Olya Salimova leading the latest of her monthly 15th Element arts gatherings, this time at WellRounded vintage shop in Pilsen, Chicago, Sep 15th. www.instagram.com/fifteenth_el... www.olyasalimova.com www.instagram.com/shopwellroun...

Opening of latest show at Sawhorse Gallery in Hermosa, Chicago, Sep 13th: “Secondary Purpose,“ a selection of fifty works from the CURAYTOR collection. Amassed over decades by Chicago-based photographer and innkeeper Ray Reiss, the collection spans more than 3,000 objects...

My notes on the opening of the group show "Abstract Concepts" at Agitator Gallery in Chicago on September 6 Fast-forwarding through meaning, leaving only traces of the expected gestures of communication, this show is additional confirmation of a trend I’ve noted...

Fun and stimulating evening Wednesday the 3rd at Chicago Artist's Coalition for Speed Networking Night. Everybody had a good story to tell. Made it a lot easier to feel optimistic about this city. chicagoartistscoalition.org

If you see this, repost with a vampire that is not Dracula

My notes on the closing of the two-artist exhibition "Far Down the Phantom Air" at Sawhorse Gallery in Chicago, August 23

For a while now I've been slowly teaching myself the skills to refurbish relatively low-quality digital images of modern art works and print life-size faithful reproductions of the original works on my high-resolution printer. My latest work is a reproduction of an intriguing Cezanne watercolor.

Haven't been able to find a satisfactory name for a midcentury modern casting of cyberpunk. Not dieselpunk, not atompunk. Somewhere between Connery-Bond punk and Down-With-Love punk.

I don't get the blanket resistance to AI art by many artists and art scholars. As if obsession and choice haven't been acknowledged as valid facets of art practice for at least a century.

Take me down to Parapluie City where the grass is green 'cause it's always raining

My notes at the exhibition of Japanese prints and traditional culture at College of DuPage's Cleve Carney Museum of Art in Glen Ellyn -- “Hokusai & Ukiyo-e: The Floating World” forwardfolio.substack.com/p/the-brush-...

My notes on Third Friday art exhibition openings in Bridgeport, Chicago, July 18. Bridgeport Art Center Zhou B Art Center Heritage Museum of Asian Art Oliva Gallery forwardfolio.substack.com/p/mark-makin...

July 18th, the Zhou B Art Center in Bridgeport, Chicago, opening of “We Built This: Making Through Migration,” a show that endeavors to illustrate how artists reflect the experience and perception of immigrant culture and other hybrid outsider identities. www.ohartfoundation.org/webuiltthism...

“The Ocean Between VIII: Luminosity” exhibition opening at Oliva Gallery, Logan Square, Chicago, July 18 www.olivagallery.com

“Chinese Lotus Shoes: Exploring the Cultural Prestige of Footbinding in Imperial China” at the Heritage Museum of Asian Art, Bridgeport, Chicago. www.heritageasianart.org

Exhibition opening, "The Landscape is Changing", Bridgeport Art Center, Chicago, July 18 www.bridgeportart.com/the-landscap... #chicago #chicagoart

The plight of the art commentator… Drawing by Temo artbytemo.com

Rough night as an art commentator when you run into this at a gallery… Weaving by Kira Dominguez Hultgren www.kiradominguezhultgren.com

My notes on the School of the Art Institute Low-Residency MFA thesis exhibition. forwardfolio.substack.com/p/a-brief-hi...

School of the Art Institute Low-Residency MFA Thesis Exhibition public reception, July 12. www.saic.edu/events/low-r... #chicago #chicagoart

The Chicago History Museum has one of the biggest fashion and textile collections in the world, reportedly over fifty thousand items. The exhibition they have up now, "Dressed in History" is a small but fun sampling of the collection’s highlights. More at: forwardfolio.substack.com/p/dressed-in...

The Chicago History Museum has one of the biggest fashion and textile collections in the world, reportedly over fifty thousand items. The exhibition they have up now is a small but fun sampling of the collection’s highlights. A fantastic purple leather coat and hat by Chanel, 1925:

ko-fi.com/post/Modern-... On one hand you can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for exquisite, precise 3D-rendered reproductions of oil paintings on canvas by the most famous artists. Or you can spend a hundred or less for a low-quality poster print on cheap paper...

Congratulations to Kimberly Oliva at Oliva Gallery (olivagallery.com) for hosting a successful seminar “Leverage Your Art Career,” w/ Nancy Pirri (Pirri Art & Design), Claireasa Golden (Golden Arts Communication) & Melissa Stanley (real estate broker, ArtHouse Chicago, Baird & Warner) #chicagoart

My look at the opening of a juried exhibition of student work at the School of the Art Institute. forwardfolio.substack.com/p/new-work-2...

The most intriguing and involving experience of Friday evening was at Color Club, an event space/tavern/gallery complex in the building of the former Latvian Community Center.

Space & Time Gallery opened "At Land," a solo show by Corey Antis. Antis takes rubbings and impressions from various environmental surfaces and features, revealing unexpected patterns, paths, whorls in the places that are usually overlooked as background. More at link in bio spaceandtimegallery.com

Oliva Gallery opened "Offering", featuring paintings by Laura Peterson and ceramics by Nikki Renee Anderson, Friday June 13. More at forwardfolio.substack.com/p/another-fr... www.olivagallery.com #chicagoart

"Doublespeak" by Nanako Kono at Western Exhibitions, Friday June 13. Bulbous foody shapes, pop art references with a little Hairy Who thrown in. #chicagoart

I dashed/dallied through six gallery openings on Friday night, seeing a lot of new work, but giving myself time to linger where warranted. Speed-learning about contemporary art through the gusher of the Internet has taught me the value of being exposed to new works at volume. #chicagoart

My experience at the exhibition at the Driehaus Museum, and how can watercolors of flowers be mid-century modern art? Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature open.substack.com/pub/forwardf...

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce Reed Richards and Susan Storm.

#expochicago Alec Soth, "Untitled (trumpet vine)" A deceptively simple photograph, one of a series. As I looked and tried to understand its attraction, I noticed that the lighting and color created a sort of compressed suspension between flatness and fullness in the flower and parts of the stalk.

#expochicago Antonio Santin, "Torrubia". Oil on canvas. The oil is applied to the surface so that an intricate 3D texture is created.

#expochicago Simon Benjamin. A retrieval and a resuscitation. The image is a still from a film shot in 1914 of boys diving off a Caribbean island, blown up to several feet in dimensions.

#expochicago Amoako Boafa, "Umbrella" My intuition is that new art movements originate out of new approaches to the human form. Here Boafa paints with oil on canvas then texturizes the flesh with finger painting.

#expochicago Sunday Apr. 27 There were fewer surfaces that captured my interest this year compared to last. The works that struck me broke out beyond two dimensions and into multiple scales. 1,2. Amoako Boama, "Umbrella" at Allouche Gallery NYC 3,4. Edra Soto at ENGAGE Projects Chicago