Gallery Watch

B.C. MacEachran - Shooting Stars - ebers|B9 - May 8 - June 6, 2009 (Chicago)

There is a new gallery in town, it is run by Sara Beth Ebers and located at 1359 w. chicago, B9. Here is the press release for there first show.

B.C. MacEachran’s paintings are cultural documents based on his artistic experiences past and present, drawing directly from self-analysis and an expanded multicultural immersion. His process is predicated on the notion that art acts both as artifact, affording it the ability to fall in and out of favor (fashion), and as a production of realities, i.e., ways of looking.

MacEachran finds influence in pluralistic attitudes towards style, attitudes that do not profess loyalty to a singular way of seeing or specific audience. Intent upon addressing the paradoxical point of breaking down the relationship between art and life, while at the same time increasing and reinforcing it, he addresses the ironic link perceived between art and self.

The physical presence of the work provides certain aspects of its content relating to morality, beauty and ego. However, not only do the values of morality, beauty and ego play roles on their own, as in fashion and taste, but also to those of significance, referring to cultural ideas, to art, artist, and criticism. To this extent certain themes cut across the variations in his work, namely an aggressive use of pattern and repetition.

Brian Dettmer - Adaptations - Through May 9th - Packer Schopf (Chicago)

What Brian Dettmer is able to do with a book and scalpel nothing short of amazing, and to really understand it all you have to see his creations in person. His current show here in Chicago ends this week, but I strongly encourage you to stop by Packer Schopf this week. For his current show he has taken regional maps and cut the land away leaving only major interstates and highways, which he then layers on top of each other between pieces of glass. The effect is a 3-D road map that is visually stunning from the effect of crisp cuts, layering, and shadow play. Remarkable and thought-provoking.