Box Gallery presents new work by Yvette Mayorga, Benjamin Cook, Alejandro Acierto, and Steve Juras, curated by Richard Medina. Box Gallery is an experimental gallery that takes the form of a 6″ x 6″ x 6″ cardboard box. For the 2017 Terrain Biennial, Box Gallery will mutate into four refrigerator-sized cardboard boxes to show installations by the four artists. Visitors will crawl into each artists’ box with flashlights (provided) to view their unique method of addressing the space.

The Terrain Biennial is an international exhibition of site-specific art made for front yards, balconies, and porches. Centered in the historic village of Oak Park, IL, the Biennial will open on Sunday, October 1st and run until November 15th, 2017. Continuing a massive expansion that began with the second Terrain Biennial, Terrain has reached out to sites all across the country as well as internationally. In 2015, 75 artists and three collectives created site interventions at over 60 locations around the Chicagoland area, the United States, and in other countries.

Sunday, October 1st, 2-7pm
700 Highland Ave. Oak Park, IL

ARTIST BIOS

YVETTE MAYORGA
Yvette Mayorga is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. She uses confection, industrial materials, and the American board game Candy Land as a conceptual framework to juxtapose the borderlands of the U.S. and Mexico. The spaces in the “Candy Lands” of her work relate to immigrant utopian visions of the American Dream. The smell, decoration, and personal photographs in work serve to critique the glut of violence at the border.

Mayorga has presented her work at The Vincent Price Art Museum, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, EXPO, The Chicago Cultural Center, The National Museum of Mexican Art, University of Indianapolis, The Arts Incubator, Roots and Culture, Weinberg/Newton, and forthcoming at Gallery 400, Ukraine Institute of Modern Art, & LACMA’s PST.

Mayorga received her MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was featured in The Guardian, The Inter University Program for Latino Research, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Art News, and REMEZCLA. www.yvettemayorga.com

BENJAMIN COOK
Benjamin Cook (b. 1989) is a painter and curator from Northern Kentucky.

His paintings draw from color pallets and strategies of digital construction and have been exhibited across the United States and Canada in galleries including “Fort Gondo” in St. Louis, Mo, “Gallerie COA” in Montreal QC, “Work Gallery” at the University of Michigan STAMPS School of Art and Design, and “Manifest Gallery” in Cincinnati, OH. Cook’s work has been published both digitally and in print in publications such as Booooooom.com, Fresh Paint Magazine, New American Paintings, Maake Magazine.

Cook is a co-founder of “Say Uncle,” a mobile arts space and residency program located in Urbana, IL and East Wall Gallery, a graduate student run art space in Champaign, IL.

Cook is living and working in Cincinnati, OH . He received his BFA from the University of Louisville in 2012 and his MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017 and is an instructor at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Cook is currently represented by Zg Gallery in Chicago, IL. www.benjamincookart.com

ALEJANDRO ACIERTO
Alejandro T. Acierto is an artist and musician whose work is largely informed by the breath, the voice, and the processes that enable them. He has exhibited artworks at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Issue Project Room, MCA Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, and presented performance works at Rapid Pulse Performance Art Festival, the Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, Center for Performance Research, and Center for New Music and Technology. Noted for his “insatiable” performance by the New York Times, Acierto has performed written and improvised music extensively throughout the US and abroad as a clarinetist and electronic musician and is a founding member of Ensemble Dal Niente.

Acierto has also held residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, VCCA, Banff Centre, High Concept Laboratories, Chicago Artists’ Coalition and was an FT/FN/FG Consortium Fellow and a Center Program Artist at the Hyde Park Art Center. He received his undergraduate degree from DePaul University, an MM from Manhattan School of Music, an MFA in New Media Arts from University Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and is an Artist in Residence for Creative Practice in Critical Race Studies at Michigan State University. www.alejandroacierto.com

STEVE JURAS
Over the past 5 years, Steve Juras has embraced improvisation, curation and collaboration to explore themes of humor, death and empathy. Among other things, his work is influenced by an odd amalgam of 1970s conceptualism, existential psychology and the dedication of the developmentally disabled artists at the Esperanza Community Services Art Studio. He received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, completed the Center Program at the Hyde Park Art Center and participates in the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education. His work has been exhibited in Chicago and across the Midwest. Steve lives and works in Chicago. www.stevejuras.com

CURATOR BIO
Richard Medina is an artist, curator, and filmmaker based in Chicago, IL. His work has been exhibited at Project 1612, Roman Susan, Corner, 2nd Floor Rear, Kitchen Space, and the 2nd Terrain Biennial. In 2016 Richard was awarded the Jeffrey Ahn, Jr. Fellowship. He curates Box Gallery, a 6” x 6” x 6” cardboard box with regular openings at Terrain Exhibitions. Richard is seeking his BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2021). www.richardmedina.net

With additional curation by DANIELA PEREZ
Daniela Perez is a student at SAIC from Chicago. All she does is look at things and makes art about it. She enjoys curating and directionless walks. http://cargocollective.com/danielaperez

www.terrainexhibitions.com
http://boxgallery.weebly.com/
www.yvettemayorga.com
www.benjamincookart.com
www.alejandroacierto.com
www.stevejuras.com
www.richardmedina.net
http://cargocollective.com/danielaperez

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Tags: 2017 Terrain Biennial, Alejandro Acierto, Benjamin Cook, Box Gallery, Chicago, Oak Park, Richard Medina, Steve Juras, Yvette Mayorga