Year: 2015

Eric W. Stephenson is an American sculptor based in Chicago whose work explores the form, spirit, and experience of the body, human and otherwise, rendered through abstraction and informed by industrial materials and methods. One such trajectory of work focused on the earthly remnants of insects and plants, another on commemorative containers for the human spirit. His most recent work returns to the human form to figure a language of movement through a mastery of metal.

Stephenson has taught at the University of Houston, Rhode Island College, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and has taught workshops at the University of Kentucky, Humboldt State University, and multiple International Sculpture Conferences, among others. His work has been shown at Fusion MIA during Art Basel Miami, the Elmhurst Museum, N’namdi Gallery, the Koehnline Museum, Grounds for Sculpture, and the Frederick Meijer Sculpture Garden, among others. Stephenson’s work is found in numerous private and public collections, including Miller Electric in Appleton, Wisconsin, from whom he won the First Biennial Miller Sculpture Exhibition Purchase Prize, the Elmhurst Museum, the Village of Oak Park, and Delta College in Midland, Michigan. Stephenson received his BFA from the Pennsylvania State University and MFA from the University of Houston, and in 2014 completed a SIM Residency in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Under Stephenson’s leadership as president of non-profit Chicago Sculpture International from 2011-2015, the organization expanded the reach and profile of sculpture in Chicago through strategic partnerships, high-profile shows, and extensive media coverage. For the 2012 International Sculpture Conference in Chicago, for example, CSI partnered with Podmajersky to site six immersive installations in storefronts in Pilsen, and with the Chicago Parks District to place 64 large works along the Chicago lakefront from Promontory Point on the south side to Belmont Harbor on the north side. In 2013, CSI and the Chicago Parks District launched The Chicago Tree Project, which commissioned sculptors to transform dead trees throughout the city into public art pieces, while in 2014, the Elks National Memorial hosted the critically acclaimed “Invoking the Absence.”

Dan Ramirez was born in Chicago in 1941. He received a BA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1975 and an MFA from the University of Chicago in 1977. Ramirez taught at Columbia College, Chicago from 1977-78, the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1978-87, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987-99 where he is currently Professor Emeritus. He was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award in 2005. Ramirez’ work has been exhibited in the US as well as in Spain, Scotland, Mexico, Germany and Italy. It has been featured in over 30 solo exhibitions since 1974 and may be found in numerous private, corporate and public collections. He is currently represented by the Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago.

 

“…Through my work I’m always exploring the possibility of creating metaphor and narrative through geometric abstraction. I love storytelling even though I recognize that few viewers will fully appreciate how it plays out in my work. And it’s certainly not necessary to understand all the issues I’m dealing with to respond to my paintings.

Quite often the issues I explore in my work have something to do with the unknown… with things that lie beyond our knowledge or defy certainty.

…the very fact that we can even think about the unknown fascinated me. I love science and can recall as a young child lying in bed and pondering the limits of what could be known. I could imagine there was no Earth, no solar system, no universe—and it would really scare me that I could think beyond this to—well, to nothing! What could nothing be? How could I even think about it?

Today I’m still preoccupied with knowing—with how we know things, with the boundaries of our knowledge, with the unknowable. The subjects that fascinate me may come from philosophy or science, religion or mysticism, literature or music, and I create visual metaphors for them through my art… I pose questions for myself, but I’m not really seeking or expecting definitive answers. Rather through my art I’m paying tribute to these subjects of contemplation.”

This approach allows me to maintain the freedom to explore areas of interest that have been shaped and reshaped by contemporary modes of investigation and exploration. I use color, light, form, illusion and/or flat space and, at times, sound, animation and video to explore that experience. I tend to see my work as a form of Minimalist/Baroque.

*Quotation excerpted from “An Interview with Artist Dan Ramirez, Geoform, Julie Karabenick http://www.geoform.net

Present activities are focused on a multi-media collaboration that incorporates music, animation and digital imagery with classical piano accompaniment at the Royal School of Music, London; A one-person exhibition March, 25-October 9, 2016 at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, Il., and a one-person exhibition October 7, 2016 at Zola/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, Il.

A native of Chicago, IL. James Morrow is the founder and artistic director of james morrow/ The Movement. Coming from an urban background, Morrow yearns to see the classical vocabulary prevalent in concert dance integrated into the hip-hop culture with which he is submerged. His movement has become a fusion of modern, contemporary, and urban dance styles. His choreography can be seen on companies throughout the U.S. and internationally, working in Utrecht, Vienna, Mumbai, Krasnoyarsk, and New Brighton. Morrow was also the founder and artistic director of Chicago’s instruments of movement from 2001-2008 pioneering the urban fusion dance movement.

 

Morrow was on Faculty at the American Dance Festival (summer 2010). He received a fellowship to Hollins University/The American Dance Festival (2011) where he earned his MFA in dance. He has been recipient of the Artist Ambassador Award to Northeastern Illinois University (2001), The Mordine and Co. Mentoring Project (2006), Chicago Cultural Dance Center’s Dance Bridge (2008), Movement Research at Judson Church (2012), SOLO Commissioned Choreographer for Minnesota’s McKnight Dance Fellow (Stephen Schroeder 2012), Bates Teacher Fellowship (2013), and Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Choreography (2014).

As a dancer/ performer, Morrow has worked with Chicago based companies: The Joel Hall Dancers, Deeply Rooted Productions, Ascension/The Kirby Reed Project, Ken Von Heidecke’s Festival Ballet, Larry Long’s Civic Ballet, Culture Shock Chicago, Concert Dance, Inc., Mordine and Co., Hedwig Dances, The Tyego Dance Project, Impetus Dance Chicago, MOMENTA, and Nick Cave’s (Soundsuits) of The Art Institute of Chicago.

As an educator, Morrow has been a guest lecturer/ adjunct professor at Jacksonville University and Amherst College. He has worked as dance faculty at Northeastern Illinois University, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Episcopal School of Jacksonville, Hartford Academy for the Arts, and Pioneer Valley Performing Arts. He is currently living in Salem, MA and working as an assistant professor of dance at Salem State University.

Damon Locks began his schooling at SVA in NYC as an illustration major. Feeling limited by that major, in terms of his artistic exploration, he transferred to The School of The Art Institute in Chicago where he received his BFA in Fine Arts. His work often revolves around people and their landscapes; the narrative themes of protest, unrest, and tension are woven throughout. The processes used to reach these ends are a combination of, but not limited to: drawing, photography, digital manipulation and silk screen. His analog upbringing nurtures the dirty, the antiqued, and the distressed, thus giving a warmth and tactile quality to both his screen prints and his digital prints. The work can feel socially political and/or fantastically abstract in its narrative.

 

Alongside his personal visual exploration, in recent years he has found himself returning to illustration and design. His work can be found shaping the look of album covers, movie posters, dvd package design, book and magazine covers.

Not only a visual artist, Damon has been a musician operating in the Chicago music scene since the late 80’s. First in the group Trenchmouth, he then went on to form The Eternals. These days he splits his time between being a visual artist & illustrator, a deejay and a member of both The Eternals and the jazz ensemble Exploding Star Orchestra. His travels and experiences traveling playing music have definitely influenced the look of his work (Brazilian buildings turn up regularly). His love for both visual art and music inform and compliment each other and help form an overall aesthetic with ideas and tonalities bouncing back and forth between genres.