All Rise Gallery, Around the Coyote Gallery, Blake Palmer Gallery, Caro d’Offay Gallery, David Leonardis Gallery Wicker Park, Gosia Koscielak Studio & Gallery, Green Lantern, Johnsonese Gallery, Lloyd Dobler Gallery, and Teti Gallery

Extended Gallery hours, special receptions and performances

Chicago, IL - The newly formed Wicker Park Bucktown Gallery Association is holding a Second Saturday Gallery Walk on January 13, 2007 from 6-10pm at multiple venues throughout Wicker Park and Bucktown. The WBGA is an organization of galleries in the Wicker Park and Bucktown neighborhood (roughly defined with the southern border at Division, the northern border at Fullerton, the western border at Western, and the eastern border at the Chicago River). Membership is by invitation, and is limited to: curated spaces that exhibit multiple artists throughout the year; galleries that do not charge their artists a fee to exhibit; galleries that operate within the contemporary art dialogue; galleries that operate within the ethical and professional practice guidelines developed by the Wicker Park Bucktown Gallery Association.

The WPBGA works to promote Wicker Park and Bucktown as a visual arts destination for collectors and art world professionals, while actively working to attract new galleries to the neighborhood. WPBGA promotes the artists and programs of its members through advertising, public programs, and collaborative events.

1542 N. Milwaukee Ave
Influenc-za
extended gallery hours January 13 from 6-10pm
allrisegallery.com, 773.292.9255

This exhibition is a collaboration between All Rise Gallery and South Union Arts

Exhibited Artists include: Jonathan Gitelson, Burtonwood & Holmes, Greg Stimac, R.Scott Whipkey, Anni Rossi and Anni Holm.

Featured artists are all linked by a common element in that their work responds to the bombardment of imagery concerning excessiveness, obsessiveness, consumerism, and pure waste. An existential crisis.... Where does it end? Burtonwood & Holmes constructed tanks and machines are plastered with junk mail. This alludes to the apathy of our society where plasma tv's and cheap discounts abound. How much is too much? Jon Gitleson's work strikes at the core of the issue; the constant inundation of advertising in our day-to -day lives. His car series takes the limits of advertising to its excessive extreme. Other featured artists continue with the theme of obsessiveness and consumerism. Greg Stimac will present his recoil series. Scott Whipkey’s work speaks of the alienation of humanity in the overwhelming sea of commercialism. And Anni Holm will tie together knitting and networking with an interactive performance piece. The evening will conclude with a solo viola performance by Anni Rossi.

1935 ½ W. North Ave.
Winter Artist-in-Residence: John Kowalczyk: Quilt of Preservation
extended gallery hours January 13 from 6-10pm
aroundthecoyote.org, 773.342.6777

Around the Coyote, a non-profit arts organization focused on emerging art in Chicago’s Wicker Park Neighborhood presents an installation of Chicago’s very own John Kowalczyk. Traditionally working in paint, Kowalczyk is now exploring the realm of three-dimensional sculpture in his giant “quilt” which you can find filling a niche in the gallery’s southwest corner. Observing contemporary ways of life, Kowalczyk longs for the “good old days”. Playing up the associations made with quilts, Kowalczyk addresses issues of nostalgia and community, while simultaneously questioning what he believes to be our society’s current value system: consumerism and materialism. Through presenting a conventionally feminine craft constructed from wood and wire, the quilt additionally wrestles with our culture’s pervasive gender issues.

Kowalczyk’s finished installation will debut at the 2007 Around the Coyote Winter Arts Festival Opening Party on Feb. 8, but throughout the month of January visitors will be able to come in and watch John develop his installation. The artist will be available to answer questions and discuss his piece at the gallery Monday through Friday 12-6 throughout January. Goals of the Around the Coyote Fall and Winter Artist-in-Residence Program: to create non-market driven exhibition opportunities for emerging artists in a professional gallery; to provide studio space for the production of new and possibly large-scale work; to expand awareness of emerging art throughout Chicago; to give patrons the opportunity to see an artist’s process.

1656 N. Bosworth
Holiday Season Group Exhibition of Gallery Artists
extended gallery hours January 13 from 6-10pm
blakepalmergallery.com, 773.384.4142

Blake Palmer Gallery is showcasing work from local sculptors Marshall Svendsen and Brett Richards as well as paintings by international artist Frol Boundin, Navarro Tadeo, Lisa Caplan ,Jose Luis Pina and Julianne Ingles. Also on view are exciting abstract paintings by Oak Park artist William Alexander. Pilsen area artist Bryan Sperry will also be featured with ceramics by Gerry Lang and photography by Brian Willette.

2204 West North Avenue
The Colorist Chess
extended gallery hours January 13 from 6-10pm
carodoffaygallery.com, 773.235.7400

Caro d’Offay Gallery opens its doors again inviting the public in to collaborate on the gallery’s wall painting, which explores the idea of collaboration. The Colorist Chess is devoted to works produced through live collaboration, remote information and imposed limitations. The painting is among 8 other completed works, by various artists, which have also been produced through short, live, collaborative events. The Colorist Chess opened November 3, 2006 and closes with a reception for the artists on Friday, January 19, from 8 p-12a. Until then, the project can be viewed and interacted with on the gallery website or by walking into the space.

1346 N. Paulina St.
Opening reception January 13 from 6-10 pm
www.DLG-gallery.com, 773.278.3058

David Leonardis Gallery Wicker Park has been a leader in the Wicker Park Bucktown Gallery District for fifteen years and a land mark for contemporary, POP, Folk Art, and Photography. DLG - Wicker Park is proud to present two of Chicago's own nationally acclaimed artists, Marc Hauser the award winning portrait photographer and Chris Peldo for the Absolut Illinois campaign. Traditional photographic processes are continually being enhanced and manipulated and Hauser has stayed at the forefront of new technology. One of the industry's leading exponents of digital imaging, Hauser continues to explore the boundaries of photography. Chris Peldo will be presenting a new series of Abstract/Pop works and Screaming Heads. These vibrant, multi layered works mix Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism by blending street iconography, cartoons and consumerism. The result is a painting that feels challenging and comforting at the same time.

Peldo and Hauser will be joined with the Rev. Howard Finster's refreshingly folk style along with gallery artists Joe Pellegrini, Miro, Daniel Johnston, Walter Fydryck, Andy Kane, Bill Eaton, Herb Nolan, Michel Balasis, Rita Akao, Mike Winn and Stephen Tomkins. Please also visit the David Leonardis Gallery River North located in the heart of the River North Gallery District at 217 W. Huron St #5.

1646 N. Bosworth Ave.
Soongyoon Lee: PAN, interactive electronic installation; Korea/USA
extended gallery hours January 13 from 4-10pm
gosiakoscielak.com, 847.858.1540

PAN is a first show from the New Eco exhibition series examining new ecology, human ecology and a new media phenomena in international art, curated by Gosia Koscielak Ph.D. PAN by Soongyoon Lee is an interactive electronic installation that facilitates collaborative performance among multiple participants. The title of this work, PAN, is a Korean word invoking several different meanings, such as: plate, disk, place, stage. On one hand, this word instinctively stands for a plate that corresponds to the interface of this work, but there is more meaning underlying this spatial definition. The Korean people set up public performance space for everyone to share and participate in delightful performances. PAN conveys all these meanings and accommodates these activities by providing a tangible interactive medium. Traditional interactive activities are visually interpreted with softened dynamics. Viewers approach PAN and feel its “life force” and are encouraged to participate in its synthetic movement. Sangyoon Lee's interactive installation PAN was awarded the Digital Art Awards 2006 (DAA 2006) honorable mention in the interactive category presented by Keio Research Institute at SFC, Tokyo, Japan. Sangyoon Lee is a digital media artist who is interested in computer graphics, games, physical interfaces, and virtual reality.

1511 N Milwaukee Ave., 2nd Floor
Hot Mess: Caleb Lyons and Peter Hoffman
extended hours January 13, from 6-10pm
thegreenlantern.org, 773.235.0936

The Green Lantern presents HOT MESS, an exhibition featuring collaborative paintings by Chicago artists Peter Hoffman and Caleb Lyons. HOT MESS will display the artists' visual dialogue in painting over the last six months. By transferring, obstructing and modifying what the other has done, the artists create something that is both discordant and harmonious achieving a loss of objective picture making. Through their collaboration they create possibilities outside their own personal abilities. Theirs is an experimental, uncertain, and unstable position, a position needed to tranquilize, revitalize, and transform the medium. The exhibition runs from January 12-February 4, 2007, with an opening reception January 12 from 7 to 10 pm. Green Lantern is open on Thursdays and Saturdays from 1-6pm, or by appointment.

2149 W. Armitage
Holiday Salon: December 9th-January 13th
Closing reception Saturday, January 13 from 6-10pm
johnsonese.com, 773.252.8750

Holiday Salon is a reprise of the artists whom Johnsonese Gallery featured throughout 2006 including palimpsests by Joey Wozniak, controlled automatism by Joseph Innocenti, artificial nature by Elizabeth Tyson, kaleidoscopic excess by Bruce Noel Mortenson, constructive and destructive events by Thomas Schmidt, and textual abstraction by Brian Graves. (You may have seen Graves' work in the winter edition of "Chicago Home" magazine on page 18!) Finally, one new artist has been added to the mix; Chilean-American Fernando Cerda. Cerda’s paintings blur the lines between figurative and abstraction while using Latin-inspired color palettes and themes.

1545 W Division, 2nd Floor
Wondergems: November 17th-January 13th
extended gallery hours January 13 from 6-10pm
lloyddoblergallery.com, 312.961.8706

Lloyd Dobler Gallery is pleased to continue the fall art season with the opening of Wondergems, a group show featuring a range of medium. Wondergems features: Erin Johnson, Matt Wedel, Adam Ekberg, Amanda Browder, Lilli Carré, Ashley Lathe, James Jankowiak, Eric Guerrero, Julia Nestigen-Palm, and Paul Simmons.

This exhibition focuses on works created with a sophisticated innocence. The work is seemingly straight forward with an air of the fictional. One can look at the works in the space and start to narrate their own story, bringing in each of the works separately. Erin Johnson's window piece, made entirely out of tape, is ethereal and striking when the light hits it. The viewer is able to see images cut into the work, referencing tree roots and branches, and can look out of the window, and see actual tress in the city square across the street. This piece also leads into Amanda Browder's soft sculptures of a campfire in the center of the gallery. Both artists use dissimlar materials to reference nature in their work.

2250 West North Avenue, 2nd floor
Pey-ying Kuan: My luxury adventure
extended gallery hours and closing reception January 13 from 6-10pm
tetigallery.com, 847.903.5360

Please join us for the premiere solo exhibition by Taiwanese artist Pey-ying Kuan. My luxury adventure is comprised of work Kuan completed while living in the United States from 2004-2006. This exhibition marks the end of Kuan's stay by bringing together her diverse oeuvre for the first time under one roof. Kuan's work begins with an exploration of ¬¬¬Mandarin Chinese characters, which she delicately weaves into pictures and patterns. From the clear, legible script minutely painted on the interior of eggshells to the abstract characters that underlie fantastic landscapes in her drawings, Kuan approaches the physicality of language with an ethereal eye. Her embroidered texts sown on a silky white ground are like gossamer; a whispered message floating organically in the breeze.