Name: A BLACK ARTIST RECEPTION AT 3831
Start: 2023-12-09T12:00:00-06:00
End: 2023-12-09T16:00:00-06:00

July 2023
July 10, 2023 @ 12:00 pm - 3:30 pm

All of Living is Risk | Opening Reception

Join us for an opening reception to celebrate and kick off our fall/winter exhibitions alongside curators Rikki Byrd, and Gervais Marsh, with artist Cory Perry! […]
July 15, 2023 @ 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Before I Let Go: Film Screening & Discussion

Join us for a special film screening hosted by filmmaker Cameron Granger, with guest filmmakers cai thomas and Bobby T. Luck. We invite you to join us for […]
August 2023
August 12, 2023 @ 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

PACE Artist Catalyst: A Closing Celebration

Join us to celebrate PACE Artist Catalysts Cecil McDonald Jr. & Andrea Yarbrough. Join us with artists Cecil McDonald Jr. & Andrea Yarbrough to celebrate their commissioned artworks […]
August 18, 2023 @ 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Bronzeville Art District Trolley Tour with DJ Finding Ijeoma

Join us for a night of dancing this Friday for our 3rd Bronzeville Art District (BAD) Trolley Tour of the summer, with guest DJ Finding Ijeoma! She’ll be dj’ing alongside […]
August 26, 2023 @ 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Telling Your Story: Grant Writing Workshop for Artists

Join us in a workshop with Lauren Woods for a partnership with ILA’s flagship program, G-to-G (Getting to Our Goals) Coaching Series. ILA’s flagship program, G-to-G (Getting to […]
September 2023
September 9, 2023 @ 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Telling Your Story: Grant Writing Workshop for Artists Part ll

Join our second workshop with Lauren Woods for a partnership with ILA’s flagship program, G-to-G (Getting to Our Goals) Coaching Series! After the wealth of information exchanged in our first session of "Telling Your Story" workshop, we invite you to join ILA, SSCAC, and Lauren Woods for an afternoon writing session, specially catered […]
September 29, 2023 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

3831 Activation | Friendship Meditation: A Rehearsal

Join us for an evening of "rehearsal" with Anna Martine Whitehead and Damon Locks ! Presented with Chicago Architecture Biennale, during Chicago Exhibition Weekend. Locks and Whitehead will activate the basis of their friendship -- rehearsal. They think there is something to learn about relationships, energy, and faith from dreaming new worlds […]
October 2023
October 7, 2023 @ 12:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Through a Lens of Beauty & Wonderment: Notes on Collaborative Friendship | Opening Reception

Join us for an opening reception to celebrate and kick off our fall/winter exhibition with curator and artist Nnaemeka C. Ekwelum! …Notes on Collaborative Friendship (First […]
November 2023
November 4, 2023 @ 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Dr. Burroughs Legacy Day

Join us for a family friendly afternoon of celebrating and learning more about the legacy and art practice of Dr. Burroughs! We're excited to share this day viewing specially […]
November 18, 2023 @ 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Haus: An Introspective of House Music, Architecture + Queer Culture at 3831

Join us for a special roundtable talk on the iconographic and cultural reference to House as a ‘revolutionary Black Space’! South Side Community Art Center is thrilled to host […]
December 2023
December 2, 2023 @ 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Iteration(s), with Jared Brown and Briana Lynn

Briana Lynn & Jared Brown will intuitively combine sound, improvisation, and omni-directional text to create a composition unique to SSCAC. Meditating on this year's Chicago Architecture Biennial's theme : […]
December 9, 2023 @ 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm

A BLACK ARTIST RECEPTION AT 3831

A day celebrating Black artists and your hard work throughout the year! We'll also be joined by artist Cory Perry for a special performance. The South Side Community Art […]

MIXED MEDIA AND STILL LIFE

Works in EMERGENCE are diverse in their subject matter and media, but a few themes reappear throughout. Working in abstraction or in the traditionally peaceful genre of still life, artists like William Carter, Allen Stringfellow, and Jonathan Green express themes of interiority or sociability, history or modernity. Notably, Stringfellow and Ralph Arnold both experimented with media and materials and worked extensively in collage, which allowed them to combine abstract design, figurative imagery, and on occasion political ideas.

Viewers typically expect Black artists to focus on particular aspects of their social and political identities within their work. Where might those expectations come from? Still life, abstraction, and collage may express many different things about artists’ interior lives and their visual and social observation, whether connected to public manifestations of identity or not.

William Carter’s mid-century still life Untitled presents a group of vibrantly colored bottles that invite the viewer’s gaze, set against a similarly colorful background with floral elements like grapes and leaves. They give evidence of conviviality and might be interpreted as symbols of social gatherings, but they could also just be a collection of pleasing forms. We might put Carter’s still life in dialogue with that of Jonathan Green, who became close friends with Carter while living in Chicago. Green’s close-up view of an eloquently simple composition presents oranges, a pear, and a lemon in front of two vessels. Works like this piece call the viewer to examine the objects the artist chose to include, to consider how they interact with each other like bodies in space, and to reflect on their meaning within the traditional genre of still life painting.

Collage might suggest the piecing together of identity from different components that might not usually coexist, giving room for more expansive imaginations of meaning than a straightforward representational image might allow. It could also just be an inventive way of combining colors, shapes, and textures. Allen Stringfellow’s Untitled, a collage from 1962, brings familiar motifs from still life—fruit and flowers, desserts and glassware—together with imagery of artist’s models and performers. Layered with paint and tissue paper that frustrate the viewer’s attempt to get clarity on the subject matter, the bursts of form and colors hint at the splashy abstraction of Stringfellow’s untitled, textured painting made from house paint and particulate on cardboard. Here the artist tests commonly found materials to create new textures and plays with the creation of colors and finishes that diverge from “Western” academic painting methods.

In The Waiting, Arnold constructs a large collage from different paper components, lace, and paint. In the piece, elements of European and African art are placed in dialogue with one another, while some figures appear alone and isolated, others in large groups. Without giving easy answers, Arnold implies questions about social issues. Who is waiting, and for what? In his Love Sign II, which bears the words “Love is Universal,” Arnold asserts the equal validity of all types of romantic affection and love, utilizing collage to convey a more straightforward political message.

HOURS

July 2023

All of Living is Risk | Opening Reception

Before I Let Go: Film Screening & Discussion

August 2023

PACE Artist Catalyst: A Closing Celebration

Bronzeville Art District Trolley Tour with DJ Finding Ijeoma

Telling Your Story: Grant Writing Workshop for Artists

September 2023

Telling Your Story: Grant Writing Workshop for Artists Part ll

3831 Activation | Friendship Meditation: A Rehearsal

October 2023

Through a Lens of Beauty & Wonderment: Notes on Collaborative Friendship | Opening Reception

November 2023

Dr. Burroughs Legacy Day

Haus: An Introspective of House Music, Architecture + Queer Culture at 3831

December 2023

Iteration(s), with Jared Brown and Briana Lynn

A BLACK ARTIST RECEPTION AT 3831

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MIXED MEDIA AND STILL LIFE