Pop!

In the almost 80 years since pop art emerged in the 1950s, artists in all media have used images from popular culture to address issues of mass production, commodification, advertising and branding and American society. Pop can also refer to an unexpected, light explosion. Each artist in this exhibition uses elements of American popular culture in different ways while also showing moments of unexpected “pops” through both imagery and color.

Erin Hayden is an interdisciplinary artist predominantly working in painting, performance, poetry, video, and installation. Her work has been exhibited in various cities across the US and abroad including at Stony Island Arts Bank, and Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Torino. Solo exhibitions of her paintings and video work has been shown at Mana Contemporary Chicago, and Randy Alexander Gallery. She has been an artist resident at the Ragdale Foundation, the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Chicago Artists Coalition, and is a Luminarts Fellow. She has been featured in reviews and publications such as, Frieze, Chicago Tribune, Lori Waxman’s 60wrd/min art critic, and NewCity Art as a 2018 Breakout Artist. She received her MFA in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University and is currently living and
working in Chicago.

Paul Gerard Somers is an interdisciplinary artist working in fiber, sculpture, painting, drawing, and performance. Somers was born in Dayton, Ohio, and has lived in Indiana, Alaska, Massachusetts, Texas, and New York City, before settling in Chicago. He received a B.A. from Ball State University, and an MFA from The University of Chicago. Recent solo exhibitions include: “MANDATORY VALUE,” Ignition Project Space, Chicago, (2022); “NO WAKE,” Leslie Wolfe Gallery, Chicago, (2022); “CRACKED C -7 FOR THE WIN,” Gospel Flat Farm Gallery, Bolinas, California, (2017)

“My work is based on a personal investigation of societal institutions, rituals and the exploration of their influence on our culture. I am interested in examining automatic and collective beliefs and how they impact and shape individual behaviors. My work evokes memories and feelings of childhood. I question the boundaries of masculinity within contemporary society and if and when the toys must be put away. Oftentimes my work resides in the realm of the pathetic. I celebrate the reject and the dysfunctional, a reflection of a part of us. I examine the disregarded and beauty in the disenfranchised.”

David Trost
My bedroom was like a museum. Everything had its place in a rotating display of various tableaus and vignettes. I would draw, make sculptures with Play-Doh, and color incessantly with my crayons. The walls were covered with collages and posters that reflected my evolving tastes in popular culture and were often altered to include myself in the starring roles.As an adult I became an art teacher, mostly teaching art classes to children. These children would pick up a lump of clay and begin to model it into whatever they wanted to see. Often, their creations looked little like what they were attempting to build except to their own eyes. I began to really admire the way they build with a fearlessly intuitive hand, no need for references, no need for accuracy, only the raw desire to see the product of their work and the sheer joy of making.
As an artist, I maintain a child-like approach to art making. I make my work so that I can see it exist, allowing self-indulgence to guide my expression. The influence of countless hours in front of the television set watching cartoons has lodged inside my head an aesthetic that owes as much to Tex Avery as to Andy Warhol. The commercials for every breakfast cereal that my mother would never allow me to consume have left me hungry for everything that will rot my teeth. The spirit of the cartoon soundtracks of Bill Lava accompanies me as I work in the studio, like a chimp tied to an organ grinder.

My art is the process of making manifest by hand the whims of my mind. As such, there is no problem in spending a month making a giant, non-functioning robot. A ceramic tricycle is the most logical thing in the world. Why shouldn’t a poorly stitched together hippo watch TV? It all becomes part of the same game, played by a larger version of that obnoxious little boy: digging in the sandbox, searching for the poop.

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Tags: Chicago, David Trost, Erin Hayden, Lillstreet Art Center, Paul Gerard Somers, pop, Ravenswood