lovely in chicago

While in Chicago Jay and I sought out a show called "ImPaired Visions" at the District 13 Gallery. We saw a link on the Daily Candy (thanks Dave!) and thought it sounded like a good stop. When you know nothing about a city it is hard to understand where the good galleries are, and often people have opposing opinions (really, most folks suggested going to the Art Institute, but we wanted to see contemporary work to get an idea of the type of culture Chicago fosters). In total we visited around 10 spaces, but this one was by far our favourite - and luckily our last stop, so we ended on a high note. Youth, playful restraint and solid talent filled the walls. We each were drawn to a piece - but not the same one. Oddly enough, they were by the same artists so we had to take a walk to decide how we would choose. In the end we picked both because we were in Chicago for Jay's art and we liked the idea of showing our support in return.

The top piece was my pick, titled "supper was delicious mommy"; it was a little more feminine and I just adore the script of "lovely" flowing out of the vomiting daughter's mouth. What you can't see in the photo is the clear gloss printed floral pattern that I think was the last layer screened. Jay's piece, "hope", is printed on solid wood and is wonderfully minimal. The artists are two guys from Minneapolis who form the duo Lovely. They had a number of pieces in the exhibit and even designed the show poster (which we also got a copy of - you can see it here), but most of the other artists were from the Chicago area. I did recognize one artist by name - Shawnimal - from the Plush You II show last year. For a very brief moment, this one degree of separation made me feel like a part of this vital culture, but I quickly resumed my "happy to be absorbing" position.

Someday, someday.