New Exhibition – VACANCIES by Eric Stefanski

Ugly Step Sister Art Gallery “ The Green Gallery Powered by Juhl Wind”
1750 S. Union Ave, Chicago Il 60616

Opening Reception Friday February 8, 2013, 6 – 11 pm.

Held During Pilsen’s Second Friday’s Art Walk

Opening event and exhibit to benefit the Greater Chicago Food Depository

Exhibition Dates February 8 to March 26, 2013

Chicago, IL – February 1, 2013 — Ugly Stepsister Art Gallery is pleased to announce its first exhibit of 2013 featuring “Vacancies” a new work by Eric Stefanski. In his first exhibit at the newest gallery in the Pilsen Arts District, Eric presents a series of work that addresses vacant properties in Chicago and their social implications.

Working first hand with low income and Chicago Housing Authority tenants, Eric has seen the psychological effect that occurs when your neighbor’s home becomes vacant. This has led to a series of work that includes materials from vacant and abandoned homes. By recycling the windows, photographing the properties and using plywood as a signifier for desolation, he creates a dialogue between the audience and the stigma of poverty.

Going through desolate neighborhoods in Chicago it is apparent that the success of a small minority does not translate to a broad prosperity for all. What are left are board-ups, over grown fields and remnants of lost purpose. These “Vacancies” become monuments of social despair.

Unlike racial discrimination that affects specific groups of people, poverty is color-blind. Out of respect to these communities, Eric and Ugly Step Sister are asking all attendees to bring a donation of non-perishable food to be collected on the night of the opening and throughout the remainder of the exhibition.

The gallery and the artist are donating a portion of the proceeds from this exhibit to The Chicago Greater Food Depository.

Eric Stefanski is a Chicago-¬‐based artist who lives and works in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. His work has been featured at leading galleries throughout Chicago. For more information, visit Eric’s website at www.ericstefanski.com.

Ugly Step Sister Gallery was founded in 2008 by Tanya Tucci and has since developed exhibition programming that features the work of emerging and established young artists. In 2012, the gallery partnered with Juhl Wind to become the first art gallery in Chicago and perhaps across most of the United States to be powered with 100% green energy through its use of a rooftop solar power system and certified renewable energy credits (“RECs”), generated by one of Juhl’s operating wind farms located in the Woodstock, Minnesota area. For more information, see www.uglystepsisterartgallery.com

Official Website

More events on this date

Tags: Eric Stefanski, Pilsen, The Ugly Step Sister Gallery