Vertical Gallery is proud to present “Searching for Surfaces”, a group show curated by the Chicago Culture Couple. The exhibition is November 4 – 25, 2017, with an opening reception on Saturday November 4, from 6:00 – 10:00pm. This is the Chicago Culture Couple’s second gallery curatorial, and they have selected a wide range of artists from around the world. Participating artists include: Anthony Lister, Ben Eine, Bradley Theodore, DAIN, DALeast, David de la Mano, Elian Chali, Fintan Magee, Hoxxoh, Levalet, MadC, Millo, Reka, Rubin 415, and Xenz.

Anthony Lister is from Brisbane, Australia. Combining the influences of rough techniques and graffiti art, Lister has created a style of explosive, scratchy, scrawling forms of figurative aesthetic. Lister’s controversial subject matter and often provocative public declarations provoke thought and question reality, while allowing the artworks to remain accessible to the public mind.

Ben Eine is from London, England. From the streets to the White House, he is known for his alphabet lettering on shop shutters in London’s Shoreditch, Brick Lane and Broadway Market areas of London, and having his work gifted to President Obama by Prime Minister David Cameron. Eine is considered one of the top 10 street artists, has created murals and has had sold out shows around the world.

New York based Bradley Theodore is from Turks and Caicos Islands. Dedicated to making his art accessible in the streets of New York, London, Los Angeles, Oslo, Hong Kong and Paris, his iconic portraits, painted in bright colors, have become his signature style. His subjects are all recognizable by their outer clothing, hair or posture. This technique strips away the outside allowing the viewer to focus on the feelings and the relationships within.

DAIN is from Brooklyn, New York. He is considered to be one of the most influential artists to emerge from the current New York street art movement. DAIN combines the visual language of graffiti with collaged old portraits of Hollywood glamour stars. His gallery work has been featured in shows around the world in New York, Miami, Chicago, Portland, Montreal, Rome, London and Paris.

Berlin based DALeast was born in Beijing, China. Each of his three dimensional looking pieces of art is created to look like thousands of metal shards are coming together to form beautiful shapes, often animals or humans. Through his line work, he captures the movement, shape, stillness or emotion in each of his subjects. He has painted on the streets and exhibited around the world in London, New York, Milan, Melbourne, Cape Town, Bristol, Los Angeles, Miami, and Vienna.

David de la Mano is from Salamanca, Spain. Through a minimalist style, characterized by the monochromatic use of black, David de la Mano is able to create extremely poetic artworks, a symbolic reflection on humankind. He focuses on the human form in a majority of his work, asking his viewer to challenge the way they perceive the world. He is currently based in and working out of Montevideo, Uruguay.

Elian Chali is from Cordoba, Argentina. His works are composed through basic geometry and abstraction, and influenced by architecture, climate, and the current socio-political situations. His vibrant use of primary colors are layered to reflect, engage with, or disrupt the planes of the environment he works on.

Fintan Magee is from Lismore, Australia and is now working out of Sydney. His work mixes surreal and figurative imagery to highlight the extraordinary nature of our everyday existence. Inspired by his own personal experiences in the 2011 Brisbane floors, the subject of his work often focuses on environmental issues. His work can be found throughout the world in London, Berlin, Sydney, Miami, Cape Town, Rome, Moscow, Hong Kong, Melbourne, and Atlanta.

Hoxxoh (Douglas Hoekzema) is from Miami Florida and is known for his vibrant, abstract murals. His work creates a new foundation and approach to evaluating and appreciating time, showing that time is a beautiful energy that we should marvel at. His work can be found throughout the United States in Miami, Detroit, Boston, Washington DC, Denver, and San Francisco.

Levalet is from the Lorraine region of East France. For Levalet, urban art is part of the identity of the city, and the technicality of defining private property gives the idea of public space a new dimension. For him, placing his characters on the streets offers him an opportunity to engage in a game of visual and semantic dialogue with the people of his chosen environment.

MadC (Claudia Walde) was born in Bautzen, Germany, and is most known for her large-scale, outdoor artistic paintings. As a teenager, MadC started painting on the streets with spray paint. Over the last 20 years, her discipline has evolved to investigate the relationship between overlapping colors, light, glass and calligraphic movement.

Millo (Francesco Camillo Giorgino), is an Italian street artist. Millo began his artistic career as a student of architecture, which might account for his keen sense of space, and his ability to fill an exterior facade with such perfectly shaped designs. His work reveals a consistently simple, monochromatic style matched with bits of color and whimsical characterizations.

Reka is from Melbourne, Australia. His origins lie in the alleyways and train lines of Melbourne’s inner-suburbs where he spent over a decade refining his now-emblematic aesthetic. Surrealist, abstracted creatures emerge from the depths of Reka’s mind, communicating through strong lines, dynamic movement and bold colors.

New York based Rubin 415 is from Gothenburg, Sweden. He draws inspiration from his upbringing, the tram tunnels where he first learned the craft and from the contrasts that have formed him into the artist he is today: the skyline of the hectic metropolis versus the serenity of the Nordic nature, all perfectly balanced in his

Xenz is from the United Kingdom and paints landscapes from his imagination using the spray can to capture fragments of memory and ever-changing subject matter, often drawn from the natural world.

“Searching for Surfaces”, curated by the Chicago Culture Couple
November 4 – 25, 2017
Opening reception with the artist, Saturday, November 4, 6:00 – 10:00 pm.
Vertical Gallery, 1016 N Western Ave., Chicago

About the Chicago Culture Couple:
As avid art lovers, the Chicago-based duo have captured street art, gallery and museum shows around the world on their social media platforms. Always traveling off the beaten-path to find and document hidden gems in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Oslo, Rome, Berlin, Miami, Detroit, Mexico City, Reykjavik, Montreal, Toronto, and of course Chicago. Follow the Chicago Culture Couple on Instagram, Twitter & Facebook: @chicagoculturecouple

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Tags: Anthony Lister, Ben Eine, Bradley Theodore, Chicago, DAIN, DALeast, David de la Mano, Elian Chali, Fintan Magee, Hoxxoh, Levalet, MadC, Millo, Reka, Rubin 415, Searching for Surfaces, Vertical Gallery, West Town, Xenz