in motion for
all of this to happen? These are the questions McGinnis asks with these
allegorical paintings. They serve as beautiful warnings to us all, speaking
visually about humanity, triumph, and tragedy and how these dualities
co-exist.
The Palace Floor series takes this ominous tone and turns it on its head.
She shifts to the future long after a cataclysm has occurred. Organic
topiaries now surround obsolete man made monoliths. A lush hyper-green
landscape, with cracks like mud cracks in a drought, is painted like a
seductive mosaic floor. This is the antidote for the disasters, covering
these segments of earth in all manner of lush vegetation, growth and hope.
Once useful and glorified temples of progress, they now seem to haunt us
with their mysteriously manicured grounds.
BIO-- McGinnis grew up on a farm in central Illinois and attended Illinois
Wesleyan University, earning a BFA in 1984. McGinnis did graduate work in
sociology and anthropology at the University of Chicago. Her work has been
exhibited widely in Chicago and has also been shown in Germany, Australia,
New York City, Washington D.C. and Baltimore, Md. McGinnis was selected by
jury for inclusion in "The Artist Project 2007", a show running concurrently
with "Art Chicago" Merchandise Mart West, Chicago, IL. Her curatorial debut
was "The Chicago Solution Show 2003" with the late Ed Paschke as juror,
then again in 2005 with Art Institute of Chicago curator of contemporary
collections, James Rondeau.
LAB: Deborah Slabeck Baker Automatic Embroideries (drawing with thread)
This is the first serious art that Baker has made in nearly 25 years. She¹s
been occupied with family and children and dance had been her creative
substitute. In the last year and a half she started making these
embroideries and they have just been pouring out of her. They are a
synthesis of all her past media and efforts.
There are many references: needlework, samplers, hankies, silhouettes, and
Folk Art. But they are also very personal, as this kind of work can be.
She thinks of them as drawings, or poems/stories. She works directly on the
fabric with thread -- no pre drawing or marking of the fabric. And this
years one of Baker¹s images is being used as a holiday card for The Art
Institute of Chicago!
Image: Renee McGinnis
Opening: Friday, November 30 6 9 PM
Aron Packer Gallery
118 N. Peoria - Chicago
Tuesday Saturday10-5.30
Free admission