Linda Warren Projects is proud to announce three powerful exhibitions by artists: Kim Piotrowski, Now That the Sky Has Fallen (Gallery Y), Heather Marshall, Memories That Are Not Mine (Gallery X), and Nina Rizzo, Le Lavage (Gallery O).

Join us for the Opening Reception on Saturday, March 10th from 5-8pm. Light refreshments will be served.

A compelling painting has no gender, but for these mighty artists their femininity is no docility. Whether it be Piotrowski’s lyrical abstractions, Marshall’s small intimate figure paintings, or Rizzo’s textural abstractions each of them imbed salient, and at times poignant narratives that are universally human yet deeply personal. Unapologetically creating artwork that reexamines their own fears, histories, and longings, each artist captures vulnerability and masterfully reengineers it into their own source of power and inspiration. The exhibition, as a whole, threads a beautiful ribbon that ties together the aesthetic mastery of each painter and embodies the poetic sentiments that every human relates to no matter which body you live in.

Gallery Y – Kim Piotrowski, Now That the Sky Has Fallen

Piotrowski’s paintings have always danced between abstraction and reference. It is perhaps why the artist, for the first time, has decided to collaborate with literary poet Rose McLarney. Their chance meeting at Hambidge, a creative residency in Georgia where both artists participated, lent itself the opportunity for a unique creative exchange. In an installation titled “A Door Open,” Piotrowski’s paintings on paper will spar and harmonize willingly with McLarney’s poems. Each poem is a direct response to each painting. The artist’s signature style of controlled chaos is a constant. Piotrowski’s multilayer veils of surface exude an inner energy that is both contemplative and lyrical in nature. The artist seamlessly interchanges and integrates the assertiveness of mark making while considering each line and object that could possibly reference the natural world. Phantomlike landscapes and figures appear and disappear within the paintings. Enigmatic lines and colors push and pull for attention, so much that they wrap around the corners of the paintings, demanding that we consider the mark and allocate recognition. Piotrowski’s process is methodical and as unconfined as the paintings themselves – “layers of thin ink washes, scrubbed, and manipulated by time and touch, these passages push against the opacity of forms and gestural lines that create a new dynamic within the picture plane.” The stage is set where even the smallest marks have a role. An orchestrated, abstracted symphony of colors and lines that pursue freedom and the flexibility to exist.

Kim Piotrowski, a Chicago based artist, received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has continued showing in both group and solo exhibitions since 1991. Most recently her work has been featured at Forum Gallery, NYC, Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta, GA, and Grolle:Pass:Projects in Wuppertal, Germany. Piotrowski has been the recipient of numerous awards and recognition including the Illinois Arts Council Visual Artist Grant, Artadia Grant and most recently the Sustainable Arts Foundation amongst many others. She has also been artist in residence at Hambidge, Yaddo, Ragdale and Oxbow. This is Piotrowski’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.

Gallery X – Heather Marshall, Memories That Are Not Mine

Marshall’s new series of small, figurative, monochromatic paintings emanate the artist’s introspective spirit and exceptional attention to details. Inspired by the intersection of the ordinary and the extraordinary, Marshall looks to familiar sights, and in this case it is her family. Women taken from her family album are reexamined and decontextualized. The protagonists within minimal backgrounds tug at different emotions that range from fiercely confident to naively optimistic. Regardless of age each woman asserts her power and lives comfortably within her skin. Although visually from another era, Marshall assigns contemporary pop songs for titles of each painting, alluding to the ceremonial coming of age experience we all traverse through life. The distinct color pallet, with its soft patina like tones, emphasize time not only for the characters but for the artist herself. Each small painting takes lengthy periods of time to percolate and to finally produce. The artist’s impeccable hand and thoughtfulness generate poetic paintings that transcend time. Her ode is not necessarily to the specific woman, but to time herself…always moving but never changing.

Heather Marshall is a Virginia-based artist and educator, and her work has been exhibited in such venues as Hanover College Art Gallery in Indiana, The Snite Museum of Art at University of Notre Dame and Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago. Marshall received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA from University of Notre Dame. This is Marshall’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.

Gallery O – Nina Rizzo, Le Lavage

Rizzo’s global travels have informed her practice and cemented a process that is both reactive and imaginative. Drawing from visits to museums and international residencies, the artist pulls from historical cannons that vary from Flemish paintings to Icelandic textiles. While visiting France, Rizzo identified a potential subject matter that felt both mundane yet resembled a sensibility to the non-objective and non illusionistic practices of the geometric abstractionists. Rizzo’s new series of paintings draws from the simple shapes of laundry. Clothes that tumble in a centripetal direction with a set of perimeters based on color and non-objective compositions. Socks, panties, and bras…private items that inhabit her physical proximity deliver a contradictory dialogue. Paintings with gestural expression and thick textural strokes that over time fade into abstraction. Rizzo’s pictorial transitions explore aesthetic possibilities and give us a glimpse into her private voyeuristic world, one that is genuinely and profoundly personal and records the passage of time and locations. Lavage – cleansing by irrigation or the like – purging.

Chicago-based artist Nina Rizzo has exhibited widely across the globe including such venues as the Association for Icelandic Visual Artists in Reykjavik, Iceland; Megumi Ogita Gallery in Tokyo, Japan; Tinlark Gallery in Los Angeles; E & W Gallery in Santa Fe; Art Palace in Houston; Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge; and Bad Dog Gallery in DeKalb, IL. Rizzo has been the recipient of a number of prestigious artist residencies including one at Chateau de La Napoule, France in 2005 and another in Marnay-Sur-Seine, France called CAMAC in 2014. Others include Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL; Vermont Studio Center; and Northern Illinois University Summer Research and Artistry Grants in Japan and Iceland and she has also exhibited and had a residency at CRETA in Rome, Italy. The artist received her MFA from The University of Texas at Austin, and her BFA from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Rizzo is currently Associate Professor in Painting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL. This is the artist’s fifth exhibition at Linda Warren Projects.

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Tags: Chicago, Heather Marshall, Illinois, Kim Piotrowski, Le Lavage, Linda Warren Projects, Memories That Are Not Mine, near west side, Nina Rizzo, Now That the Sky Has Fallen