For Immediate Release
FRESH TAKES II
EARLY WORKS / FAMILIAR FACES
Exhibition Dates: July 13 – August 31, 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, July 13, 5:30 – 8:00 P.M.
Carl Hammer Gallery is pleased to close
its annual exhibition season showcasing the artists who have had
significant exposure and a large following of collectors and admirers
within the Chicago art scene for so many years. It is a refreshing look
back at, not on that which they are currently creating, but of the early
work which placed each of them indelibly into an international art
community’s consciousness. It has been a most rewarding experience
delving into the archives of each artist, musing over work of earlier
periods, often achieved before ever coming to this gallery. I believe
the public will appreciate this reunion, of sorts, and find the work
equally compelling, still viably pertinent to these times, and filled
with invention that’s not, even now, out of date.
From Phyllis Bramson’s early
pastel drawings, to the collage and paint underwater masterpieces of
Mary Lou Zelazny, from David Sharpe’s Herculean vision of
“The Universe” to the diminutive, visionary landscapes of Joseph
Yoakum, the exhibition is expansive, insightful, and memorable. We
are pleased to re-visit the work of artists not exhibited for some time,
Lee Godie, Miyoko Ito, Joseph Siegenthaler, and Hollis
Sigler. We are excited to have on board, one of our newest artists
at this gallery with a longtime Chicago presence, Michael Hernandez
de Luna. And though we do not represent him, we are honored to
present, on the heels of his brilliant retrospective with the Chicago
Cultural Center, early painting and sculpture by Karl Wirsum.
Rounding out the list of artists included, Don Baum,
Aimée Beaubien, Henry Darger, Kahn & Selesnick, Martin
Mull, Elizabeth Shreve, and Bill Traylor all make
significant contribution to this exhibition’s re-examination of their
work, of their collective visions of our real and unreal worlds and of
our humanity.
