“Everything Connects,” exhibiting at the Art Institute of Chicago through October 20, showcases the process and discoveries of Dutch designer Christien Meindertsma. Meindertsma’s practice bridges the gap between sleek designer and obsessive fiber researcher, examining the stories of products and their raw materials. The exhibition, displayed in the Department of Architecture and Design, highlights Meindertsma’s […]
Some art seeks to capture, in stark detail, the beauty of the natural world around us. Other art turns inward and seeks to transcend the natural world, illustrating the colors and symbols of the worlds within and the worlds beyond. The artwork of Reilly Stasienko — a 17-year-old visionary artist living in Miamisburg, Ohio — […]
An odd feeling creeps into my mind while sitting in Karen McGarry’s Brazee Street studio. The feeling that the many small figures strewn about the space — mannequin parts, cigarette-smoking Barbie dolls, old stop-motion animation dolls — must get up and have lives of their own when no one is around. That is the feeling […]
In many ways, Sophie Lindsey’s artistic practice can be compared to finding a penny face-up on the sidewalk. It happens in the context of your daily routine and makes you feel something — maybe happy or lucky. It breaks the routine just enough to let you step back and appreciate a moment in an otherwise […]
Road trips: an integral part of the ethos of modern man. If you haven’t taken a character-building, eye-opening road trip yourself, you’ve surely travelled — at least in spirit — with Jack Kerouac, Christopher McCandless, or Chevy Chase on their misadventures on the open road. There is a reason this story is played out over […]
What is God? A Westernized ideal, for one, in the monotheistic sense. But, God can also be interpreted as an energy or a sustaining force. God is universal truth, the unpredictability and breadth of the natural world, the ability of the cosmos to function — the cycles of life and death, themselves. China, like many […]
A purple figure faces away from me, her strong back standing at attention. One hand raised, shading her eyes as she looks on into a fiery-red dreamscape, ruminating on her path through an abstract terrain. This is “Woman,” by local abstract painter Eunshin Khang. Khang is one half of the artists being exhibited at the […]
What does a better world look like? In an era of pompous personalities in power and borders erected between our shared humanity, this is a question many of us are asking ourselves. Not only are we scrutinizing what a better world could look like, we are wondering how we can contribute to its formation. There […]
