Test for Echo, Glen Gauthier
My Transmutations, Natalie Jackson
Artist Talk, Sat., Dec 14 at 2 pm - Natalie Jackson and Glen Gauthier
SoNa Chicago is hosting an Artist Talk with two of the artists in the Lightness and Being group show.
In the Call for the group show we asked artists to submit work related to the theme of Lightness and Being and to submit statements about how their work relates to that theme. We received wonderful submissions and commentary. The artists reflected on time, memories, and what lies ahead. The work in the show conveys wonderment at life, nature, spirituality, and our connections to each other. Some of the artists reflected on hardship and how to move through it. The work in the show is profoundly positive and generative.
Natalie Jackson is a Portrait and Fine Arts photographer. She has lived in Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta, and Charlotte. She has a photo studio called Nat Jack Studios, which is based in Joliet, IL. She has won multiple awards and recognitions and her work has been shown in galleries and exhibitions across the U.S. She serves on the Board of Directors at the Contemporary Art Center of Peoria, an active community arts center just south of Chicago in Illinois. She is also the photographer for and on the Board of Directors for Central Illinois Jazz Society. Her work amplifies the beauty and pride in the lives of Black Americans. She wrote for her group show entry: As a Black photographer, I focus my prime lens on the often-overlooked beauty and dignity of my subjects…. My photography seeks to place us front and center, bathed in the glowing light that has been denied us for too long….”
Glen Gauthier is a mixed media collage artist who recently moved to Chicago from Dallas where he had a studio and also worked as a Creative Director. His artworks are montages of precise clippings from his collection of old books, brochures, images, and documents incorporated on canvas with acrylic paint. He has exhibited in cities across the United States. For the artist statement about his work in the show he wrote, “My medium is collage, utilizing printed ephemera to serve as a kind of time machine…. These materials with a history have fascinated me since childhood. I’m the youngest of five siblings who grew up in a home with overwhelmed parents in south Louisiana….Through this work, I’m having a conversation with myself through time as a boy, a man, and the future version of myself. It doesn’t all make perfect sense yet, but clarity is slowly setting in.”
Images:
My Transmutation by Natalie Jackson, digital photography, 2024
Test for Echo by Glen Gauthier, collage and cyanotype on cereal box, 2022
Current Exhibition
Group Show: Lightness and Being
Nov. 8, 2024 - Jan. 11, 2025
Opening Reception, Fri., Nov. 8, 6-9 pm
How do we maintain serenity and peace within when forces outside of us are ambiguous and even tumultuous? How do we feel joy, share love, work, and create in times of uncertainty? What does it mean to “be” when we may feel apprehension about the future. This group show, SoNa Chicago’s first open call for artists, explores how artists interpret and express the idea of lightness and being. The artists selected for the show reflect on time, memories, and what lies ahead. They convey their wonderment at life, nature, spirituality, and our connections to each other. Light streams through the sky, through glass, or from an object. Lightness is interpreted through form, color, and texture. Silence, stillness, and meditation on spaces is conveyed in some of the artwork. Other artists reflect on hardship and how to move through it. The artists make statements with their work that are profoundly positive, and generative. They connect to nature, humanity, and creativity as forces that fill us and can impact society. Questions of what it means to be and how lightness can imbue our consciousness and senses are explored through various media.
Exhibiting Artists:
Pinar Aral, Sharon Bladholm, Monica J. Brown, reisling dong, Alan Emerson Hicks, Robert Fields, Mirentxu Ganzarain, Glen Gauthier, Markus Giolas, Fletcher Hayes, Anne Hughes, Ethan Hutchinson, Natalie Jackson, Damien James, Kathleen King, Pauline Kochanski, Loralyn Kumlin, Kim Laurel, Beatriz Ledesma, Antwane Lee, Michael Miller, Rosalina Perez, Corinne Peterson, Diane Ponder, Renee Robbins, Tom Robinson, Julian Sarria, Nicholas Sistler, Paul Gerard Somers, Eve Sopala, Gerardo Villarreal, Kathy Weaver, Glenn Wexler
Previous Exhibitions
Sept 6 - Oct 26, 2024
Nicholas Sistler: TORQUE
Previous Exhibitions
May 31 - July 20, 2024
Laleh Motlagh: Entanglement
SoNa Chicago Contemporary Art Gallery features new works by Laleh Motlagh
SoNa Chicago is proud to feature new work by artist Laleh Motlagh in a solo exhibition from May 31 - July 20, 2024. As an Iranian Azerbaijanis-American woman, Laleh Motlagh delves into profound explorations of love, intimacy, spirituality, trust, and resilience while remaining present to her own localities. Based in Chicago, Motlagh challenges socio-cultural alienation and navigates the complexities of multicultural identity. Often collaborative with other-than-human, she employs drawing, painting, sculpture, performance, video, and installation to question the boundaries between human and natural life, the admissible and the taboo, as well as the geopolitical overtones found so prevalently in the discourse of border zones and notions of belonging.
Her new exhibition, Entanglement, explores issues related to transformation of personal memories, contemplation on entanglement, love, care and intimacy, containment & consolation, and seeing the unseen. The exhibit includes drawings, paintings, video, and mixed media sculptures. The work is a continuation of her study of the remains of her houseplants and of those in the garden outside. In an interview with writer Mána Taylor in NewCity Art, Motlagh says “They are still changing.” The dried remains are featured in this exhibition at SoNa Chicago, including a series called “Cycles and Voids,” where different hues of dried material are shown in their varied and subtle shades. Laleh Motlagh was one of NewCity’s Breakout Artists of 2023.
The new works in Entanglement extend on the themes of Contemplation, which was at the Chicago Artist Coalition last year. Laleh Motlagh’s work has a simple elegance and quietness. It conveys the transitory nature of life and its beauty in all its phases. We try to hold it, but it has transformed into something else that is also deeply meaningful.
Laleh Motlagh’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions around the world. She has received multiple awards and recognitions. Motlagh received her MFA from the University of Illinois Chicago and teaches at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.
The Opening Reception for the show Entanglement is Friday, May 31 from 6-9 pm. An artist talk is scheduled for Saturday, June 22 from 1-2 pm. The exhibition runs through July 20, 2024.
SoNa Chicago Contemporary Art is located at 1527 N. Ashland Avenue in the Wicker Park Bucktown neighborhood on Chicago’s north side.
