September 5 - October 31
Show Opening Reception: Friday, September 5, 5-8 pm
Architectural Fiction |
Kathleen Waterloo
"...colors shimmer up through layers of wax to cause instaneous seduction"
-
Alan G. Artner, Art Critic, Chicago Tribune, September 12, 2008
Considered one of our city's prolific encaustic artists,
Kathleen Waterloo has been represented and exhibited at the Melanee Cooper Gallery for almost ten years.
Waterloo's encaustic paintings are inspired by an architectural vernacular. Her abstract vocabulary is observations of architecture through plans, elevations, scale, lines and grids. Her perfected technique of the encaustic medium is evident in her abstracted geometric forms embedded in layers of thickly layered wax, partially transparent and aggressively expressed with drips, irregularities and vibrant colors. Characteristics of
Waterloo's work are evident in her progression with an artistic voice that changes and resonates with each new body of work. This is
Waterloo's sixth solo exhibition with the gallery.
Please also join us for an artist's talk with
Kathleen Waterloo on October 24 in collaboration with
Chicago Cultural Center's Chicago Artists Month
Gallery II
Postcards from a Sunken City |
Miranda Lake
Miranda Lake's work combines one of the oldest, most archival forms of painting with the digital darkroom creating a bridge and exploring the tension between past and present, both personal and collective. Suspended figures in a collaged landscape of old ledgers, maps, and vintage kimono scraps bathed in beeswax create a sense of displacement and timelessness and invite the viewer into a world where not everything is as it first seems.
Themes of rebirth and potential have been the primary focus of
Lake’s work since Hurricane Katrina with a focus on the absurd contradictions of what it means to live in postdiluvian New Orleans while grounding these impressions in a very personal iconography. Inspired by her own collection of found objects, curiosities, and imagery,
Lake has opened the door into a world of domestic surrealism where fantastical dreams and stark realities coexist as one.
July 18 - August 31, 2008
Cheryl Warrick and
Tremain Smith
Show Opening Reception: Friday, July 18, 5-8 pm
Nationally known artist
Cheryl Warrick weaves densely layered visual elements of symbols, patterns and text with abstract landscapes to create an archetype of language that searches for wisdom in her paintings. In addition to her private collections and art reviews, for over twenty years
Warrick has been included in over fifty museum and corporate collections. Selected collections:
AT&T, Banana Republic, Bank of Boston, Federal Reserve Bank, General Electric, Harpo Studios, Lucent Technologies, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, and University of Chicago.
Tremain Smith's paintings draw from spirituality and the world around her. Earthly shpaes, patterns, and colors create a grid and structure which reveal themselves through encaustic layers. Order and chaos embrace the beautiful with deterioration.
Smith is exhibited throughout The United States, many public and private collections include the
Lancaster Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, United Embassies, Dubai, and Visa Corporation.
June 6 - July 5, 2008
Gallery Artist Group Show
Show Opening Reception: Friday, June 6, 5-8 pm
michael cutlip
Michael Cutlip's paintings are a series of discoveries and expressions through the artist's unusual use of color, sometimes including narrative or displaced images. In addtion, his abstract paitnings work horizontallly through color and content createing an unusual dialogue with the viewer.
john dempcy
Concepts derived from definitions of modulation and modular design guide the direction and expression of Dempcy's paintings. With these concepts in mind, drops of paint systematically applied to a grid allow the artist to explore shape, color, pattern, tone, rhythm, and mood. The resulting serial pattern coalesces into an integrated whole, revealing processes and forms that reverberate in nature
matthew dennison
Dennison combines his sometimes distorted scale of figures and interior rooms or exterior surroundings that reflect and personify an earlier era in time. When using remote elements intertwined with personal or historical events, Dennison creates a new language exploring meanings and associations. The highly glossed surface of his work is another element that adds to the voyeuristic sense of separation. The figures and background do not seem to interact, while each occupies their own sense of space.
wade hoefer
Wade Hoefer is well known for his highly realistic landscapes, which create an atmostphere of mystery and warmth. A well-established artist, Hoefer's works have, over the past four decades, found their way into museum and corporate collections including Microsoft, Estee Lauder, and Bank of America.
michael kessler
Applying over 100 layers of acrylic paint with a trowl, Kessler's unique lacquered surfaces are a combination of nature and architecture. Kessler's work is included in ore than 20 museums and fifty corporate collections. Winner of the Pollack/Krasner award and Romeo Prize, Kessler's artwork has been revieweed in Art In America, Art News, Art Forum, New Art Examiner and Architectural Digest among many others.
jeremiah ketner
Ketner is a Chicago based emerging artist influenced by Japanese anime and pop art, while manifestion a utopian land with his mythical creatures and landscapes in his paintings.
miranda lake
A survivor of hurricane Katrina, Miranda Lake is a mixed media artist from New Orleans, recreating and interpreting a new sense of place. Combining found and old family photographes, while using a digital archival printing process with figures, maps and letters, mythical landcapes emerge. In addition, Lake paints the surface with oil and a layer of encaustic wax that adds to the luminosity, dimension and mystery of her work.
monica reede
Monica Reede's latest collection of paintings are created with a particularly engaging process. To make her mixed-media abstractions, Reede paints in oil, placess a Plexiglas layer over the paint, then etches the Plexi.
jill sutton
Biology and astronomy are the impetus for the motion in Sutton's abstract oil paintings. Sutton's higlhy detailed approach appears like cells dividing and multiplying into a new universe.
April 18 - May 31, 2008
More Exuberance Please" by
alicia lachance
Show Opening Reception: Friday, April 18, 5-8 pm
Alicia LaChance, Lindell Blvd, 36 x 48 inches, oil and fresco on canvas
Ancient worn temples and the fluency of Japanese printmaking are the inspirations for artist
Alicia LaChance's paintings.
LaChance uses fresco on canvas, spontaneously painting layers as well as scraping into these works. As the pigment is stained into the wet plaster, the image and color start to appear. Afterwards, she transfers transparent glazes of oil onto the painting, creating a lacquered surface which adds to the Asian references.
The sepia toned nature expressed by using tar with resin also imbues an antiquated quality mixed with a strong graphic abstraction of color and shape. The powerful combination and reaction of color, shape and surface creates a visual tension of material and subject that lends dynamic energy to the painting. The vignettes of color and shape create a dialogue between the abstraction and the natural quality in the imagery of painting.
The fresco on canvas creates a tactile surface, juxtaposed with a shiny veneer. Combining color with the material translates an ancient undertone of material and immaterial as well as content of surface and substance.
LaChance's work was recently acquired by the Flat files, Contemporary Museum of Art, Saint Louis, Missouri. Her work is also included in many other corporate and private collections.
February 8 - March 29, 2008
allen bentley
Show Opening Reception: Friday, February 8, 5-8 pm
Allen Bentley, Wire, 28 x 77 inches, oil on canvas
Energy: spinning, connecting, pulsating energy. This is what binds us together. We move through space while ripples of
energy reach out and grab those around. If you've ever been close enough to someone to feel them without looking, you know.
The focus on dance is an exploration of this energy as it winds around a swirling hip and the waiting embrace or vibrates
between two almost clasped hands. The awareness of proximity tingles through the couple as they whirl through the air, intoxicated.
November 16, 2007 - January 19, 2008
Green is the New Black in collaboration with CoolGlobes
Show Opening Reception: Friday, November 16, 5-8 pm
Miranda Lake,
The Answer's in Forgetting, 36 x 32 inches, encaustic and mixed media on panel
Mike and Doug Starn,
Black Pulse 6 23 x 15 3/10 inches, lambda digital c-print
Deborah Brown,
World on a String
24 x 20 inches, oil on canvas
Jill Sutton,
Ember, 20 x 20 inches, oil and graphite on canvas
Melanee Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition-
"Green is the New Black," Joining together with the
Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet, Melanee Cooper Gallery curates a thematic group show of emerging and established artists in paintings, photography and mini-globes. This environmental exhibition is to inspire individuals and organizations to take personal and corporate action by implementing simple solutions to help address global warming.
Select works by: Brandon Ballengee, Deborah Brown, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Michael Cutlip, Matthew Dennison, Melissa Doherty, Terry Evans (courtesy of Catherine Edelman Gallery), Samantha Fields, Julie Gross, Jeremiah Ketner, Alicia La Chance, Miranda Lake, Carrie Lederer, Amy Lowry (courtesy of Ann Nathan Gallery), Peter Mars, Richard Misrach (courtesy of Catherine Edelman Gallery), Chen Nong (courtesy of Marta Schneider Gallery), Mike and Doug Starn, Jill Sutton, Vicky Tesmer, Lee Tracy, Angelina Villanueva, Ann Wiens, (courtesy of Byron Roche Gallery) and David Weinberg.
A percentage of the works sold at
Melanee Cooper Gallery will be donated to
Cool Globes, and will go toward funding environmental education programs. For more information on this organization, please visit the Cool Globes Website at www.coolglobes.org.
September 7 - October 27, 2007
"Blue, Green, Magenta Series" work by
Dieter Mammel
"Young Marie Series" work by
Marilyn Holsing
Show Opening Reception: Friday, September 7, 5-8 pm
Dieter Mammel
Marilyn Holsing
Melanee Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition-
"Blue, Green, and Magenta Series," featuring work by Berlin-based artist
Dieter Mammel. This body of work presents three phases of monochromatic paintings in blue, green and magenta and is part of a larger series that is being exhibited this year in Istanbul and Berlin.
Mammel's choice of color is inextricably linked to the emotive and sensual qualities that he finds inherent in the respective chromatic fields.
Dieter Mammel's work has been described by Thanassis Moutsopoulos as a metaphor of painting as shadow, crime, ruin, delirium, trauma, and even painting itself. The monochromatic style allows for these notions to be expressed as thoughts removed from the words that state them to the images that give a sense of them. Following the direction of Platonic allegory in
Mammel's work one is confronted with questions of intended narrative and meaning. The ethereal watercolor paintings seem to permeate the space creating a sense of an eerily absorptive reflection and fascination with the non-explicit narratives. These senses, however, are fleeting. "In some of the images, [memory] appears merciful, tender and accommodating; in others, mysterious and deceptive, even utterly blind; ultimately fading and dispersing around the edges." (Christoph Schutte) Mammel received his M.F.A. from Hochschul Berlin in 1991. He has since participated in many group and solo shows worldwide including exhibitions in numerous museums such as: Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki; Frisia Museum, Spanbroek; XIV. Internationale Grafik-Triennale, Frechen; Chelsea Art Museum, New York; Kunstmuseum Boras; and Universitatsmuseum, Leningrad.
Mammel's work is also in many private and public collections.
Gallery II features the work of
Marilyn Holsing. The work is selected from
Holsing's "Young Marie Series" and tells the fantastical tales of the fictional character Marie based loosely on
Holsing's conceptions of Marie Antoinette. In this work Marie is an incarnation of the ironic dichotomy between Antoinette's fascination with intricate decadence and agrarian simplicity. The eccentric paintings depict humorous narrative where Young Marie's mischief leads her to tightrope walking, fire eating, and stargazing.
Holsing's work hinges upon an imaginative use of narrative through figurative representations; with a fairy tale provenance the "Young Marie Series" can be seen as a contemporary incarnation of Alice in Wonderland for adults.
Holsing is a professor of studio art at Temple University's Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Her work has been included in shows at the Drawing Center in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the Allentown Art Museum, the Delaware Museum of Art and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. Her works are also in many private and public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the University of New Mexico.
For more information or images, please contact the gallery.
July 13 - August 25, 2007
Visistories Artists
miranda lake and
matthew dennison
Gallery II:
All the Glitters by
jeremiah ketner
Show Opening Reception: Friday, July 13, 5-8 pm
Miranda Lake
Matthew Dennison
Jeremiah Ketner
Melanee Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition-
"Vistories" featuring work by
Matthew Dennison and
Miranda Lake. Both artists use the figure and landscape to create a visual history. While
Dennison’s work blends imagery from past and present culture,
Lake uses old family photographs, maps, stamps and other collectables with encaustic to create a mood of nostalgia.
Matthew Dennison’s work “ties current histories and personal events together to create a new type of dialogue.” For instance, in his painting “After Tornado,” a young boy pulls a small child in a red wagon, both dressed in a mid-twentieth century style. The boy, however, holds a blue i-pod in his hand.
Dennison’s paintings reference the past, through the clothing of the figures and the background landscapes. On one hand, his paintings are a pastiche, juxtaposing imagery from early Americana and contemporary society. On the other hand, none of the paintings' figures make direct eye contact, and in this way
Dennison comments on the alienation that technology causes in modern society.
Dennison graduated from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and has exhibited throughout the United States as well as England. His work is included in the collections of the Tacoma Art Museum, Washington and Legacy Emanuel Hospital, Portland, Oregon as well as other private and public collections.
“The innocence of youth dies a million little deaths as we grow older. I am simply trying to capture the first whispers of its demise.” New Orleans based artist
Miranda Lake creates dreamy, ethereal landscapes that are inhabited by scrap paper moons, ripped map hills and oceans, and old photographs of birds, shells and people. They often appear to be underwater scenes on dry land, with bubbles floating to the top of the panel, and aquatic plants composing the landscape. The photographs of people and the new landscapes they inhabit are buried beneath layers of encaustic, which references ancient Egyptian funeral portraits. This is
Miranda Lake’s first show with Melanee Cooper Gallery as well as in the Midwest. She has exhibited widely on the East Coast as well as in Italy and Hungary and was a featured artist in the New Orleans Museum of Art Triennial in 2005.
Lake has a B.A. in Art History from the University of North Carolina, but has studied at both Parson’s School of Design and London College of Fashion. On the hunch that she needed to learn to paint, she studied the encaustic technique in Snowmass, Colorado as well as in New York.
Gallery II features the work of
Jeremiah Ketner, in his show entitled
“All That Glitters.” His paintings depict imagery reminiscent of animated graphics and pop surrealism. Wide-eyed figures soar through the panel over a background of flowers, rain clouds, swirls and stars. Yet the energy of imagination emanates from
Ketner’s paintings with an air of sophistication.
Ketner received his M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University, and has been exhibiting nationwide since then. He was recently featured in Arrow magazine as well as New York Arts Magazine.
April 20 - June 30, 2007
Rank and File work by
kathleen waterloo
Gallery II:
Fluid work by
jill sutton
Show Opening Reception: Friday, April 20, 5-8 pm
Kathleeen Waterloo
Jill Sutton
Melanee Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibitions-
"Rank and File," featuring work by
Kathleen Waterloo, and
“Fluid,” work by
Jill Sutton. This exhibition presents the work of two exemplary Chicago-based artists. While
Waterloo uses encaustic and architectural nomenclature as the basis for her work,
Sutton’s paintings allude to biological or astronomical phenomenon through oils and acrylics.
Kathleen Waterloo’s encaustic paintings are inspired by her observations of architecture that she finds in the urban environments around her. In this two part series, the term “rank” is derived from the ranking hierarchy of rodeo bulls in their chutes while “file” represents the floor plans of international airports. It is these ideas that make up the foundation of
Waterloo’s compositions. Her perfected encaustic technique illustrates the vocabulary of architecture: plans, elevations, scale, lines, grids, and surface, all of which are evident in the abstracted geometric forms embedded in layers of wax.
Waterloo pursued a career in Interior Architecture for 20 years before returning to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for her degree in painting in 1996. Since then, she has exhibited widely throughout the United States, Canada and Europe and was a featured artist in the Fort Wayne Museum of Art 2004 Biennial. She is included in collections throughout the United States and Europe.
Jill Sutton relies on much of the same ideas that are found in Waterloo’s work. Her work blurs the line between astronomy and biology; the investigation of surface, space, pattern, structure, and atmosphere play a role in the abstracted circular forms she creates. As these shapes and colors react with one another on the canvas, they create a new, indeterminate landscape. This is
Jill Sutton’s second show at
Melanee Cooper Gallery. She has also exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as well as throughout the Midwest and West Coast. Her work is included in the collections of the Illinois Institute of Art, the Elmhurst Museum of Art, Illinois, the Mercedes Benz Corporate Office, and ING America, as well as many other public and private collections.
For more information or images, please contact the gallery.
March 16 - April 13, 2007
Music of Spheres and Rhythm of Squares Artists
tracey adams and
michael cutlip
Show Opening Reception: Friday, March 16, 5-8 pm
Tracey Adams
Michael Cutlip
Melanee Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition-
"Music of Spheres and Rhythm of Squares" featuring work by
Tracey Adams and
Michael Cutlip. This exhibition explores the melodic balance found in compositions of circles and squares. The work of both artists fill the room with a visual harmony reminiscent of an orchestrated concerto, moving the use of geometric designs into other realms of sensory perception.
Tracey Adams'paintings explore the "interplay of color, line, and shape where relationships of harmony and balance" are concerned. Circles, grouped into orderly grids or intersected by lines, play off one another by her use of color. Due to the encaustic medium she uses, the circles have a luminosity that resonates from within. While
Adams' paintings distinguish themselves through geometric means, it this same use of geometry that hints at the works underlying theme of melody through our visual perception.
Adams graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and has exhibited throughout the United States. She has had recent shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, California as well as the Monterrey Museum of Art, California. Her work is included in many private and public collections such as the Monterrey Museum of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, as well as the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens in Texas.
Michael Cutlip uses the grid as a backdrop for vignettes, infused with recognizable objects, patterns, textiles and shapes as well as made-up creatures and abstractions. The grid itself is cream and white; each square stands out due to the placement of each object within the frame. His use of color, repetition of shapes, and arrangement of both narrative and abstracted vignettes vibrate on the panel, leading the eye through new experiences contained within specific parameters. This is
Michael Cutlip's first showing with
Melanee Cooper Gallery as well as in Chicago.
Cutlip has also exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and widely throughout the West Coast. His work is included in the collection of the Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, California, as well as many other public and private collections.
For more information or images, please contact the gallery.
December 1, 2006 - January 30, 2007
The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama Artists: Richard Avedon, Guy Buffet, Dario Campanile, Enrique Martinez Celaya, Chuck Close, Bernard Cosey, Alain Despert, Era and Don Farnsworth, Losang Gysato, Yoko Inoue, Andra Samelson and Mike and Doug Starn.
Also showing paintings by
alicia lachance
Show Opening Reception: Friday, December 1, 5-8 pm
Andra Samelson,
Bamiyan Reborn III, 28 x 36 inches, pigment prints on paper
Mike and Doug Starn,
alleverythingthatisyou, 40 x 40 inches, Fujiflex and duraclear lambda print
Alicia LaChance
Melanee Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition-
"The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama.” The exhibition's goal, to create an international audience for recognizing the urgent need for world peace, is carried out by both celebrated and emerging artists. Their work addresses themes of compassion, unity, impermanence, spirituality, community, exile and nonviolence. This exhibit brings together twelve artists and includes painting, mixed media pieces, sculpture and photography.
Chuck Close and
Richard Avedon represent the Dalai Lama through portraiture. Close’s “Dalai Lama” is representational of his other large, iconic portraits, while Avedon photographs the Dalai Lama surrounded by monks.
Losang Gyatso’s painting only depicts the Dalai Lama’s feet, illustrating what one sees while bowing to His Holiness.
Dario Campanile’s painting, “La Pace e con Noi (Peace is with us)” shows the Dalai Lama holding a newspaper with the headline “Missing Peace Found”. Other works reference Tibetan history and culture, as seen in a painting by
Alain Despert and a comic by
Bernard Cosey.
Andra Samelson’s blue Buddha prints,
Era and Don Farnsworth’s tapestry, “Dharmakaya”, and
Yoko Inoue’s ceramic water bottles, convey ideas of spirituality, while
Guy Buffet’s painted commentary of “His Holiness and the Bee” and
Enrique Martinez Celaya’s diptych of a lightning storm and mirror explore ideas of consciousness and compassion.
Mike and Doug Starn’s photograph of an icy white snowflake is, according to the Starns, a metaphor for “all everything that is you.” The piece comments on snowflakes in general; simple and complex, the snowflakes, much like humans, are similar yet different in many ways.
This exhibition is in conjunction with The Dalai Lama Foundation and Committee of 100 for Tibet. The traveling exhibition of the same name is currently showing at the Loyola Museum of Art (LUMA), which is one of the three venues for this exhibit in the United States. A percentage of the proceeds of the limited edition work sold at Melanee Cooper Gallery will benefit The Dalai Lama Foundation and Committee of 100 for Tibet. For more information on either of these organizations, please visit the website for The Missing Peace Project at www.tmpp.org.
Melanee Cooper Gallery will also feature paintings by
Alicia LaChance, which are inspired by ancient temple walls. The show, entitled,
Natura Moderna, combines printmaking with contemporary graphic symbolism as well as references to nature. Her uses of fresco and oil glazes implement the power of color and their reactions to each other. This is
LaChance’s first show at Melanee Cooper Gallery. Her work has been shown in New York as well as other Midwestern venues, and is in a number of collections, including the Kate Spade Office, New York and Gap, Inc., San Francisco.
For more information or images, please contact the gallery.
October 20 - November 30, 2006
Nature's Way Artists:
andrea maki and
peter roux
Gallery II:
cheryl warrick
Show Opening Reception: Friday, October 20, 5-8 pm
Andrea Maki
Peter Roux
Melanee Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition - "Nature's Way" featuring work by
Peter Roux and
Andrea Maki. Both artists observe and document nature around us: Roux makes us stop and observe and Maki helps us to identify with our connection to nature.
The Hudson River School, which was prevalent in the early19th century, helped to shape the American landscape. Thomas Cole and Frederic Church are two of the most prominent painters from this movement. They believed that all landscapes possess their own distinct individuality and subsequently attempted to depict the vastness of wilderness in relation to man. The contemporary work of Roux and Maki, like the Hudson River School artists, each grapple with the notions of the sublime potential of landscapes.
Peter Roux's work, most reminiscent of classic landscape painting, causes us to examine the space between the viewer and the painting. Although no specific landscape is rendered, each is very familiar. He adds other features, such as a blurring of the image, as if we are viewing the landscape in motion, or thick black lines that suggest a frame of film. This reminds us that the landscape is not a reality, but a subjective record of what once existed. Roux has exhibited widely across the United States including the Federal Reserve Gallery in Boston as well as Martha's Vineyard. He received his Master of Fine Arts, and Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees from the Massachusetts College of Art located in Boston. His work is included in the collections of Fidelity Investments, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, as well as many other public and private collections.
Andrea Maki's animals in motion reflect her relationship with nature. Her work assimilates painting, construction, assemblage, photographic processes and found signage/materials and is as much about the materials incorporated as it is idea-based. Due to the reflective nature of the aluminum she creates on, the viewer is able to literally see themselves in the work and become one with what is seen. Born in 1966, Maki graduated from NYU in 1988, and has work in collections nationally, including the National Museum of Women in Art, Washington DC, New York University and the new Washington Convention Center, Washington DC.
Gallery II features the work of
Cheryl Warrick. She uses symbols, text, landscape and abstraction in a “visual quilt” that explores both collective memory and inner wisdom. Warrick’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Federal Reserve Bank, Philadelphia, PA, Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, RI, and Harpo Productions, Chicago, among others.
For more information or images, please contact the gallery.
September 8 - October 14, 2006
New Works by
Susan Hall
Show Opening Reception: Friday, October 20, 5-8 pm
Susan Hall
Melanee Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition- "Susan Hall: New Work.” Textural and ethereal, Hall’s paintings are a visual metaphor for private reflection and public acceptance.
In the tradition of female figure painting, Susan Hall's work follows some of the same characteristics as Dutch painter Jan Vermeer's tronien, or faces, which portrayed women in dramatic lighting and theatrical costume. The tronien in his paintings are well known for their strong sense of character and expression, as in his most famous work, Girl with a Pearl Earring, which exemplifies all of these well known characteristics. The same qualities of light and gesture play an important role in staging Hall’s figures theatrically: hands folded, seemingly deep in thought, sometimes with eyes closed or staring off into the distance. The monochromic palette suggests stage lighting, although in some paintings, the figures appear to be outdoors, with clouds and sky in the background. Soft, yet dramatic, light emphasizes the folds in fabric, and gives glimpses of facial features.
A key aspect of Hall’s paintings is the thin veil of lace that separates the viewer from the figure. At times it acts as a screen or curtain, in other works, it disintegrates and becomes part of the figure itself. It feels as if we are looking into this private space. Yet since we can see through the lace, we can be apart of this moment. As human beings, we have private moments everyday in common places, and also share other’s private moments as well. It is this public display of introspection that makes the figure so easily approachable and acceptable. However, at the same time, the delicate boundary of lace separates us; we, as the viewer, are forbidden from entry. In viewing Hall’s work, we see not only the solitary figures beyond the veil, but also become aware of our role as the audience. Though separated, we are invited to create our own moment of private meditation and repose.
A Michigan native who earned her MFA from the University of Georgia, Susan Hall has been based in Chicago since 1993. She has exhibited widely throughout the United States and is a featured artist in Spotlight on Living Artists, by Ivy Sundell. Hall received "Best of Show" in the Animal Images Show for the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society (Juror Ed Paschke) in 2003. She has been awarded a Community Arts Assistance Program Grant by the city of Chicago, and an Individual Artist Grant from the Georgia Council for the Arts in Atlanta. Hall's work is in many collections, including those of Amoco Oil Company, Chicago; Sandvik Publishing Ltd., Stavanger, Norway; and the Miriam Perlman Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha, WI.
For more information or images, please contact the gallery.
July 14 - August 31, 2006
Of Light and Dust work by
patrick adams
Gallery II:
tim jag
Show Opening Reception: Friday, July 14, 5-8 pm
Patrick Adams
Tim Jag
Melanee Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition – “Of Light and Dust,” paintings by Patrick Adams.
When Patrick Adams won the Al Smith Fellowship, a monetary award given to Kentucky Artists, he decided to move his family to Provance, France. Initially his landscapes were inspired by this beautiful Mediterranean region. After moving back home to Kentucky, the concept of the landscape for Adams did not need a specific place as it’s homage. All landscape paintings all have the same qualities; earth, horizon and sky. Adams paintings investigate the passage of time; how culture affects the landscape.
Claude Monet spent years studying the effects of light and time on haystacks. All of these paintings have the same qualities, a haystack, a horizon line and sky, yet each painting looks different. It becomes more about the color and light then about the specific landscape itself. Patrick Adams’ landscapes all have a centralized horizon line; this remains a constant. It is the patterns in the earth and sky that changes. Just as culture and architecture change the landscape, Adams records this through marks, textures and long brushstrokes. Instead of recording observable facts, it becomes more about the idea of the landscape.
Patrick Adams’ paintings have been included in several galleries and museum exhibitions throughout the south and Midwest. His work can be found in several private and public collections as well. He received his MFA from the University of Kentucky, and has been awarded the Al Smith Fellowship twice.
Gallery II features the work of artist, Tim Jag. His acrylic paintings are a mixture of vibrant patterns and colors against a background of grids and shapes. Jag draws inspiration from industrial design and “pop” culture, where his visual resources can come from anywhere: at the hardware store to the produce department. It is this organization process of these visuals on the canvas which specifically shows the way culture organizes and builds upon itself.
Tim Jag received his MFA in painting from Montana State University and has exhibited his work throughout the country, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the San Jose Museum of Art. Reviews of his work can be found in Art Papers, ArtWeek Magazine and the Los Angeles Times.
April 28, 2006 - June 30, 2006
Flirting work by
allen bentley
Show Opening Reception: Friday, April 28, 5-8 pm
Allen Bentley, Coil, 2005, 28" x 35", Oil on Canvas
Melanee Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition - "Flirting," work by Allen Bentley. In this series, Bentley captures the movement and grace of dancing and the push and pull of aggression between a man and a woman.
Similar to the dancers of Henri Matisse, Bentley's dancers exude the same joy for life, moving to music
that only they can hear. He chooses color saturated backgrounds which cast a similar tone on the dancers,
switching between the intensity of warm and cool colors. The performer's stage is nearly monochromatic, singling out their actions from the surrounding environment.
Whether dancing or wrestling, the intensity of action is evident in Bentley's loose brush strokes and vibrant colors. When viewed as a whole, the series becomes a choreography of motion and light, stripped of any context, leaving only the allure of movement. Bentley's work gives us a greater insight into the workings of relationships themselves; how a moment of seduction can turn into hostility, or vice versa.
This is Allen Bentley's first solo show at Melanee Cooper Gallery and in Chicago. He has an MFA from the University of Philadelphia, and has exhibited widely on the east coast. He recently had a sold out show at Bridgette Mayer Gallery in Philadelphia, selling over 28 works. His work has also been featured at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
March 17 - April 22, 2006
Oxidation and Incidentals Artist:
tremain smith and
michael kessler
Gallery II:
linda ray
Show Opening Reception: Friday, March 17, 5-8 pm
Michael Kessler,
Downstream, 36" x 48"
Acrylic on Panel
Tremain Smith,
The Lovers, 44" x 64" Oil, Wax, and Collage on Panel
Lynda Ray
Shadow Glow, 8" x 8", Encaustic
January 6 - February 25, 2006
Urban Landscapes works by
kathleen waterloo
Gallery II:
james leonard
Show Opening Reception: Friday, January 6, 5-8 pm
Kathleen Waterloo
November 11 - December 30 2005
GROUP SHOW:
WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM? Artists:
matthew dennison,
jill sutton, and
deirdre murphy
Show Opening Reception: Friday, November 11, 5-8 pm
Matthew Dennison,
Anteen Godge, 25" x 26", Oil on Wood
Jill Sutton,
Breath, 20" x 20"Oil and graphite on canvas
Deirdre Murphy,
Reading Viaduct, 36" x 36", Oil on Canvas
September 9 - October 28, 2005
Group Show:
Dreamscapes Artists:
cheryl warrick,
laura bowman and
wade hoefer
Show Opening Reception: Friday, September 9, 5-8 pm
Cheryl Warrick,
Everything, 22" x 18", Acrylic, mixed media on panel
Laura Bowman,
Searing Sunset,3" x 4", Texture on Wood
Wade Hoefer,
Westering lll, 36" x 36", Oil on Canvas
July 15 - August 27, 2005
Group Show:
Mythical Tales Artists:
suzanne sbarge,
jorge levya,
scott stulen and
liza price
Gallery II:
Happy Land lll work by
marti mcginnis
Show Opening Reception: Friday, July 15, 5-8 pm
Marti McGinnis,
Be-twitched in the Love Shack, 16" x 20", Acrylic on Canvas
Jorge Levya,
The Mystic Secrets of the White Forest, 65" x 61", Oil and Wax on Canvas
Suzanne Sbarge,
Clubhouse, 15" x 7.5", Oil and Collage on Board
Scott Stulen,
I saw this from a guy who saw it online, 12" x 12", Acrylic, Pencil, Marker
May 6 - June 30, 2005
New Works Artists:
susan hall and
pam murphy
Show Opening Reception: Friday, May 6, 5-8 pm
Susan Hall,
Kingdom, 53" x 41", Oil on Panel
Pam Murphy,
Sixteen Blackbirds, 31" x 43", Oil on Canvas
February 1- March 25, 2005
"Effusion: unrestrained expression; the fluid that escapes" Artists:
kathleen waterloo,
james leonard, and
mille Guldbeck
Show Opening Reception: Friday, February 1, 5-8 pm
Kathleen Waterloo,
Fault Lines V, 48" x 48", Encaustic on Panel
James Leonard,
The River. 60" x 48", Acrylic on Canvas
Copyright© 2008 Melanee Cooper Gallery. All rights reserved.
