Hiding in Plain Sight
Oakley McCormack, Molly Nadir, Katharine Oltrogge, Madelyn Roldan, Tariq Tamir, and Summer Tribble
Artist Talk: Saturday, March 29, 2025 3pm

The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present in the Flexspace Gallery: Hiding in Plain Sight, a group exhibition guest curated by RAC’s gallery Assistant, Madelyn Roldan. Hiding in Plain Sight, a group exhibition of art by Katharine Oltrogge, Oakley MCcormack, Summer Tribble, Tariq Tamir, Madelyn Roldan and Molly Nadir. Please join us on Saturday, March 29th at 3:00 pm for an artist talk with the artists.

Exhibition Dates: March 7, 2025 – April 5, 2025
Gallery Hours: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays 1:00 – 5:00 pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, March 29, 2025, 3:00 pm

Hiding in Plain Sight takes its inspiration from a verse of a love song, evoking the intention that love, much like art, often reveals itself in the smallest and most unexpected moments. In this exhibition, we explore the delicate, intricate relationship between the artist and their work. Each piece serves as a conversation, a serene exchange where both the creator and the creation are united, sometimes subtly, sometimes boldly, but always significantly. There’s an intimacy in art, an invitation to gaze deeper, to discover fragments of the artist’s heart and soul hidden within the layers of color, texture, and form. Just like a love song that lingers long after the last note fades, these works invite the viewer to engage, to pause, and to find the charm and significance that exist in the space between the artist’s intentions and the viewer’s interpretation. It’s in these moments of connection—when we see something of ourselves in the art, and something of the artist in us is when the true magic happens.
-Madelyn Roldan, curator
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Katharine Oltrogge is a Chicago based artist. Her oil paintings are conjured from the fantastical, the mythological and the sacred. Using symbolism drawn from nature and religious imagery, Oltrogge’s narrative paintings investigate personal experiences of transformation and identity through the vocabulary of the hidden and the spiritual. Allegorical figures and otherworldly landscapes rendered from imagination serve as an avenue for exploring the artist’s inner world. Jewel-toned brushstrokes and layered surfaces breathe psychological depth into each figure. By focusing on the experiences of queer women, the use of religious myth reclaims visual power structures that have existed throughout the history of Western painting. Oltrogge will receive a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Spring 2025. She has been featured in various group shows at galleries across Chicagoland, including Riverside Art Center, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery Wrightwood, and Bridgeport Art Center. She is currently an artist-in-residence at Northwestern University, through the Institute’s Art by Gender and Sexual Minorities program.
Website: https://katharine-oltrogge.weebly.com/
Instagram: @katharineoltrogge

Oakley McCormack is an artist from Riverside, Illinois. They currently attend Elmhurst university as a fine arts student with a focus in ceramics. These are their first ceramic works to be displayed in a gallery. They wanted these pieces to represent their love and adoration for aquatic and shell like shapes in nature. They find that working with clay fills them with a sense of calm and allows them to release the anxiety that runs through them on a day to day basis. They hope that these pieces fill you with a sense of calm like they did for them.
Website: https://felinepeachy.carrd.co/…
Instagram: @felinepeachy

Madelyn Roldan is an artist from Brookfield, Illinois. Madelyn will receive her associates from Triton College this spring 2025. She plans to further her art degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a multiple media artist known for her ethereal and intricate works. Some of her works include motifs of conch shells. With a deep appreciation for the significance of pastels, light and emotion, she creates visually detailed and emotionally resonant pieces that invite viewers to explore the depths of their own imagination.
Website: https://madelynroldan.univer.se/
Instagram: @madelynril

Mr. Tee, also known as Tariq Tamir, is a Chicago based artist and educator who studied at Columbia College Chicago. Prior to joining RAC, he taught young adults ages 14-21 with Chicago’s Gallery 37 and the Boys and Girls Club. In addition to being poetically inclined, Tariq uses art as a medium for self-growth and empowerment which he transfers to his students. He has exhibited his painting, assemblage, and found object art in solo and group exhibitions in local venues. He has been featured in numerous videos for RBTV’s People in Perspective, the Riverside Arts Center, and the Oak Park Public Library.
Instagram: @esotariq2

Summer Tribble (b. 1999), also known as Heavenly Creature, is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice bridges the boundaries between life and death, nature and simulation, memory and decay. Using taxidermy and 3D digital rendering, Tribble interrogates the impermanence of the flesh, the cycles of decomposition and rebirth, and the ways in which trauma imprints itself onto both the organic and the artificial. Within her work, remnants of the past are resurrected in spectral forms—dissected, reconstructed, and immortalized in new realities. Tribble graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in 2021, and her works have been featured in AIR Studio & Gallery, New Art City, and more. She currently lives and works in Chicago.
Website: https://summertribble.com/work
Instagram: @heavenlycreature001

Molly Nadir is a Chicago based artist, Molly Nadir, uses a low resolution canvas and limited colors to bring the medium of digital art to its most basic form. Using perfect squares alluding to the shape only occurring in nature with the touch of a conscious mind, Molly is able to make intricate pieces within the genre of ‘Visionary Art’. Their pieces, covering themes surrounding science and spirituality, are filled with references to quantum mechanics, Buddhism, astrophysics, Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, and Sacred Geometry.
Website: https://www.artstation.com/mollynadir
Instagram: @mollynadir

Riverside Arts Center
Freeark Gallery + Sculpture Garden
32 East Quincy Street
Riverside, Illinois 60546
www.riversideartscenter.com

Gallery Hours: Thursday – Saturday, 1-5pm, Closed Sundays – Wednesdays and major holidays.

All of our exhibitions are free and open to the public.
For press inquiries and high-resolution images or for additional information please contact the Gallery Director, Joanne Aono at jaono@riversideartscenter.com

Madelyn Roldan | Easy Way Out, 2025, Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches

Official Website

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Tags: Hiding in Plain Sight, Hiding in Plain Sight: Artist Talk, Katharine Oltrogge, Madelyn Roldan, Molly Nadir., Oakley McCormack, Riverside, Riverside Arts Center FlexSpace, Summer Tribble, Tariq Tamir