Spotlight on the Shared Space of EC Gallery and Kasia Kay Art Projects

By Chicago Art Magazine on Oct 19, 2010 in Articles, Featured

Gallery Spotlights are posts about randomly selected* art venues in Chicago

Brian Smith

Nestled in a lesser known corner of the West Loop and Fulton Market across the street from a metal fabricating shop, EC Gallery is a small, but well put together space allowing for just the right blend of playful and inventive art to be displayed on its walls. Since fall of 2008, when artist and curator Ewa Czeremuszkin first opened the doors of the gallery it has specialized in representing a unique group of nationally and internationally known mid-career and emerging artists working in painting, drawing, photography and mixed media.

EC Gallery

Although EC Gallery has so far been in business for only a short period of time, it seems as though it fits well into the West Loop gallery scene. As I entered through the double glass doors for the first time I was curious at its size. It is rather small and intimate, but manages its size well, even with a packed crowd of gallery-goers who have come to look at the art or just hang out, talk, and drink wine – typical of the Chicago gallery scene. But one is quickly struck with a sense of coziness and ease despite the spaces diminutive size and crowd of art supporters for its openings.

Catching a show here mostly consists of experiencing paintings rendered on small to medium sized canvases and similar sized works on paper. They are a few photographers and a sculpture hailing from Japan on their roster, but mostly what you will see here are paintings, or work having to do with paint. When you first walk in through the doors, you will generally step into a world filled with canvases full of brushy, dirty, colorful abstract and figurative work. The images are often playful and the forms, lines, colors and boundaries tend to disappear so frequently that one does not know where one line begins and another ends. Where one color becomes another totally different color seems to happen of its own accord.

Kasia Kay Art Projects

Most common from my experience of the small but expansive space was a taste for the figurative. Human forms are represented by a multitude of washes of color, lines, brushwork, and not quite abstract, but not quite representational forms and figures. An example of this can be seen in the paintings of Agata Czeremuszkin, an emerging artist and recent graduate from the Academy of the Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland, with a Masters degree in painting. Her nearly sexless figures rendered in both oil and acrylic on canvas and paper, stray from being full-fledged human outlines to a falling apart mess of loose limbs, missing body parts and featureless faces surrounded by text and large fields of sobering color.

There are also included amongst the collection of figurative and abstract painters some representations of geometric art. The sculpture works of Ken’ichiro Taniguchi made from little yellow jagged plastic hinges, look like miniature explosions. Richard Blackwell’s drawings created through the use of new digital technologies and industrial manufacturing materials are geometric landscapes of angles and white lines on shaped medium density fiberboard. Paul Kowalow seems obsessed with the apparitions of wobbly reflected images that appear in the grid arrangements of tall window filled skyscrapers in cities.

Sharing the space with EC Gallery is Kasia Kay Art Projects, run by Kasia Kay. Kasia and Ewa split use of the space bi-monthly. Each represents artists that work with similar mediums and have a taste for a hand worked aesthetic. Having known each other for several years, it seems only natural that these two gallerists could share a space. Kasia shows an intriguing mix of contemporary art by mostly emerging artists. The works that can be seen here range from video, drawing, and painting to installation and sculpture. Kasia’s tastes seem dependent on the artist’s vision without a preference for one type of medium or the other.

EC Gallery Kasia Kay Art Projects

Coming here you might find yourself viewing a show of tiny intimate sculptures by Duncan Anderson that are both ridicules and serious at the same time. They tend to capitalize on our fascination with movies and the surreal. Their titles are long and quirky and read like narration. On the other hand, you might find yourself surrounded by whimsical and fascinating gouaches and animations by Chicago-based artist Diane Christiansen. Her characters remind me of imaginary creatures and cataclysmic events I might have thought up as a child.

Most exhibitions here will either be solo or two person shows as the space really doesn’t allow for larger group shows. So be prepared to spend some time looking at mostly one body of work. Overall you can find Kasia Kay Art Projects to be a daring and interesting gallery where there is something new and refreshing from one show to the next.

EC Gallery and Kasia Kay Art Projects are located at 215 N. Aberdeen, Chicago, and are open Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00am – 3:00pm.

We’re Not Talking Trash . . . We’re Talking ‘Poignant Trash’

By Gregory Kiewiet

The work in SAIC alum Connie Noyes’s (MFA 1980) latest show Poignant Trash at E/C Gallery continues her exploration in the recycling of disparate elements (garbage like Styrofoam, roofing paper, and other shiny, plastic surfaces) which undergo an alchemical-like process under the artist’s hands. Combined with enamel, resin, and asphalt, discarded materials are transformed into aesthetically-pleasing pieces that are compelling both for what they are and how they came to be.

After graduate school, Noyes became interested in taking pictures of trash – window-shades, wood, ripped paper, cardboard, thumbtacks, spray-paint, or whatever she could find. The artist would then make collages, set up still-lives, and photograph them, ‘deconstructing’ them materially or through the photos.

Post graduate life, however, for Noyes was not always productive. For six years after graduating, Noyes did not make work - partly out of fear and partly because she wasn’t having fun. “I felt like if I had the idea, then I didn’t have to do the work,” she said in an interview with F News.

The return to process and the fun came when watching her two-year old daughter stick the tips of magic markers (non-toxic) in her mouth and watching color ooze onto the paper. “Oh my God, she’s having fun,” Noyes realized.

“I’m always asking myself: What happens if I do this? What do I have to lose? No one has to see it,” says Noyes.

The first stage in Noyes’s recycling process in painting began when she was working in San Francisco. The constant cleaning of paint brushes left her with jars of sludge that she was unsure how to dispose of, so Noyes started experimenting with the material, along with tiny cut outs from discarded photographer’s mattes, on the oil-paintings she was working on. Absorbed in what she was doing, Noyes soon found herself with what she jokingly calls “a sludge farm’.

“People started giving me their sludge . . . I was a sludge magnet,” Noyes said, laughing.

Interested in the different qualities the sludge created, the different things it could do, and the element of surprise that it provided, Noyes began regularly using the sludge as a texture under her paint. The painting on the surface became “this skin” that was covering “the less desirable materials,” says Noyes.

This kicked-started her in a whole other direction.

The artist’s first show of recycled material was in 2007 at Estel Gallery in Nashville, Kentucky . The displayed works had been created when Noyes wanted to “repurpose” trash from the move to a new studio.

“I first fell in love with the roofing materials” says Noyes, referring to the piece Conform. “That was the material that first grabbed me.”

The 17 pieces on display vary in looks, textures, and size, from the white shimmering exquisite 8 x 6 inches Envelop me no. 1 to the densely-layered black provocative 60 x 48 inches Conform. Particularly striking are the pieces – like the two mentioned- where the skin of the glossy resin and enamel – often wrinkled – teases and tempts the eyes and hands – while latching on to the mind.

Poignant Trash is on view at E/C Gallery until October 23.
215 N. Aberdeen Chicago IL 60607

Art openings galore in Chicago this fall

From faceless busts to 3-D installations, there's something for everyone

By Lauren VieraTribune reporter

September 10, 2010

Autumn — and the autumn art season — is upon us once again.

This is the one time of year when the majority of local visual arts venues align their openings to a single night (Friday!) in order to capitalize on the crowds, the weather and that deeply rooted back- to-school fervor that fuels our desire to get cultured.

Navigating it all can be a bit overwhelming, unless you've got a gallery-hopping game plan. Pick a specific neighborhood, or follow your curiosity. Those fond of classic figurative painting should prioritize visits to Ann Nathan Gallery or the Highland Park Art Center, while hipsters in search of offbeat art will flock to Johalla Projects and Threewalls. Up-and-comer Dan Gunn is the star Friday at Lloyd Dobler Gallery while Shane Campbell Gallery breaks in a new address with subtlety beautiful paintings from Anthony Pearson.

Behold: Your guide to the most noteworthy openings, along with a save-the-date guide to the rest of the fall — the best art season of all is on...

Up-and-comers

These are the names likely to linger on the tips of the tongues,especially for those who closely follow the rotating cast of emerging artists. Dan Gunn is a recently graduated product of the School of the Art Institute who has been playing with plywood, cutting it up into visual motifs. A collection of recent works called "Multistable Picture Fable" opens Saturday at Lloyd Dobler (1545 W. Division St., 2nd floor, 312-961-8706; lloyddoblergallery.com). Stephanie Syjuco has arrived nationally, exhibiting at major institutions such as New York's Whitney Museum of American Art. Her show at Gallery 400, "Particulate Matter (Things, Thingys, Thingies)," continues her explorations of counterfeit and mismatched mass production (400 S. Peoria St., 312-996-6114; uic.edu/aa/college/gallery400). Golden Age Gallery presents "Faux Weirdo," new work by Lauren Anderson, which continues to propel this young artist's portfolio into uncharted territory. In the past she's created a pinata shaped like a PBR can; for this exhibition, she's made a series of smoke-bomb inspired drawings and sculptures (119 N. Peoria St., 312-288-8535; shopgoldenage.com).

Classic and figurative artists

German photo-artist Gert Wiedmaier softens his images of Parisian life to an impressionist-grade fade for his solo show at Thomas Masters Gallery (245 W. North Ave., 312-440-2322; thomasmastersgallery.com), while Tim Lowly, a longtime contributor to the local painting and drawing scene, continues to produce startling, photorealist images of experiences spent nurturing his disabled daughter. His latest show of paintings and woodcuts, "Without Moving (25)," opens Saturday at Lincoln Square's Fill in the Blank Gallery (5038 N. Lincoln Ave., 773-878-1750; fillintheblankgallery.com).

The elongated title "Tethered to My World — Contemporary Figure Painting: Location, Chicago" is the self-explanatory subject of the fall show (reception Saturday) at the Art Center in Highland Park (1957 Sheridan Road, Highland Park, 847-432-1888; theartcenterhp.org), which includes work from brilliantly detailed painter/drawer Kevin Wolff, as well as familiar locals Karl Wirsum, Andreas Fischer and Elizabeth Shrev. For something completely different, don't miss "Introducing Stephen Cefalo" at Ann Nathan Gallery (212 W. Superior St., 312-664-6622; annnathangallery.com), in which eerie, Dutch-style oil paintings make bold statements.

Weird and the beautiful

A cartoonlike Neighborhood Watch icon and a weeping Abraham Lincoln are two of the half-dozen sculptures Ben Stone created for his second solo show at Western Exhibitions (119 N. Peoria St., 312-480-8390; westernexhibitions.com).

"Poignant Trash" is the subject of renowned painter Connie Noyes' show at EC Gallery (215 N. Aberdeen St., 312-850-0924; ec- gallery.com), whose works feature cast-off utilitarian items so gussied up, they're almost unrecognizable. Montgomery Perry Smith fashions soft, circular compositions from faux flowers and felt, producing polished, craft-chic sculptures. A collection of his latest, dubbed "Pit Worship," opens Saturday at Johalla Projects (1561 N. Milwaukee Ave., 708-280-3940; johallaprojects.wordpress.com). Dubhe Carreno Gallery is often home to exhibits that are equally creepy and beautiful, and ceramicist Elise Siegel is no exception. Her faceless busts and topless bottoms are the focus of "make/ believe" (118 N. Peoria St., 312-666-3150; dubhecarrenogallery.com).

Modern intelligentsia

There's an abundance in this category of smart, new art, beginning with Los Angeles-based Anthony Pearson's laborious photographic processes built from the subject on up. He's the premiere artist at Shane Campbell Gallery's new location in River West (673 N. Milwaukee Ave., 312-226-2223; shanecampbellgallery.com). Tony Wight Gallery kicks off its fall season with a joint show of work by Arturo Herrera and David Schutter. We're keen on the former, whose mixed media collages are as tasteful as the polished paintings we're accustomed to seeing on these walls (845 W. Washington Blvd., 312-492-7261; tonywightgallery.com). Another pair of men, Jeff Gibson and Geoff Kleem, share the exhibition spaces starting Sept. 19 at The Suburban (125 N. Harvey Ave., Oak Park, 708-763-8554; thesuburban.org). Gibson will be projecting a new video work, and I'm especially excited to see Kleem's 3-D installation, to be viewed from just beyond the gallery's perimeter. Friday night, Portland, Ore.-based painter and sculptor Chris Johanson goes "Backwards

Toward Forwards" at Kavi Gupta Gallery (835 W. Washington Blvd., 312-432-0708; kavigupta.com), which, if it's anything like past shows, will spill over the entire gallery in a wash of childlike color. Downstairs at Carrie Secrist Gallery (835 W. Washington Blvd., 312-491-0917; secristgallery.com), Megan Green and Carolyn Ottmers contribute flora- and fauna-inspired collages and sculptures, respectively, both of which offer modern interpretations of natural beauty.

Familiar faces

You've seen these folks several times before, and they're worth looking at again. Photographer Jason Lazarus is everywhere these days, from the Modern Wing to modest suburban galleries like the Riverside Art Center's Freeark Gallery (32 E. Quincy Road, Riverside, 708-442-6400; riversideartcenter.com), which Sunday celebrates the opening of "Too Hard to Keep," Lazarus's ongoing study of anonymously submitted photographs too painful to hold onto. Laura Letinsky shoots still-lifes, mostly of morning-after table settings, and somehow they never get boring. Her latest collection, "To Peach," opens Sept. 17 at Donald Young Gallery (224 S. Michigan Ave., suite 266, 312-322-3600; donaldyoung.com). Carl Hammer Gallery invites us to revisit the work of well-known self- taught artists Joseph Yoakum, Bill Taylor and Frank Jones in "Out of Struggle Came Power," under the guise of their collective African-American experience (740 N. Wells St., 312-266-8512; hammergallery.com). If the names Carla Arocha and Stephane Schraenen sound familiar, chances are you ride the Red Line: The pair's "24/7" public sculpture hangs above an escalator at the Howard station. While details are vague, Arocha-Schraenen's "As If" at Moniquemeloche should be worth seeing when it opens Thursday (2154 W. Division St., 773-252-0299; moniquemeloche.com).

Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune

Poignant Trash new works by Connie Noyes

Poignant Trash

new works by Connie Noyes

September 10 – October 23, 2010

Opening Reception: Friday, September 10, 6-8 pm

(Chicago) The EC Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of works by Connie Noyes "Poignant Trash". An opening night reception will be held at the EC Gallery, 215 N. Aberdeen, Friday, September 10, 2010, 6-8 pm.

"Poignant Trash" is part of Connie Noyes' new series "Human Steps", which references the many disparate elements encountered in daily urban life - a metaphor for the way in which dark affects light and vice versa, how the sweet can become sickly if overdone and how close proximity to millions of people, diverse cultures and visual images can both inspire and overwhelm. It is a metaphor for tight quarters, pleasant or not so pleasant meetings and vibrant energy of the city in contrast to shadowy and emotionally difficult places.

For "Poignant Trash", Noyes uses what most people consider garbage as a jumping off place in the work. The materials at one point might have been utilitarian, but were never considered beautiful. The recycled styrofoam, roofing paper, shiny, plastic surfaces often synonymous to commercial objects, would never pass inspection as such. Dirt falls onto the canvases, scratches, cracks, marks occur and there are no straight lines, only the illusion of such. Through the act of turning detritus into “works of art”, or elevating the prestige of garbage, Noyes aims to question the status quo of beauty, worthiness and usability.

poignant trash
searches for value,
in the mundane.
a metaphor for
the discarded.
the dismissed.

poignant trash-
utilitarian materials
never before beautiful.
layers information,
of opposition,
in the same space.

poignant trash
playful
grotesque,
upon close inspection.
the dirty and damaged
are delicately beautiful.

poignant trash,
though often ignored,
is on view daily.
look more, see more
it vies for emotional appeal.
glance away.

poignant trash
is waste
elevated in prestige
by context.
strong.
fragile.
unapologetic.

Connie Noyes (b. 1955, Washington, DC) lives and works in Chicago.
Noyes is an award-winning painter whose work has been exhibited in Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco and abroad in London, Florence, Paris and Malaysia. In the 4th Annual Florence Biennale in 2003, she took a 5th place prize in painting from a field of 500 painters. She has been selected for prestigious residencies, including the Emaar International Art Symposium in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (2005); the Thupelo International Workshop in Cape Town, South Africa (2005); and the 6th Annual International Symposium of Art in Bulgaria (2006). Noyes' work is in a number of public and private collections including that of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she earned her MFA in 1980.

For more information on Connie Noyes "Poignant Trash" please contact Ewa Czeremuszkin at info@ec-gallery.com or call 312.850.0924.

Junko Yamamoto at EC Gallery

By Chicago Art Magazine on May 25, 2010 in Featured, Reviews

By Robin Dluzen

EC Gallery is hosting the first Chicago exhibition for Tokyo-born, Seattle-based artist, Junko Yamamoto. The gallery, which trades off the small, but bright Fulton Market exhibition space with Kasia Kay Art Projects, is displaying a selection of oil paintings and small scale prints on paper in the exhibition “In between, you and I, there is space all around us.” The collection of paintings, entitled “Shunyata Series,” (Shunyata is the “Sanskrit word for ‘emptiness’”), explores the voids and the fullness of pictorial spaces.

Yamamoto’s paintings are square in format, and modestly sized. Square paintings afford artists a little bit of freedom from the rectangles of traditional painting; without referencing the portraiture of the vertical rectangle or the landscape of the horizontal, the square for Yamamoto allows for her all-over patterns exist as a moment in, or a fragment of, a continuous pattern. Her squares in the Shunyata Series appear unbound by their edges and dimensions, and they prompt their viewers to visualize the rest of an endless composition. And the notion that viewers must imagine a picture beyond what’s on the canvas locates these paintings somewhere outside of illusionistc space, to where we could begin to think about them possibly inhabiting the real world.

Composed of layers of different colors, forms and kinds of mark-making, the paintings bring to mind the layers of an urban environment. Though the artist professes that she “loves muted colors,” each painting begins with an all-over layer of cadmium red, applied with a printer’s roller. Instead of dealing with the intimidating, empty, neutral canvas that most painters dread, Yamamoto’s solution is to begin with one of the most dynamic, saturated colors available, and then set the painting into motion by progressively softening that first layer. It seems important for Yamamoto’s making process to create a foil against which to respond. Like the cadmium red that induces the addition of the pastels, the artist describes the employment of oil paint as a sort of antagonist; the oil paint forces the artist to slow the painting process down, in order to create a “past” or history for the finished product. Leaving layers of paint visible underneath the stenciled forms, painted groupings of circles and the graphically outlined ovals and flowers are what bring to mind the passage of time that is documented by the layers of graffiti and wheat-pasted posters of city life.

But what’s surprising in the works’ relationship to the graffiti-like references –that are often connoted as loaded and gritty—is the enduring lightness and sweetness of the finished paintings. All the palettes are light pastels, in greens, yellows, pinks and purples and make a blissful environment in which the flowers and the delicate, abstracted little characters can inhabit. As much as the paintings are about building a unique history for the painting and encouraging pictorial space within the confines of the super-flat, two-dimensional medium, they end up expressing just as much about the importance of beauty and decoration in the everyday.

“In between, You and I, there is space all around us” is on display May 14 – June 19, 2010 at EC Gallery, 215 North Aberdeen, Chicago.

Junko YamamotoIn between, You and I, there is space all around us

Junko Yamamoto

In between, You and I, there is space all around us

May 14 - June 19, 2010

Opening reception with artist: Friday, May 14, 6-8 pm

Junko Yamamoto, I choose this way, 2010, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

(Chicago) The EC Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Junko Yamamoto "In between, You and I, there is space all around us". An opening night reception will be held at the EC Gallery, 215 N. Aberdeen, Friday, May 14, 2010, 6-8 pm.

Junko Yamamoto’s abstract paintings are based on the idea of Shunyata - a Sanskrit word for “emptiness.” The Shunyata Series represents ongoing memories of texture, color and space. These are meditative, dreamlike explorations of consciousness, colored by the contradiction of fullness and emptiness.

Yamamoto continues to explore her on going theme about space between all of the atoms, spaces between people, objects, air between this room and that room; the glue and energy of the entire universe which is holding us together. She likes to push and pull two dimensional spaces with paint, ink and visual motion to make them with three dimensional depth and extension.

Yamamoto’s abstract art straddles Japanese pop culture while remaining distinctly separated from the crowd. Her Shunyata series, which may become her life’s work, is a beautiful collection that revels in opulent decorative detail.

Junko Yamamoto was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, now lives and works in Seattle. She received her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle in 1999.
Yamamoto’s work has been exhibited world-wide. Her works has been shown at numerous places such as: Gallery IMA, Wright Now at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Westcott House, King County Art Gallery aka 4 Culture, Bel- levue Art Museum, SAM Gallery, Kirkland Arts Center, Poncho Foundation, Henry Art Gallery, Gas Gallery (Torino, Italy), Fresh Paint Art Gallery (Culver City, CA), Andrea Schwalts Gallery (San Francisco), Lotus Roots Gallery (Osaka, Japan), J Trip Gallery (Tokyo, Japan), Portland, Oregon and Boise, Idaho. Her works are included in the collections of Swedish Cancer Institute, Harborview Medical Center, Aspen Hotel Group and Mulvanny G2 Architecture.

Yamamoto has been featured in publications such as The Art in America Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Conde Nast Traveler, Studio Visit Magazine and Art Ltd. Magazine.

Review: Justyna Adamczyk/EC Gallery

Justyna’a Adamczyk’s “New Paintings” is a taut, elegant show of eight roughly similar paintings from 2009. They are all the same size, 23.5 by 27.5 inches, and the same material, washed-out acrylic on linen. They all embrace white space and, at their best, simplicity. They also seem to represent a journey, taken clockwise around the gallery, of an artist discovering and developing her strength. “Sztukas” is the title of the first work, which is an apparently untranslatable Polish word meaning… “something untranslatable.” An opaque white cloud—noteworthy for the absence of opaque forms—rains down a tangle of vines that might festoon a ceramic tile or a teapot, engendering an initial fear that the work is too decorative, too crafty; a fear that is then gradually dismissed. By painting the final painting, “Seriously…,” any sign of the stiff knick-knackery is gone, replaced by two dark washes of varying opacity. A large blob reads as a torso. A second, thicker blob is an ominous, even brutal shape, like a bird pecking out the eyes of a dead man or thoughts forcibly escaping the brain and turning into a comic thought-bubble, mocking and cruel. In between these two extremes is the transition, with each work selectively adding and subtracting elements, searching for the best fit. Cutesy lipstick puckers and seashells are first allowed to exist alone, before being met with threats of violence. The tchotchkes then disappear altogether, but for the remnant bloody splash, and finally a vague remembrance. Adamczyk’s process hones the work to its finest point of expression, leaving me with hopes of the next works to come. (Erik Wennermark)

Through February 13 at EC Gallery, 215 N. Aberdeen