Laura Kina - Sugar (Click Here for an online preview of this exhibit)

About the Artist
Laura Kina received her MFA Studio Art from the University of Illinois at Chicago and her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is an Associate Professor of Art, Media, and Design and distinguished Vincent de Paul Professor at DePaul University. Born in Riverside, California to an Okinawan father from Hawai’i and a Spanish-Basque/Anglo mother, Kina was raised in a small Norwegian town in the Pacific Northwest. The artist currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. Her work has shown nationally and internationally, most recently in New Delhi and Mumbai, India, and is represented in Miami, FL by Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts. Her recent solo shows include: A Many-Splendored Thing (Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, IL 2010), Aloha Dreams and Hapa Soap Operas (Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts, Miami, FL 2007 and 2003), and Loving (Grand Projects, New Haven, CT 2006).

For more information visit www.laurakina.com

About the Work
Set during the 1920’s-1940’s, Laura Kina’s SUGAR paintings recall obake ghost stories and feature Japanese and Okinawan picture brides turned machete carrying sugar cane plantation field laborers on the Big Island of Hawaii. Drawing on oral history and family photographs from Nisei (2nd generation) and Sansei (3rd generation) from Peepekeo, Pi’ihonua, and Hakalau plantation community members as well as historic images, Kina’s paintings take us into a beautiful yet grueling world of manual labor, cane field fires, and flumes.

Constance DeMuth Berg - Seeing in a New Way (Click Here for an online preview of this exhibit)

About the Artist
Constance DeMuth Berg has received her education at various distinguished institutions, including the International Beaux Arts School in Provence, France, Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. She has taught at Northern University of Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa, at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and at Penn State University, Pennsylvania. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, from Galesburg, Illinois to Washington, DC at Gallery 10. DeMuth Berg is the 2007 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient at MacMurray College.

About the Work
"I recycle and build from discarded "thrown away" pieces, such as parts of antique furniture, old tools, the banister of an old stairway, wooden molds, etc. Some pieces were discovered on a mountain road in Provence; other shapes caught my eye in flea markets and antique shops. As opposed to the ordinary, practical past use of the wood or metal, I see the forms in a new way. I take them as I find them, and am challenged and disciplined to work within the limitations of their design to assemble a sculpture in which each shape seems to belong to another by coming together (somewhat magically?) into a final harmonious composition.

I believe that it is necessary for both the artist and the viewer to become partners in the enriching experience of 'seeing' in a new way."

After Adelita:
Myths, Heroes, and Revolutionaries (Click Here for an online preview of this exhibit)

”For many decades, the name Adelita has evoked multiple meanings. Various interpretations of Adelita identify her as a hero, a myth, and a revolutionary. Popular ballads tell the story of Adelita as a young woman who fought during the Mexican Revolution. While some believe that she is an actual historical figure, others see her as a composite of the many women who joined in battle during the Revolution. The image of a female revolutionary, with blouse, skirt, sombrero, and ammunition across her chest, serves as an iconic representation of the Revolution and of Mexican history. Songs, books, plays, films, and calendars have interpreted Adelita as a sex symbol, a brave champion of the people, and a proto-feminist.

After Adelita includes works that express ideas about myths, heroes, and revolutionaries by women artists who work in diverse media, such as video, painting, photography, and printmaking. The eight artists in the exhibition—Carla Avila, Adriana Baltazar, Esperanza Gama, Maria Gaspar, Judithe Hernández, Patricia Peña, Jenny Priego, and Diana Solís—each bring a layer of complexity to the show by offering a mix of powerful, personal, defiant, intimate, and lyrical portrayals of femininity. Some works relate specifically to the Mexican Revolution, while others evoke a broader, more abstract relationship to the idea of Adelita, an icon who inspires myriad meanings.

2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. The Revolution resulted in the loss of more than one million lives and brought destruction to communities across Mexico. After Adelita examines how a century later, artists in Chicago create work that can relate both closely and loosely to the most iconic female figure to emerge from this turbulent time in Mexican history.” –Amy Galpin

Amy Galpin - Exhibition Curator
Amy Galpin is Project Curator for American Art at the San Diego Museum of Art. Previously, she was Gallery Coordinator at Woman Made Gallery. Her recent exhibitions include Translating Revolution: U.S. Artists Interpret Mexican Muralism at The National Museum of Mexican Art and Brutal Beauty: Drawings by Hugo Crosthwaite at the San Diego Museum of Art.

Arterial Space at Salvage One (Click Here for an online preview of this exhibit)

Creative activity generates from an interval of time and place where all thought, conversation and connections coexist. In celebration of Chicago Artist Month, Woman Made Gallery and Salvage One team together to explore the process of artmaking and the space it occupies.

Exhibiting Artists:
Atyl, Constance DeMuth Berg, Ilse Bolle, Pamela Callahan, Diane Cooper, Ruth Eckstein, Deb Flagel, Sara Holwerda, Dorothy Hughes, Laurie Wessman LeBreton, Joyce Owens, Joyce Polance, Karen Rechtschaffen, Ginny Sykes, and Rhonda Wheatley