ORBIT, 1350 W. Erie St., Chicago is pleased to present Something Olden and Golden, a One-Day exhibition and Birthday Celebration for Robin Dluzen, Saturday, September 7 from 5 to 10:00 p.m.

The influences and subjects in Dluzen’s artwork are steeped in her close relationship to her parents and witnessing their labor and connection to industry and nature. The artist’s exposure to horticulture and drawing in her youth plays a significant role in this current body of work as she reexamines her mother’s early drawings as familiar images of comfort.

The utilitarian mediums of brown paper bags, plant magazine cuttings and road maps that make up the work in this exhibition are embellished with gold leaf, simultaneously hearkening back to a simpler time and regenerating these experiences into the artist’s contemporary language.

Artist Statement
Labor and landscape have always been at the core of my practice, and often those ideas were addressed through notions of industry and typically masculine kinds of labor drawn from my father’s experiences. However, in the past several years, I’ve been engaging also with the labor history of women in my family. My mother worked for 30 years as a horticulturalist and is also an excellent draftsman. Throughout her career, she created a number of botanical illustrations for various publications.

When I was a kid, and my stomach hurt too much to finish my school day, or when I was sick of summer day camp, my mom would bring me to work with her; I remember watching her at the lightbox drawing and redrawing, cutting pieces out and moving them around as she worked on these drawings. When she retired five years ago, she brought all these drawings home –some of them are precisely finished pieces, and others are in various stages of completion. I began enlarging these images and redrawing them, retaining all of the intricacies of her hand.
Here, my re-drawings of her works are combined with found paper material, like seed catalog pages, road maps and lawn refuse bags, that underscore the role that plant cultivation and the Midwest landscape have played in our intergenerational family identity. Additionally, the collages and drawings are coupled with gold paint and leaf, elevating these humble and often ephemeral materials and imbuing them with an iconographic aura.

ORBIT is a series of programming that includes exhibitions, talks, performances, field trips and a variety of experiential and educational gatherings. ORBIT programs take place at the event venue, Assemblea, 1350 W. Erie St., Chicago.

Linda Dorman + Tom Torluemke joined forces as art advocates and partners in 2001. Since then they have organized over 200 exhibitions, events, art experiences and spectacles, owned a gallery (Uncle Freddy’s Gallery, 2002 – 2009) and continue to bring art experiences to the Midwest.

ORBIT is the newest incarnation of Dorman + Torluemke, offering up inclusive and fun opportunities
for people to see, listen, do, contribute and enjoy in a casual and friendly atmosphere.

For additional information please contact, Linda Dorman,

Official Website

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Tags: Chicago, Dorman + Torluemke, Near North Side, Orbit, Robin Dluzen, Something Olden and Golden