Photos From the Party on Friday

Michelle Peterson Albndoz - Two Untitled Wood Constructions - Wood, Acrylic Paint - approx 38x38x2.5 each

Michelle Peterson Albandoz - Untitled - Wood - 80 x 36 inches each

Drawings by Jeffrey Janson

The Back Courtyard

Michelle's Ocean Park Series Continues

Michelle Peterson Albandoz - New Work - Opening Reception - January 30, 2015

Please join Las Manos for an opening reception for Michelle Peterson Albandoz. Since returning from an extended stay in Puerto Rico Michelle has been deep in her studio making a variety of new work inspired by her visit to one of the places she considers Home. The new work while varying in size and structure, reflects some of the sights and experiences of her recent travels. The reception will run from 6 until 10pm on Friday, January 30, 2015 and take place at Las Manos Gallery at 1515 W. Foster in Chicago. Please join us in celebrating Michelle's return to Chicago with a little drink and music. Hope you can make it. 

Additional Photos

Three New Tricia Rumbolz Pieces

Tricia Rumbolz delivered these three new pieces to the gallery for Andersonville Arts Weekend. Amazing as a set - Amazing each on their own! The materials are: Technical Pen on Prepared Masonite Board, and the overall dimensions are 41 x 41 inches.  Tricia finished these herself in a beautiful dark gray painted frame. You have to see them in person to fully experience their power and presence.

Tricia Rumbolz, left to right
"2 Focal Point, 640 Lines (Polarity)"
"1 Focal Point, 1768 Lines (Singularity)"
"3 Focal Points, 225 Lines (Triangularity)"

Tricia Rumbolz, "1 Focal Point, 1768 Lines (Singularity)" 

Review of the Mark Pease Show - The Chicago Reader

Few art movements in the modern age are as primarily identified with a single decade as op art is with the 1960s. More than abstract expressionism before it, op art was easily digested by an increasingly consumerist society, and buoyed by countercultural currents ranging from public political protest to personal mind-altering experimentation. Although it didn't preclude images of people or things—as a slew of psychedelic LP jackets attests—op art was notable for taking abstraction to a new plateau, merging color theory and the science of optics with the heightened precision that emerging technologies afforded. A big part of its appeal was that it was fun.

But the movement peaked by 1965, and by the mid-1970s was passe, as the world lumbered toward postmodernist reassessment. In recent years, however, when we're temperamentally poles apart from the go-go 60s, optical art is making a comeback—not as retro, but as a lively extension of past traditions. And in Mark Pease's new show, op is still fun.

A painter, printmaker, photographer, and animator who teaches at the University of Southern Illinois, Pease cites among his influences op art pioneer Bridget Riley, James Turrell and Robert Irwin of the Light and Space movement, and sculptor Olafur Eliasson, whose monumental 2003 installation The Weather Project at London's Tate Modern Pease recalls as "a great environmental op art piece."

In his new work Pease eschews the retinal vibration effects associated with early op art's hothouse colors and undulations in favor of a cool, creamy palette, and lines and forms meticulously generated through computer stencils of his hand-sketched patterns. The circular shapes of his silk-screen-on-paper print series Disk Variations II echo early op art's recurring motif of the eye as the door to perception. But rather than disorient the viewer by throwing into question what one beholds, these prints—with their concentric circles and pie-wedge shapes, evoking early TV test signals—are, if not soothing, pleasing in their symmetry and harmony. They work because they operate on a visceral level, resisting narrative interpretation.

The same can be said of Pease's series of paintings Climb Into Space, where he addresses his preoccupations on a larger scale. These works, spray-painted acrylic on nylon, employ rectilinear shapes of banded lines that here and there taper off into slight folds. The results are like watching ribbons unfurling, or waterfalls. Grouped snugly along the wood-paneled walls of Las Manos's latest home, a smaller but better space than its old Clark Street location, the paintings provide an immersive experience that rewards repeat viewing.

Rounding out the show is one representational work, Galleria, a 25-minute CGI animation from 2012. A single-take bird's-eye view of a shopping mall, devoid of people but dotted with recognizable retailer names, it fits with the other works only as regards Pease's fascination with color gradations.

Up Close - Jean Alexander Frater

Jean Alexander Frater - Plans - Acrylic, Graphite on Canvas -  50 x 52 inches

Another example of art work that does not convey its essential qualities particularly well via the internet and photography is Jean Alexander Fraters work, currently in the gallery until the end of the month. For example, her 'painting' entitled Plans looks and feels very differently in person than it does here on our blog. Jean's paintings have a beautiful surface and delicate color scheme to them. Although they involve paint on canvas, they strike me as involving drawing as much painting. She works on un-streched canvas, and only when they are finished does she staple the canvas to stretcher bars. The overall effect is of a large drawing with painstaking hand-work, subtle effects and the coloring of a painting.

Up Close - Tricia Rubolz

Tricia Rumbolz - 947 Colors on Black (left), 947 Colors on White (right) - Collaged Paper on Panel - 48 x 48 inches each 

Among the work Tricia Rumbolz has on the walls of Las Manos Gallery this month are these two piece made out of multicolored paper mounted on panel, each 48 x 48 inches. This work is about many things, but many viewers first react to the vibrancy of the color, and then to the meticulousness of the craftsmanship.  In person the experience of viewing these two pieces is mesmerizing; the colors jump and undulate, and your eye move back and forth between the two pieces, (they each actually depict the same sequence of colors but on differently colored backgrounds). None of these qualities are communicated particularly well in photographs. This situation points out a problem with presenting art via photography (and computers, and the internet) - the photograph invariably changes the art being depicted. It flattens, it alters the color, and obviously, it is a change of media alerting a fundamental intention of its creation. Our hope is that few close ups of the piece can to some small degree communicate more clearly special qualities of these pieces. Or better yet, come see them in person if you get a chance.

Contemplating Perception - A Few Images From The Opening

   

View of the Gallery

Tricia Rumbolz, 2 Focal Points - 262 lines, Ink on Panel, 8 x 10 inches

Chuck Rolwing, White Fences, Oil on Canvas, 41 x 60 inches

Digital Postcard For Upcoming Show - Contemplating Perception - Opening August 9th

Our new show with some of our favorite artists opens this Friday. Hope you can stop by. 

And a few images from Chuck Rolwing hinting at some of the new work he will be showing this month.

Michelle and Michael's annual two person show

If you have not yet come by to see Michelle Peterson-Albandoz and Michael McGuire's annual two person show...well you should!

Stop by at our new location at 1515 W Foster right in between Asland and Clark

Th/F 12:30-5:30 Sat/Sun 11-5

Michael McGuire's beautiful ink wash on cardboard constructions. 

All of the pieces for this show were made from scraps of previous works, making something special from the casted-off

Michelle Peterson-Albandoz's wood constructions are nothing short of spectacular. 

Come on by!

Eric Gushee weaves a web of silver

Eric Gushee has shown his unique and spectacular sculptures with Las Manos and even installed a permanent installation in our courtyard. 

However, his talents don't end there! Currently working on a large piece for Dock 6, a collective of designers opening this Friday at 4200 W Diversey. This large scale sculpture starts out as steal wire which is painstakingly unwound one by one, after a large number of wire is unwound they are woven into small patches which can be woven together to create larger shapes. 

to see more of his work check out his web site at http://ericgushee.com/home.html