Margie Glass-Sula - Organic Beings

Organic Beings, an exhibition of drawings and paintings by Margie Glass-Sula, will be on display in the Visual Arts Gallery from November 11 through the 18, 2009. An opening reception will be held on Wednesday, November 11, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Glass-Sula’s girlhood fascination with simple nature created an emotional link that has been rediscovered and redefined in her recent work. By evolving imagery from actual individual organic objects, she transforms each into an abstract organic individual of sorts to reveal the intimate link and beauty she finds within it.

Organic Beings is a quiet and seductive look at nature as individuals. Glass-Sula creates serene beings in order to reintroduce nature, and the necessary link to it that often dissipates as life progresses.

Alumni Artforum - Rattle and Drum

On Saturday, November 14 beginning at 4 p.m. and continuing on into the evening, the Governors State University Alumni Artforum are sponsoring a Rattle Art and Drumming Percussion Circle. Everyone is invited to attend this event.

The workshop will begin with a presentation on Rattle Art and Percussion instruments followed by a hands-on, make your own instrument session with dried gourds, paint, feathers, etc. In the evening an outdoor, fire-light, drum circle will follow. Refreshments will be provided. Call 708.534.4128 to preregister. There is five dollar fee to cover cost of materials.

Robert Catania - Establishing a Connection

The GSU Visual Arts Gallery is proudly presenting "Establishing a Connection," the graduate thesis of photographer, Robert Catania from November 3rd through 10th, with an artist's reception on Friday November 6th, from 6:00-9:00 p.m.

Working as a photographer since the early 1990's, Catania's approach to the photographic medium has evolved with the technology. Currently working with applied digital technologies, Catania has begun to explore documentary photography in the digital world. While historically a field that relies on the camera's ability to recreate reality, Catania's approach challenges traditional thinking by employing selective focus and desaturation. Shooting in the backyards and side streets of Chicago, Catania has aimed his camera and computer at a slowly vanishing subject, the pay phone. Originally intended as a classroom project, the thesis, "Establishing a Connection" looks at the places, phones, and conditions that surround a way we once communicated, and wonders aloud about how we communicate now. His large format, color prints allow the viewer to explore places that he or she might otherwise have missed.

Patty McWilliams - Faces

From October 16 - 31, Governors State University MA candidate, Patty McWilliams, is presenting her thesis exhibition at Union Street Gallery, a not-for-profit gallery whose mission is to encourage and nurture emerging and established artists and be a resource for art appreciation and education to the communities that make up the Chicago Southland. Union Street Gallery will host a public reception on October 16th from 6 to 9 p.m. and we encourage you to attend.

McWilliams' larger than life paintings depict expressively the unique physical appearance of her subjects, as the canvas size forces a close up perspective, which might be unlikely to achieve in real life. Unlike traditional portraiture, these portraits are not meant to flatter, but simply to express that which can be seen, as well as, intuited about the subject, all gathered soley from his or her unique face. While McWilliams subjects vary in age, race and gender, they have one main thing in common. Their ageless spirits shine through in expression and color in these paintings.

Union Street Gallery
1527 Otto Blvd.
Chicago Heights, IL 60411
unionstreetgallery.org

Visiting Artist - Gabriel Villa - Spirituality and Surveillance

In conjunction with GSU's annual Artsfest, the Visual Arts Gallery will host an exhibition of the work of Chicago artist, Gabriel Villa. The exhibit will remain open to the public from September 30 through October 23 with an artist's reception and lecture on Wednesday, October 14th.

"Like alchemists, academics, graffiti artists, poets, rebels and paratroopers aflame, the art of Gabriel Villa is anything but a stationary traveler; like Ulysses under the double concaveness of a lake and the sky, his gaze is the site of visions: The most beautiful and loneliest woman, the inverse area of the umbra that rises inversely and proportional to the greatness of the city, the modern Metropolis like a Leviathan...Knowing how to carefully place everything, it all fits in a gaze: The light of a candle, a neon light, dust and snow, chalk and ashes; los inabarcable filos de la vida,great heights and the great cavities of the earth: This is what makes the work of Gabriel Villa a search where a discovery is what the classic teachers understood it to be: Thousands of mixtures and hard work fail to transfigure the immutable nature of matter: The Transfiguration, the only true change into another state occurs in the innermost part of nature, the mass of the shadows, titillating lights, a variable fogginess that lives in the heart of the Alchemist." - excerpted from "Gaze as Hunger: The Art of Gabriel Villa" by Alejandro Perez Cervantes

Gabriel Villa received his BFA from the Corpus Christi State University in 1992 and his MFA from the University of Delaware three years later. Since 2005, he has served as an educator at Chicago's National Museum of Mexican Art as well as co-curating exhibitions at that institution's Kraft Foods Gallery.

gabrielvilla.net

Patricia Watkins - Faith Journey

"Faith Journey" is the solo exhibition of paintings by Patricia Watkins, on display from October 26th to November 2nd, 2009, at the Visual Arts Gallery. The opening reception is Friday, October 30th from 6:00pm to 9:00pm.

Historically, artists have depicted religious subject matter, and with the "Faith Journey" series, Patricia Watkins carries on that tradition from the perspective of her times, her life's journey, and her Catholic faith. Raised on the south side of Chicago, where neighborhoods were better known as "parishes," Watkins returned to her roots after thirty years living and raising her family on east and west coasts. The Catholic Church has undergone sweeping changes in the last half century, and to Watkins it seemed as though something important has been lost. However, the essentials of the faith never change, and it is that faith that gets us through the best and the worst of times. These paintings represent Watkins' tribute to both her roots and her faith.

3rd Annual Artsfest

The College of Arts and Sciences & Student Life Unit Present Governors State University’s 3rd Annual Artsfest, a celebration of the arts at GSU. All events are free and open to the public. October 14, 2009.

Events planned for this year include:

Open Studio Workshops | Visiting Artist Exhibitions and Lectures | Portfolio Reviews | Film Screenings | Interactive Art Projects | Round Table Discussions | Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park Tours | Student and Community Art Fair | And More

For more information, please call 708-235-3956 or visit www.gsuartsfest.blogspot.com

Horizons - Steinunn Thorarinsdottir

An exhibition of sculpture by Icelandic artist, Steinunn Thorarinsdottir, is now open for viewing at the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park. The work, entitled Horizons, consists of twelve "ungendered" human figures cast in iron. Each sculpture features an insert of highly polished glass. The installation will remain on display at Governors State University through September of 2010.

"Thorarinsdottir's work touches on themes of loneliness and isolation with threads of hope implied by glass inserts that provide an aura of spirituality," says Geoffrey Bates, Director and Curator of the park. "This is the first of what we plan as a series of temorary exhibitions of contemporary sculpture that will change on a regular basis. Horizons will provide yet another reason for the public to explore the path of the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park."

Thorarinsdottir has exhibited widely in Europe and the U.K. and has been commissioned by both the Icelandic and English governments for major sculptural installations. Horizons has been seen in New York and Texas and will continue to travel after its stay in University Park. The work is featured in the documentary, Horizons, by independent filmmaker Frank Cantor, which won the CINE Special Jury Award in Washington as the best documentary of 2008.

Plans are underway to bring Thorarinsdottir to the GSU Campus in October for a reception and lecture in conjunction with the University's annual Artsfest.

Steinunn Thorarinsdottir
The Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park