The Jackson Junge Gallery is excited to present “In the Corner of a Round Room” – an exhibition that discards rationality for a surrealist landscape of cloaked figures, pickled punks and other reminiscences found deep within our imagination. The group exhibition opens Friday, September 23 from 6-10PM with a storied fête of outlandish proportion that leads you through a tale of dark hallways in this sideshow wonderland. The evening will also feature a performance by artist CV Peterson titled “Mykitas Epoch” from 7-9PM.

“In the Corner of a Round Room” is inspired by the historical traditions of freak shows and exhibitions dating back to the reign of Elizabeth I in the 16th century. The Jackson Junge Gallery invited a group of artists, working in a variety of media, to explore the novelty acts and folklore that captured the attention of the general public and royalty alike. Pivoted on a surrealist landscape, the collection of work assembled is a menagerie of common motifs and symbols that are quintessential to the surrealist movement from portals and birds, to the grotesque, death, and legend.

The Jackson Junge Gallery is also proud to incorporate new works by artist L. Lee Junge alongside the debut of new gallery artists, Kate Harrold and Jason Brueck. Junge returns with three new figurative works including “Mind Games,” which is an exploration of her mind’s proclivities during a journey plagued by crippling pain and uncertainty that could have ended her painting career. “’Mind Games’ is a reflection of what I learned while dealing with a pain disorder that is caused by tension in the mind. Our minds are constantly creating thoughts that are not exactly truthful. I could grab onto that thought and let it carry me on a downward spiral, or I could recognize it as merely a thought and replace it with positive thinking. When intense pain flared I could think how scary it was, how much it hurt, when it was going to end or I could ask myself what it was that I was feeling (usually fear) and then replace those thoughts with notions like this pain will go away and I will be ok. ‘Mind Games’ portrays the powerful tool our mind is and how we create the person we are today. What the mind believes the body does truly achieve.”

“In the Corner of a Round Room” introduces collectors to artists Kate Harrold and Jason Brueck. Harrold photographs each element of the image that she creates (occasionally borrowing pieces from found photographs) and then digitally manipulates and merges them together to create new and unlikely stories. She is often inspired by a building, character, or single detail and enjoys the challenges of removing that element from its environment and creating a whole new space and story around it. Brueck says that he enjoys the confusion between imagination, manipulation, and reality. He draws inspiration from images past and present, light and dark, sometimes combining the two in hopes of creating an imperfect symmetry. Brueck explains, “My goal is to take the seemingly unimaginable and make it a visual reality by blurring the lines between the real and surreal, creating a story where final interpretation is open to multiple realizations. There are a number of different paths in my work… which one is ultimately chosen is left for you to decide.”

“In the Corner of a Round Room” runs September 23, 2016 – October 30, 2016 and is curated by gallery director Chris Jackson, assistant director Scott Renfro, Laura Junge and Sasha Perez

FEATURED ARTISTS: L. Lee Junge, Wayne Bertola, Sharon Bladholm, Jason Brueck, Nikole Cooney, Dimitre, Kate Harrold, Karl Jahnke, Amalia Kouvalis, Richard Laurent, Joan McLane, Daniela Ovtcharov, Vladimir Ovtcharov, Sasha K. Perez, CV Peterson, Jeff Sadowski, Miguel Tio, Kurt Brian Webb

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Tags: Amalia Kouvalis, Chicago, CV Peterson, Daniela Ovtcharov, Dimitre, In the Corner of a Round Room, Jackson Junge Gallery, Jason Brueck, Jeff Sadowski, Joan McLane, Karl Jahnke, Kate Harrold, Kurt Brian Webb, L. Lee Junge, Miguel Tio, Nikole Cooney, Richard Laurent, Sasha K. Perez, Sharon Bladholm, Vladimir Ovtcharov, Wayne Bertola, West Town