Denise Treizmen: In Between Living

University Galleries of Illinois State University
June 3—July 31, 2022

Through a practice of searching, gleaning, and repurposing, Miami-based Chilean-Israeli artist Denise Treizman critically examines hyper-consumerism while also carefully participating in it and relying on commercial goods. Having lived in many densely populated cities over the years—London, San Francisco, New York City, Haifa, and now Miami—Treizman’s practice has benefited from throwaway culture. She states, “Working both on the street and in the studio, I examine how worthless fragments can be transformed into unexpected art experiences.” The exhibition title, In Between Living, relates to Treizman’s history of salvaging discarded materials from the street—a repeated practice as she moved from one place to the next. The production and waste of excess goods, “invented necessities” as she likes to call them, has been at the foundation of her work since 2010, when she spent her first summer in New York City. Although she questions who needs vibrantly patterned single-use materials, like pink flamingo-printed duct tape or violet bubble wrap, she finds these playful materials irresistible. By incorporating them into her found-object installations and unconventional weavings, she prompts viewers to reflect on the mass-produced society in which we live.

Treizman was originally scheduled to have an exhibition at University Galleries during summer 2020, but it was postponed due to Coronavirus (COVID 19)-related uncertainty and travel restrictions. Shortly before the pandemic started, the artist acquired a loom to make nontraditional weavings, including foam pool noodles, cellophane, duct tape, and LED string lights. This was a pivotal point in her career as health and safety reasons prompted her to re-examine her previous gathering practice. Having access to her own loom also enabled Treizman to deepen her interest in fiber arts, allowing her to explore the “relationship between the ready-made and artist-made.” A selection of these brightly colored, textural, and sometimes luminescent weavings will be on display for this exhibition.

The exhibition will also include installations made in response to University Galleries’ architecture, including 16-foot-tall walls, high ceilings, and gridded wall of windows. These site-specific gestures will incorporate a variety of objects that Treizman has accumulated over a twelve-year period, many of which have been kept in storage since her 2018 departure from New York City. These materials—including deflated yoga balls, packing foam, tinsel, rope, and more recently, her weavings—have been used in previous exhibitions but will now serve as prompts. Nothing is permanent, everything transforms.

Denise Treizman: In Between Living is organized by Jessica Bingham, former curator at University Galleries. The exhibition and programming are sponsored in part by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Related Websites:
University Galleries
Denise Treizman

Photos:
Installation view at University Galleries of Illinois State University.
More.


T.J. Dedeaux-Norris: Second Line

Part I: August 4 through October 3, 2021

University Galleries of Illinois State University is pleased to present T.J. Dedeaux-Norris: Second Line from August 4 through December 12, 2021. Split into two parts, this exhibition features over 45 works from multiple series spanning sixteen years by artist, performer, and educator T.J. Dedeaux-Norris. Dedeaux-Norris critiques systems of race, sex, gender, religion, education, healthcare, and class, as well as the complexities of family dynamics and histories. Through their multidisciplinary practice, including painting, fiber, performance, video, and music, Dedeaux-Norris questions how these systems—and the visible and invisible trauma they induce—exploit people of color, women, Queer folx, and the elderly.

Part II: October 8 through December 12, 2021

The exhibition title refers to New Orleans’s history of funerary celebrations and parades, Dedeaux-Norris’s Mississippi Gulf Coast family, and the jazz funeral for victims of Hurricane Katrina. As author Richard Brent Turner points out in Jazz Religion, the Second Line, and Black New Orleans: After Hurricane Katrina, second lining and jazz funerals are tied to Haitian and West and Central African diasporic religious practices and music traditions. In short, jazz funerals include marching and dancing from the church or funeral parlor to the cemetery alongside family and friends to the music of brass and percussion bands, which is referred to as “first line” or “main line.” Following is the “second line,” which welcomes members of the community and passersby who join in the rhythms of life and death. These traditions, both secular and sacred, have grown independently over generations leading to second line parades for leisure purposes and festivals.

T.J. Dedeaux-Norris: Second Line is curated by Jessica Bingham, University Galleries’ curator. The exhibition and programming are sponsored in part by grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, Alice and Fannie Fell Trust, Harold K. Sage Foundation, and the Illinois State University Foundation Fund.

Related Websites:
University Galleries
T.J. Dedeaux-Norris
Exhibition Video

Photos:
Installation view at University Galleries of Illinois State University.
Part I
Part II


Making Our Space: Members of the Peoria Guild of Black Artists

University Galleries of Illinois State University
June 1—August 1, 2021

Making Our Space: Members of the Peoria Guild of Black Artists is a group exhibition featuring fourteen members of the ever-expanding Peoria-based artists guild, often referred to as PGOBA. The artist collective was organized in June 2020 following the murder of George Floyd—and in response to nationwide uprisings and the Black Lives Matter movement—to focus on celebrating and uplifting the voices of Black artists in Peoria, Illinois. This exhibition explores Black identity, Black joy, and Black community through painting, drawing, graphic design, illustration, printmaking, photography, video, performance, and poetry.

Participating artists: Kevin J. Bradford, Krystopher Dudley Brown, Alexa Cary, Kameron Hoover, David L. Jennings, Chantell Marlow, Alexander Martin, Erick Minnis, Morgan Mullen, Hannah Offutt, Brenda Pagan, Rose de Peoria, Kayla Thomas, and Quinton Thomas.

The exhibition will also premiere Carving Our Space: New Kids on the Block, a year-long remote print collaboration organized by Normal Editions, a non-profit print research facility founded in 1976 within the Wonsook Kim School of Art. Through this project, PGOBA artists—many having never made a print before—partnered with Normal Editions printmakers to create an edition of woodcut prints. Each PGOBA artist carved a woodblock image which was then printed in an edition of identical impressions by the collaborating printer(s). Two exciting Normal Editions milestones were reached during this project: Alexander Martin being the 150th artist to collaborate on a project and Quinton Thomas’s edition being the 300th project in the forty-five years of creating works collaboratively with guest artists.

Making Our Space: Members of the Peoria Guild of Black Artists is organized by Jessica Bingham, University Galleries’ curator. The exhibition and programming are sponsored in part by grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency and Alice and Fannie Fell Trust—awarded to both University Galleries and Normal Editions.

Related Websites:
University Galleries
Peoria Guild of Black Artists
Normal Editions
Exhibition Video
Panel Discussion

Photos:
Installation view at University Galleries of Illinois State University.
More.


Ashley Jude Jonas: Not Knowing

University Galleries of Illinois State University
March 4—May 16, 2021

Not Knowing features recent work by artist, educator, and independent curator Ashley Jude Jonas. Comprised of installation, assemblage, photographs, drawings, and found objects, this exhibition is the most comprehensive for the artist to date. Jonas’s multidisciplinary practice is informed by close looking and domestic spaces, particularly her own experiences in her unconventional childhood home in Key West, Florida, a place filled with odds and ends and eccentric homemaking solutions like decorative rugs covering the yard and holes drilled into the floor to sweep away the dust. Jonas recalls her father’s house as both a hub for creative individuals who helped shape her young mind and a place where she discovered the value of wonder—not unlike her current home, which for six years existed as an alternative exhibition space called The Blue House.

In the months following the coronavirus (COVID-19) stay-at-home orders, Jonas began to re-examine the finite nature of beauty in her surroundings. Through appreciation of delicate objects, fleeting light, and ever-changing reflections, Jonas realized that joy can be experienced even in tumultuous times. She embraces the uncertainty of life by observing intimate moments of interdependence and independence. For example, Death Drawings I, II, and III, a wall installation first exhibited in 2016, references the grief Jonas’s husband faced after the passing of his grandfather. Three large gray painted ovals encompass small fragments of drawings, paintings, photos, and fabric. These collected objects carry the weight of heartache and comfort of holding on to the past.

Ashley Jude Jonas: Not Knowing is organized Jessica Bingham, University Galleries’ curator. The exhibition and programming are sponsored in part by grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Alice and Fannie Fell Trust, and Faculty Studio Research Funds, CAS: Department of Art and Design, University of Dayton.

Related Websites:
University Galleries
Ashley Jude Jonas
Exhibition Video

Photos:
Installation view at University Galleries of Illinois State University.
More.


The Lies We Live

Super Dutchess
December 6, 2019—January 5, 2020
Rotation 1: December 6—18
Rotation 2: December 18—January 5

Participating artists: Bruce Burton, Heather Bennett, Jennifer Colten, Sage Dawson, Kristin Fleischmann Brewer, José Garza, Meghan Grubb, Howard Krohn, Yowshien Kuo, Allison Lacher, Tim Portlock, Edo Rosenblith.

From the clothes we wear to the cars we buy, the beach vacations we deserve, and the homes with rooms we don’t need, the American Dream has seeped into our lives. It has enchanted us. But from behind its rose-colored glasses, many are struggling to keep up—endless debt, sought after yet unattainable “success," beautifully manicured lawns and curated homes—a dated and burdensome “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality. The Lies We Live asks if we are truly challenging the American Dream or allowing it to still sugar coat our lives. This two-part exhibition explores the pressures of societal ideals and capitalistic tendencies that continue to feed American’s expectations.


Eric Anthony Berdis: Don’t let them clip your tiny little insect wings

University Galleries of Illinois State University
October 25—December 15, 2019

Don’t let them clip your tiny little insect wings, Eric Anthony Berdis’ solo exhibition, celebrates LGBTQ+ folks, reflects on the historical struggles of the community’s past, and encourages allyship. Comprised of elaborate sculptures, quilted fabric collages, a large-scale wallpaper installation, and two public performances, this exhibition memorializes LGBTQ+ people who persevered in the past, while acknowledging those who persist today. Derived from his own childhood fantasies, Berdis’ work explores themes of becoming; his personal, yet familiar, struggle with body acceptance; and the importance of inclusive conversations and spaces.

Berdis describes his work as embracing “a maximalist aesthetic of archival research, personal secrets, and gay boy glamour,” while aiming to “create a world that is both familiar and inherently strange.” Ornate and sequined handmade quilts hang throughout the exhibition, decorated hobby-horse sculptures lean playfully against the walls, and a wallpaper installation—complete with personal photos, Band-Aids, stickers, rhinestones, and faux flowers—scales the walls. The wallpaper acts as a theatrical backdrop for one of the public performances and includes repeated drawings of a nonviolent homophobia-fighting superhero, a character Berdis channels while performing. Occupying the window gallery is a selection of lavishly embellished ghost-like sculptures draped in sequins and colorful woven afghans—a response to the depersonalized and stereotypical ghost costume consisting of a bedsheet with cut-out eye holes. Closely aligned with the anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s horrific death and 2018 memorial, Berdis ponders the “identities of the ghosts of queer history,” reflecting on the lives of artists David Wojnarowicz, Keith Haring, and Félix González-Torres.

Related Websites:
University Galleries
Eric Anthony Berdis

Photos:
Installation view at University Galleries of Illinois State University.
More.


Haley Funk and Jaci Musec: A Forward Movement

Peoria Magazine
July—September 2019

A Forward Movement is a two-person exhibition featuring paintings by two Peoria-based artists, Jaci Musec and Haley Funk. Both Musec and Funk are dealing with transitional periods of life and self-reflection in their work. While the life experiences they focus on in their paintings are incredibly different, the ways in which they approach life’s melancholy and burdensome obstacles are quite similar. Through reflecting on personal memories, seasons of loss and love, growth and despair, both artists are individually and simultaneously making work about the ephemerality and delicacy that we call life.

Exhibition Info:
Peoria Magazine Feature

Artist Websites:
Haley Funk
Jaci Musec


Katie Bell: Standing Arrangement

University Galleries of Illinois State University
May 31—August 4, 2019

Standing Arrangement is an expansive site-specific installation by Brooklyn-based artist Katie Bell. The work explores our natural and fabricated visual landscape and deconstructs the tradition and language of painting. Bell collects objects and ready-made materials from the place in which she is producing the work, in this case, Bloomington-Normal and the surrounding vicinity. Her careful selection of discarded (and occasionally purchased) materials—wood, paint, foam board, rope, cabinets, drywall, and even forgotten hot tubs—become marks in Bell’s dynamic compositions. KT Hawbaker of the Chicago Tribune wrote that “Bell’s sculptural paintings are the product of creative recycling...inventing new uses for the detritus she scavenges and then deftly mixing in subdued deliberate colors.” Some objects jut out from the wall, shattering the picture plane, while other three-dimensional elements are scattered on the floor, interrupting the regular flow of the space. Bell acknowledges that “these objects/materials become the language and the vocabulary for the standing arrangement," the quote from which the exhibition's title was derived. While the act of painting is used predominantly to visually connect the objects, Bell’s background in painting plays a significant role in the aesthetics and conversation surrounding her work.

University Galleries is collaborating with Illinois State University’s Milner Library to present Informal Unbalanced Arrangements, a concurrent exhibition comprised of three paintings by Katie Bell and a selection of related art publications. The exhibition will be on view on the sixth floor.

Exhibition Info:
WGLT Feature
Review on Sight-Specific + Sixty Inches From Center (PDF)
Review on Community Word (PDF)

Related Websites:
University Galleries
Katie Bell

Photos:
Installation view at University Galleries of Illinois State University.
More.


Jan Brant: Evolving Allusions

Illinois Central College
November 14, 2018—January 11, 2019


Jake Guzan: Anthropozoa

Illinois Central College
October 15—November 9, 2018

One of the great joys I had as a child was looking for insects out in the landscape. They seemed everywhere and their segmented bodies existed in more forms than could be imagined. Searching for them was a form of play that had no objective but experiencing the simple wonder of nature. With age, and new responsibilities, this elemental wonder began to fade, and while I retained a fascination with nature, I found myself in suburban or urban landscapes where nature was rather limited.

Exhibition Info:
Peoria Journal Star article


Yun Jeong Hong: <anima-animus-persona>

Illinois Central College
October 15—November 9, 2018

This work includes a series of oil paintings depicting women with animals and ceramic objects. Each painting has historical portrait references and is suggested as a set to show a designed persona politically. For example, in each painting, there are many layers of symbols describing personal and social information, such as posed figures to express socially accepted persona with their layers of identities and positioning with animal as their talisman. Paintings have stories by themselves, but they may also build up narratives of stories together. There are also the flow of storytelling based on Tarot card references that let audience engage with the characters and their own journey of life.

Exhibition Info:
Peoria Journal Star article

Artist Website:
Yun Jeong Hong


Felicia Cannon: almost always never

Illinois Central College
September 19 - October 12, 2018

Felicia Cannon produces images that function as a vehicle to generate, discover, and learn. Her prints are a form of non-verbal sharing, an externalizing of experience and emotion, and a way to map or define an issue more accurately. almost always never includes work that functions more as poetry, with multiple layers of meaning and intent, encouraging awareness and raising questions rather than prescribing conclusive answers.

Cannon was raised in Clearwater, Flordia. She holds a BFA in studio art from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and an MFA degree in printmaking from Illinois State University in Normal. She has received numerous awards, scholarships, and publications for her work.

Exhibition Info:
Peoria Journal Star article

Artist Website:
Felicia Cannon


Dan Ossandón: Headspace

Illinois Central College
September 19—October 12, 2018

Ossandón was born in Temuco, Chile and immigrated to the United States in 1995. He studied graphic design at Parkland College in Champaign and Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Ossandón has worked in the industry for nine years. He does work in screen printing and illustration and often incorporates typography into visual images. Ossandón creates his work using painting and screen printing techniques. He said his inspiration comes from everyday objects and events where he takes what he sees, places his own spin on it, and creates art from his point of view.

Exhibition Info:
Interview with ICC Harbinger
Peoria Journal Star article

Programming:
September 19
Opening Reception and Artist Talk