Trooper
@ Komechak Gallery at Benedictine University
5700 College Rd, Lisle, IL 60532
Opening Wednesday, September 16th, from 3PM - 6PM
On view through Wednesday, October 21st
The Komechak Gallery at Benedictine University is pleased to present TROOPER, a solo exhibition of new paintings by artist William Blake. The exhibition brings together twelve paintings centered on a decommissioned U.S. military saddle and the histories carried through its continued representation.
Blake makes oil paintings using the language of nineteenth-century U.S. painting to look at the present. His work grows out of almost twenty years spent participating in American Civil War reenactments, often in the role of artist-correspondents such as Winslow Homer. Rather than reconstructing historical scenes, Blake paints objects and people he encounters now, using the conventions of history painting, portraiture, and still life to consider how the past remains visible in the present.
TROOPER began with a 1904 McClellan saddle Blake purchased in 2025 from the son of a former Chicago mounted police officer. The McClellan saddle became the U.S. military standard during the Civil War. It was used by troopers including Custer and Patton, by Buffalo Soldiers and Rough Riders, by Horse Marines in China, and later by mounted police in American cities. In 2025, the McClellan saddle was retired from use by the Old Guard’s funerary caisson at Arlington National Cemetery. As its history extended from the Civil War into American expansion and empire, the McClellan saddle also entered the nation’s visual culture, appearing in the work of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington as they helped shape images of a national identity.
Blake paints the saddle suspended from suburban fences with fluorescent tie-downs, resting against roadside barriers and beside baseball fields, isolated in small still lifes, and beneath members of the artist’s family. The resulting paintings move between the saddle as a carefully observed object and its longer associations with cavalry, policing, westward expansion, ceremony, and painting.
Accompanying the exhibition is an essay by writer Christian Viveros-Fauné, “On William Blake’s Ghostbusting Paintings.”
An artist talk will be announced at a later date.
The Komechak Gallery is located on the fifth floor of the Kindlon Hall of Learning on Benedictine University’s campus.
Gallery Hours: Monday–Thursday, 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
Free and open to the public.
5700 College Road
Lisle, IL 60532
For press inquiries, contact:
David Marcett
dmarcet@ben.edu
Official Website
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Tags: IL, Komechak Gallery, Lisle, Trooper, William Blake
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