AdventureLand Works On Paper Proudly Presents:

New Fables

Recent Collages by Lou Beach

“A few years ago I got to meet the great Lou Beach, who, for my money, is one of our greatest living collagists.”

-Tony Fitzpatrick, Artist

 

“…beautiful, thoughtful, and intelligently absurd collages …”

-A. Moret, Art Critic

 

“Beach doesn’t know how to make a dumb picture.”

-Steven Heller – Co-chair of the MFA Design Program, The School Of Visual Arts

 

“The collage art of Lou Beach is probably smarter than you.”

-Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons

 

“Original, provocative, definitely outside the box.”

-Jeff Bridges, Actor

 

“Funny, smart, twisted, brilliant…”

-Terry Gilliam, Film Director

 

“…Precise hallucinations…”

-George Saunders, Author

Opening Reception:
7:00 – 10:00 pm
Friday, April 5

On view April 5 – April 26, 2013 at AdventureLand Works On Paper.

AdventureLand Works On Paper Presents:

Foundations

New Work by Lauren Whitney.

Chicago based architectural photographer and digital illustrator, Lauren Whitney
has a distinctive style that is all her own. Being a Chicagoland native, Lauren
grew up with midwestern values and a strong family support system. Trained
as a commercial photographer and photo editor, Lauren Whitney’s passion is to
highlight the beauty in architecture that exists all around us.

In 2005 Whitney enrolled at the Illinois Art Institute of where she set goals to
become a Graphic Designer. She continued her education at The Art Institute
of Atlanta where she graduated with a degree in Architectural Photography
and Photo Manipulation in 2009. Lauren soon found her way back home to
Chicagoland where she began her career in commercial photography. Lauren is
the owner and creator of Chateau Whitney a production company specializing in
photography and photo manipulation.

You can preview Lauren’s work, and contact her directly at http://www.laurenwhitneyphotography.com/

Opening Reception:
7:00 – 10:00 pm
Friday, March 1

On view March 1 – March 23, 2012 at AdventureLand Works On Paper.

AdventureLand Works On Paper Presents:

Necessary Strangers: Abstraction at an Intimate Scale

A group exhibition featuring the work of Sharon Butler, Jane Fine, Ati Maier, Kelly Houlihan, and Jesse Sioux Achramowicz

Opening Reception:
7:00 – 10:00 pm
Friday, February 1

AdventureLand Works On Paper Presents:

Amusements

New Work by Renee Robbins

Renee Robbins was born in Kankakee, Illinois and was raised in Indiana and Kentucky. She has a BFA in painting and printmaking from the University of Kentucky (2002) and an MFA from Michigan State University (2005). She currently lives and works in Chicago. As an artist, her work has been recognized with awards, grants, publications, and through selection for national exhibitions. Her selected exhibition highlights include the Alden B. Dow Museum of Science and Art, South Bend Art Museum, Ann Tower Gallery, Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, Ai Gallery, Function+Art, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Tony Fitzpatrick’s Big Cat Press. She received a fellowship in 2004 from the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University to study in Tokyo, Japan, and a 2010 & 2009 CAAP grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. She has an upcoming solo exhibition at Firecat Projects in January 2013.

Renee Robbins’s exhibit Amusements draws imagery from recreational systems like carnivals, roller coasters, and pinball machines. Our life experience is layered with complex systems that reach through tiny cells, flowering vegetation, and distant galaxies.  Renee searches for ways to mix, blend, and juxtapose these systems to create a web of hybrid forms.  Her work focuses attention on fleeting moments and small details within the complex systems that shape entertainment and leisure in our human experience.  At core of this exploration is a fascination with the familiar and unfamiliar.  The abundance of sensory information in the paintings is like the external environment we often find ourselves in.  One could consider how our varied surroundings shape our human experience and range from the micro to the macro.  The color, scale, and material of our surroundings changes and affects our sense of self.  Many things come together to create a sense of who we are and what we are made of and disperse when things become slightly out of reach.  It is her intent that these works converge on a gigantic range both in and out of our human experience.

You can preview the show at http://reneerobbins.com/

Opening Reception:
7:00 – 10:00 pm
Friday, November 2

On view November 2 – November 30, 2012 at AdventureLand Works On Paper.

AdventureLand Works On Paper Presents:

Crosses, Diamonds, and Monsters

New Work by Mariano Chavez

Mariano Chavez works in a variety of media ranging from painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture. Although his work takes form in different materials, it remains consistent through a personal vocabulary and themes that resurface and evolve. The dark comedy—the sexual—and the unknown are reoccurring topics in the artist’s work. Born in 1974 in Big Wells, Texas, the artist moved to Chicago in the early 90’s to attend The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received both his B.F.A and M.F.A in Painting and Drawing. Mariano has exhibited both nationally and internationally—he lives and works in Chicago.

Opening Reception:
7:00 – 10:00 pm
Friday, October 5

On view October 5 – October 26, 2012 at AdventureLand Works On Paper.

AdventureLand Works On Paper Presents:

American Etchings

Prints by Tony Fitzpatrick

Closing Reception:
7:00 – 10:00 pm
Tuesday, October 2

On view September 7 – October 2, 2012 at AdventureLand Works On Paper.

AdventureLand Works On Paper Presents:

Jesse Sioux Achramowicz

Jesse Sioux Achramowicz is a young visual artist native to Chicago. She was born in Dusseldorf, Germany and studied Art & Design alongside physics at Columbia College Chicago. She spent some time in Florence, Italy exhibiting in street art fairs and studying watercolor painting.

Her emphasis is on painting and drawing, as well as some sculpture and street art. Her work is often filled with colorful and automatic mark-making. She draws inspiration from animation, symbolism, tribal, street, and mystical works of art.

Ashkon Haidari

I bought Ashkon Haidari his first legal drink the other night. He tossed back a Schlitz Tallboy and a shot of Old Crow.  The kind of  rot-gut proud Chicago drunks have been swilling for years. A very serious low-road combination.  His drawings remind me of this kind of bust-head concoction that comes at you like a Pit Bull.  I see a century’s mad comic style in Ashkon’s drawings — a delinquent Dali or Max Ernst. It’s no accident that young Mr. Haidari failed every Art class he took as a youngster – He was kicked  out of several schools and was a genuine discipline problem — in other words — my kind of artist.

It is difficult to say what his work reminds me of because it is unlike anything I have seen. The are echoes of Japanese cartoons, Lichtenstein, and Dali — but only echoes,distant in their likeness. I think his work is about freedom — I also think it’s juvenile in the best sense of that word. Antic, and as active and boisterous as a pinball machine — it is fun and it is deeply serious — a close look will reveal this. This is his first show — and his work has the marks of all serious, lasting art – it reveals itself over time. It keeps beginning.

This is a career to watch — Well done young man.

 Tony Fitzpatrick - Chicago

 2012

Reception:
7:00 – 10:00 pm
Friday, August 17

On view August 17 – September 1, 2012 at AdventureLand Works On Paper.