BARBARA CRANE

Pedway Notations
Archival Pigment Print
13 x 19

Barbara Crane is a renowned Chicago photographer with a 60 year retrospective at the Chicago Cultural Center. The exhibition is up from Oct. 3, 2009 to January 10, 2010.

What's your work about right now?
Specific accidental relationships. Walking leg/foot patterns in crowded places.

Who are your influences?

My past visual ideas.

Where do you go to come up with imagery?
Pre-Renaissance paintings. Everywhere. Painting, ancient art,
accidental images and my visual and technical mistakes.

and maybe tell a story if you want...whatever.

For instance, an early accidental overexposed picture of mine became
a springboard to doing overexposure with great seriousness applied to
different subject matter to see what would happen.

and add any info you think you'd want someone to know about you/yourart
My work is experimental, relatively abstract, searching and,
hopefully, uncomfortable.

Interview by Sara Heymann, sara@thechicagogrid.com

RANDALL SZOTT

It's hard to put into words exactly what Randall Szott does within the art world. He does not consider himself and artist persay but...well read the interview and desipher for yourself. He recently held an exhibition of sorts at Three Walls.

> What's your work about right now?
My work is about making food that the 18 man crew of the Glenn Edwards
like to eat.You see, as far as "work" goes, I'm not an artist, but a
cook in the merchant marine. To paraphrase Ben Kinmont - Sometimes the
best sculpture is to provide for your family. I'm just a guy that
talks about things, reads, plays poker, cooks, does a little writing,
and tries my best to live a meaningful life. I willingly engage the
public when I can and it just so happens that most of my opportunities come from an art context, but I have no real allegiance to the field.

> Who are your influences?
I am deeply influenced by the rich legacy of American thought/practice
- John Dewey, Richard Shusterman, William James, David Robbins, John Cage,
Donna Haraway, Cornel West, Allan Kaprow,Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jane Addams.
As far as the non-American set goes-
Michel de Certeau, Elizabeth Grosz, René Girard, Josef Pieper,and Ivan Illich have shaped me as well. Of course, my friends and family are my greatest source of inspiration.

> Where do you go to come up with imagery?
I don't really work with images in the sense implied here. I
look to flea markets, thrift stores, shopping malls, roadside
attractions, and other sites of vernacular/popular culture as well as
restaurants, farmer's markets, the ocean and wilderness to reflect on
questions large and small.

I'm not particularly special. I, like many people, try to find
meaningful activities to enrich my life. I'm interested in the various
ways people make sense of themselves and their world in ordinary and
extraordinary contexts.

interview by Sara Heymann, sara@thechicagogrid.com

MADELEINE BAILEY

Lift
lamp, plexiglass, feathers, light bulb
2009
24" x 48" x 12"

Madeleine bailey is a performance artist, among many other things, living and working in Chicago. She recently showed her work at Julius Ceasar from October 4th to the 25th, 2009.

What's your work about right now?
> Indexes of endurance, absent spankers, mechanized logics and confused circuits. We know what is going on but we do not know for what this is going. In my video, installation, drawing, and performance work, there is transparency in both materials used and in what is occurring; my art is not magic. Not magical in the sense that most elements are recognizable in the pieces. However, their immediate purpose is not evident. Rather, I am opening up ways of looking, of expectation, and of hiding. I create the option for not knowing. Just as looking is not the same as knowing, desire is no longer desire if you achieve its object; we do not look down at the doorknob we are using it until it does not work, or until something out of the ordinary occurs. Expectations do not have to be fulfilled; I am looking to confront our desire for meaning.

Who are your influences?
> From histories of flying machines to Absurdist Theater, my practice is deeply rooted in material and literary investigations.

Where do you go to come up with imagery?
> I am a hoarder when it comes to both materials and research. I generally spend a year or so gathering books, images, language, etc from libraries, movies, and locations that I then sit and play with over a period of time.

and maybe tell a story if you want...whatever.
>This is the text for my solo at Julius Caesar “False Starts and Close Calls”

“To contend against the air, one must be specifically heavier than the air. All that is not absurd is possible. All that is possible may be accomplished.”
M. Nadar, on human flight, 1863

Just as mythologies of the stars were created to open up the unexplainable, there should be room in art for different approaches to opening. Like flying, art is a leap of faith, a denial of disbelief, an opening of possibility. From flying machines and hot air balloons to kites and jets, if you are lucky or skilled enough to manage to become airborne, you stand to gain a view of the world from a whole new perspective. But this vantage point from above is not necessarily an entirely optimistic one. As soon as the Wright brothers took their first successful flight in 1903, modern warfare gained a whole new dimension of bombing and surveillance. Of course, our obsession with flight predates the Wright brothers, whether mechanical or imaginary, perhaps partly because flight is a metaphor for journey. And the container for this journey is air.

My proposed installation of False Starts and Close Calls, a failed journey of sorts, is also about an attempt to make sense out of the puzzle of the world around us. The Sky Is Falling be both the moment before take-off and the instant after a fall, still and in motion. cruel and comedic.



Additionally, here is my bio
>
Madeleine Bailey is an interdisciplinary artist and writer who utilizes video, installation, drawing, and performance in her work. Bailey holds an A.B. from Brown University in Providence, RI and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). She received a MFA Fellowship from SAIC in addition to the Weston Fine Arts Award, the Karen T. Romer Fellowship, and the Minnie Helen Hicks Award for Excellence in Art from Brown University. Bailey has exhibited her work nationally and internationally in places such as Scott Projects, Concertina, and Co-Prosperity Sphere in Chicago, as well as The LAB in San Francisco and the Centre International d'Art Contemporain in Pont-Aven, France. She has upcoming exhibitions and events in Chicago at the Chicago Cultural Center, Julius Caesar, and Eel Space.

Website:
www.madeleinebailey.com


Summoning Ground (Installation View)
HD video, 1:45 loop with sound, monitor, platform, wires
2009

interview by Sara Heymann, sara@thechicagogrid.com

MELISSA ORESKY

Melissa Oresky is a painter that recently exhibited her work at Western Exhibitions from October 16 to November 14th, 2009.

What's your work about right now?

My newest paintings and drawings, the works titled Rock Gardens are,in no particular order: about prismatic color, the structures and textures of rocks and minerals, folded spaces, and they also draw an analogy between paintings as gardens — the act of painting as akin to the act of gardening. They are made in what I would describe as pairs, rather than diptychs, since they don’t need to be seen side by side. Working back and forth between 2 pieces allows two versions of an idea to play out in aparallel, asynchronous relationships. This reflects my studio practice which often feels like a conversation with myself. The pairings can agree and disagree with each other. Each painting is meant to effect multiple spaces and scales for the viewer simultaneously, so the experience of looking at them is always dynamic and shifting.


> Who/What are your influences?

I am heavily influenced by conversations I have with trusted friends- other artists. I will plug my artist friends here- some are in New York, where I spent 3 months last spring, and some are in Chicago. Siebren Versteeg, Charlotte Glynn, Jef Scharf (aka Wolfy of Kayrock Screenprinting) Nina Bovasso, Munro Galloway, Andreas Fischer, Carrie Gundersdorf, are all artists whose ideas, work, and our dialogues have affected me strongly over the last year.

When I’m making my work I think about the spaces and phenomenon that I have observed in the world, having traveled lately to Germany where I paid a lot of attention to the landscape of parks and formal gardens, and to New Mexico, where I hiked, became interested in rocks, and read a lot about geology. The pieces have come to be about comparative ideas of landscape rather than any individual landscapes or places I have experienced. Otherwise, I am a big science fiction fan. Scientific ideas provoke art ideas for me.

> Where do you go to come up with imagery?

I have a collection of my own landscape photographs that I use directly as collage elements printed simply as b&w laser prints. I also have been looking at The Audobon Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals, my bible for the current body of work. As well as diagrams and photographs of a variety of gardens. I also generate imagery simply through my working process, doing things repetitively, defining and refining a revolving set of of painting moves, marks, forms, and ideas, and combining and recombining them to generate new imagery. The images are formed through formal play, and through an interest in constructing volumes and spaces that are basically abstract and invented but should also resonate with the viewer’s own tactile and spatial experiences.

> and maybe tell a story if you want...whatever.

Hmm. Don’t know if I’ve got any really relevant stories…


on canvas






all images:
Untitled Rock Garden, 2009
Acrylic on linen, 14" x 18"
unless otherwise noted

ERIC LEBOFSKY

Eric Lebofsky is an artist living and working in Chicago,IL. He recently showed his work at Western Exhibitions from Oct. 16 to Nov. 14, 2009. He is also part of a 2 person band named Avagami who recently played at my project space MORTVILLE(2106 S. Kedzie flr. 3) you can see video of part of this performance below.

What's your work about right now?
Psychology: Awkwardness, paranoia, transcendence, a sprinkling of masochism.
Formalism: The variation and evolution of patterns and leitmotifs. (DNA making protein.) Together: Psychological evanescence on a rippling, breathing surface of patterns and leitmotifs (Solaris.)

Who are your influences?
Here is a list du jour. Since I understand this to be an interdisciplinary publication with a liberal arts bent, I tried to be as wide-ranging as possible:
Louise Bourgeois, Jorge Luis Borges, John Cage, Arthur C. Clarke, Eric Dolphy, Witold Gombrowicz, Dave Hickey, Glenda Jackson, Stanley Kubrick, Fela Kuti, Stanislaw Lem, Harry Mathews, (Mahavishnu) John Mclaughlin, Joni Mitchell, Michel de Montaigne, Desmond Morris, Haruki Murakami, Robert Musil, Harry Partch, Cole Porter, Ed Ruscha, Ridley Scott, Marnie Stern, Igor Stravinsky, Paul, Verhoeven, John Wesley, Bill Withers, Yoda.

Where do you go to come up with imagery?
I go to the page itself. I begin by visualizing a fragment of a character into (or out of) the white of the paper. Once a structure takes hold, the gaps are filled in with descriptive analytical details, in a way not unlike writing.

and maybe tell a story if you want...whatever.
I've been taking guitar lessons, and it's made me think a lot about practicing and having a practice in general. I haven't made many drawings in the last few years, working on sculpture, painting, and music composition/production/performance instead. I've come to see that practicing a musical instrument and drawing are similarly aligned, in that they're both faculties-sharpening type pursuits. When I realized I could apply the daily rhythm of guitar practice to drawing, or rather, that the daily rhythym of guitar practice was that same daily rhythym of drawing which I used to enjoy, I got excited. Since I have a full-time job, I need the discipline of a structure, an obligatory mechanism by which I can make things. The only problem now is trying to practice the guitar when I'm making so many drawings.

and add any info you think you'd want someone to know about you/your art.
I'll have a show up at Western Exhibitions (119 N. Peoria St., Chicago, IL,) from October 16 - November 13 called "Superfreaks." Work will be culled from my blog, superfreaks.tumblr.com. For the full spectrum of my pursuits, please check out my band at avagami.com and my website at ericlebofsky.com.
interview by Sara Heymann, sara@thechicagogrid.com

LORA FOSBERG

Lora Fosberg is a painter and printmaker showing at the Linda Warren Gallery (1052 W. Fulton Market) from October 16 to November 28, 2009. Read this interview...and go see her stuff!!!!

WHAT IS YOUR WORK ABOUT RIGHT NOW?

The artwork I am making now is about that old timeless classic: man
vs. nature, man=nature, nature vs. man.....bring it!!

WHO ARE YOUR INFLUENCES?

I have been steadily influenced by the chicago imagist from the
1960's....jim nutt, don baum, susan ramberg, and the rest......they
were so irreverent and didnt take themselves too seriously....which
is rare in the vilified world of ART with a capitol A...as a matter
of fact, they disdained the new york school. For some reason, I find
this refreshing and ever inspiring......the idea that the work should
be content driven with a focus on imagery is right up my alley!

WHERE DO YOU GO TO COME UP WITH IMAGERY?

Who knows where the images come from.....they are most likely
distillations from the world around me: pop culture, advertising,
nature, the art world, and my own sick mind, I suppose.

AND MAYBE TELL A STORY IF YOU WANT...WHATEVER. AND ADD ANY INFO YOU THINK YOU'D WANT SOMEONE TO KNOW ABOUT YOU/YOUR ART.

Some of the new pieces in my show at linda warren gallery october 16,
are images that come directly from recent experiences of moving my
(3500 sq foot studio) studio, and the rest of me, twice in the past 3
years. Moving forces us to realize and accept our own materialism and
how contrary that is to the idea that we are, in an ideal world, to
coexist with nature.
There is also a recent image that has been burned into my brain.....I
was driving from bloomington indiana (my new home) back to chicago
(my old home), along a rural highway, and came across one of those
classic landscapes that one does not easily forget.....down a
beautiful wooded curvy road there was a trailer home with all of its
contents piled high in the front yard (not terribly unusual for
southern indiana) but in this case it was as if the tenant was being
evicted from his home.....the pile was HIGH! higher than the
trailer...and there in the midst of it all, was a man, sitting in a
lazyboy, with a diapered baby in his lap....as if this was part of
the daily routine.....his mountain of seemingly disposable stuff
dwarfed he and the baby as if he was sitting at the foot hills of
mount everest.....this image is branded into my brain and my new
drawings, that depict everything I have ever owned, are a direct
result of this contemporary midwestern landscape.

website:
http://lorafosberg.com/
http://www.lindawarrengallery.com/