May 10 - September 7, 2025
Closing Reception: September 3, 2025
Curatorial Statement
Light connects us. A glow envelopes two figures in love, illuminating them in yellow-orange. A fiery inferno burns a post-industrial scene. Red, pink, and white lights demarcate enough elements to make out a gas station. Water droplets shine as they dance in the sun.
This exhibition features a vast array of artworks, all from the working artists of the 8th floor: the staff and faculty of Harold Washington College’s Department of Art and Architecture. Often separated into groups based on our work duties, this exhibition represents a moment to celebrate what we have in common. Whether we are support staff, adjunct faculty or tenured faculty, one thing connects us—we are all artists.
Materially, these works vary, traversing the mediums of printmaking, photography, sculpture, drawing, painting, and augmented reality. There is not one overarching theme that connects all thirteen of these artists nor all twenty-six works of art in this exhibition. Rather, there are moments of harmony and threads of meaning to unravel. Natural and manmade bodies of water reflecting and refracting light. Gnarled tree branches and inked shadows of anxiety twisting out of compositions. Crocheted motifs intersecting and repeating. The shared qualities of flowers and vegetables. Hands as representations of intimacy and queer identity. Holographic lens interventions. Abstractions representing love and abstractions representing grief. The feminist corporeal grotesque. Commentaries on the exploitation of tragedy and the destruction of life in our commercialized world.
-Anneli Goeller, Curator