Western Exhibitions’ booth at EXPO Chicago (317) features new bodies of work by Aya Nakamura and Deb Sokolow and a recently unearthed series from 1976-77 by Julia Schmitt Healy, supplemented by singular sculptural works by Lilli Carré and Lauren Wy.
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“Lost Imagist” JULIA SCHMITT HEALY’s (b. 1947) captivating wood-grain drawings and wallpaper collages, privately referred to as Housewife Works, depict women made of woodwork. There is a wooden bride in a bridal veil, wooden bodies, wooden portraits and women who seem to be pulled in many directions. Growing out of that series are mixed media collages, inspired by and created with fake woodgrain-paneled wallpaper found at a hardware store, illustrating the head of a lady, a wrapped mummy head, a surprised ghost with a knothole for a mouth and a coffin. All of these works were made while living in Nova Scotia in 1976-77, yet are unmistakably imbued with the spirit of Chicago-style figuration and Healy’s time studying with Chicago Imagist Ray Yoshida.
AYA NAKAMURA’s (b. 1982) colored pencil drawings, often on irregularly-shaped handmade paper that she makes in her Chicago studio, reference sense memories of her relationship to nature and to sound. Making Shapes and Prairie describe different instances of walking meditation, containing repetitive elements, ritualistic rhythms, paths, beginnings and ends, with allusions to grasses and landscape. Root Ball, Lifeling and Encounter! are inspired by Nakamura’s time working in the greenhouse and gardens in the park near her house. Interactions with swarms of insects, fungi, vines, shrubs, vegetables, flowers, etc., allow the imagining of life slumbering in each pod and dead flower head gathered.
DEB SOKOLOW’s (b. 1974) schematic drawings visualize an idiosyncratic architectural future with criticality and humor. A number of these maquette-like renderings respond through a feminist lens to the male-dominated field of architecture, its focus on the architect genius and the social engineering involved in designing built environments. In other drawings, Sokolow envisions built environments becoming more responsive, or even too responsive, in adapting to inhabitants’ specific psychological states, individual needs and desires. In these satirical scenarios, various factors such as mood swings, preferred social interactions, spiritual beliefs and wellness goals drive how future environments are conceived and controlled.
LILLI CARRÉ’s (b. 1983) sculpture from her series Arrangement in the Steps of a Horse is inspired by the pivot movement of the knight’s piece in chess. Jester Piece is a reimagined chess piece, a geometric horse-like ceramic figure with stone mosaic inlay atop a custom-carved painted green pedestal, that stands as a human-sized sculpture.
LAUREN WY (b. 1987) presents a cast concrete vase completely covered with pastel drawings and finished with varnish. Narcissid extends imagery developed from her ongoing series of AUTODESIRE drawings and artists books (also on display) into three dimensions. The neck is covered in intertwining snakes and the bulb of the vase is covered in ars erotica which focuses on one’s sexual relationship to one’s self, rather than to another. Mental/physical/spiritual/ego/id/trinity masturbation. The vase’s title truncates the word and myth of Narcissus into a machination of self-reflecting into oneself without a mirror, but rather as a mental reflection of self-knowledge, hence the serpent.
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VIP Preview:
Thursday, April 13 | 12 to 9 pm
Fair Hours:
Friday, April 14 | 11 am to 7 pm
Saturday, April 15 | 11 am to 7 pm
Sunday, April 16 | 11 am to 6 pm
Western Exhibitions is thrilled to be participating in the 10th in-person edition of EXPO Chicago. The fair will take place at Chicago’s historic Navy Pier in the Festival Hall at 600 E Grand Ave, Chicago, IL 60611. Western Exhibitions will be in booth 317. Visit the EXPO Chicago website here to purchase tickets.