The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living
@ Heaven Gallery
1550 N Milwaukee Ave, #2, Chicago, IL 60622
Opening Friday, March 6th, from 7PM - 11PM
On view through Sunday, April 19th
Join us for the opening of our newest exhibition “The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living!”
The exhibition unfolds through a soft interplay of fantasy and material inquiry, weaving together ideasof artist-as-philosopher and practice-as-self-reflection.
Schenck presents large-format drawings on newsprint, rendered with marker, gesso, and gold leaf, rooted in the language of photography and acts of preservation. His process borrows from photographic logic—exposure, development, framing—using drawing as a way to test what can be saved and what inevitably slips away. Working with fragile, impermanent materials, Schenck explores the tension between holding and losing, clarity and erosion. Drawings on tracing paper, rolled and sealed inside glass bottles, extend this inquiry: images become contained, protected, and delayed, like negatives archived or messages suspended in time. These works ask what it means to preserve an image, and whether saving something also changes it.
Stone’s work operates between archive and abstraction. Layered paint applied over photographs of her studio evokes the comfort of the familiar while opening onto dreamlike landscapes of what was, what is, and what might be. Her sculptural works ground this psychological space with corporeal weight, tracing a shared trajectory of growth, transformation, and decay that connects all living forms.
today was tomorrow yesterday
Time will not leave us unscathed
Hold obscure buried secrets and treasures-
Excavating stolen dreams and transforming them yet
Frozen from too many choices and rickety definitions,
Forgotten joys melted in the cracks
Hidden in light and eroding in shadows
They are Not named but seen- remembered and twisted
in deep and shallow holes and absolutes-
Stray feral thoughts unattached
Love of decay and fresh mold – yes growing color
Fear of rebirth and ghosts of regret …
Begin and End Reflections and Echoes
Crumbling structures under duress we thought we knew
where we live
what dwells in our dwelling – who inhabits our habitat
wherever we find a moment or space familiar or cozy but not terrifying
will be temporary home.
but Inside our secret self OR outside in communities
a harbor for monsters, demons, angels
Bold or timid – humanity travels and adapts
From dark to light
Always…. growth -transformation- decay
-Michelle Stone
Official Website
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Tags: Chicago, Heaven Gallery, James Schenck, Michelle Stone, The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living, West Town
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