For his first solo exhibition at moniquemeloche, Dan Gunn (American, born 1980, lives Chicago), who considers himself primarily a painter, will make all new work including wall-based, free-standing, and hanging constructions. Simultaneously present and elusive, Gunn’s work elicits an awareness of the viewer’s own visual and spatial perception through the construction of objects that highlight the interconnected relationship between artist, viewer, and object. “I am trying to construct an indifferent object that has recently become the object of desire, yet leave it in that mixed state,” says Gunn
Using the many languages of abstraction, Gunn builds a series of malleable surfaces that display different functional, aesthetic and cultural relationships between their constituent parts. However, for Gunn, abstraction is not used to reveal some underlying truth but rather as a way to notice the everyday structures that influence our relationship with pictures. Among other things, Gunn’s work examines our curious relationship to commercial display and the found object. In the artist’s words, “everything changes once it’s found, becoming involved in a chain of associations and symbolic appropriations. A rags to riches story.”
Gunn’s highly-crafted works combine everyday materials (fabrics, tinsel, chalkboards, etc.) to emulate enticing devices of presentation (shop windows, stage sets, architecture, furniture, etc.) alongside more traditional painterly techniques that complicates easy categorization. His shifting materials alternately use transparency and opacity, solidity and screening. Perforated layers reveal obscured surfaces. Surfaces echo other surfaces. Structures recall other structures. A formal kinship of both surface and structure give unity to the whole, while balance and opposition create tension. With an emphasis on the primacy of embodied experience, Gunn’s installation aims to be simultaneously seductive, quirky, and even sublime.
Prior to earning his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007, Dan Gunn received a Bachelor’s degree in Physics. His interest in physics greatly overlaps with his current artistic practice, where he continues to investigate the peculiar qualities of materials. In an intuitive construction process, he experiments with effervescent substances, grouping objects together in search of revealed affinities and a deeper understanding of the world. His work has been reviewed in publications such as Artforum.com, Artslant.com, NewCity Chicago, TimeOut Chicago, and the Chicago Tribune. In 2010, Gunn had a much lauded solo exhibition Multistable Picture Fable at Lloyd Dobler Gallery in Chicago and was included in the Contemporary Art Council’s group exhibition New Icon curated by Britton Bertran at Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago. In January 2011, he was one of four young artists invited to participate in our annual Winter Experiment. In September 2011, concurrent with our exhibition, Gunn will have a solo show – the 12×12 UBS: New Artists/New Work series – at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and will have work in a group show at the A+D Gallery at Columbia College. His work is currently on view at the James Hotel Chicago lobby gallery.
on the wall
Cheryl Pope A Silent I
Sept 9 – December 31, 2011 Public Receptions
Part 1: Friday Sept 9, 6-9pm Part 2: Saturday Oct 15, 4-7pm Part 3: Saturday Nov 19, 4-7pm Part 3: Saturday Nov 19, 4-7pm
For the next installment of our “on the wall” series, moniquemeloche is pleased to announce the project A Silent I by Chicago-based artist Cheryl Pope this Fall/Winter 2011. As an artist-in-residence at Chicago Public School Lindblom Math and Science Academy in 2010, Pope asked the high school students to anonymously submit one truth and one lie about themselves, without designating which was which, as part of a collaborative art project. Of the 125 submitted statements, Pope selected 20 to reproduce in the style of athletic championship banners and installed them in the Lindblom gymnasium for their initial presentation. Addressing complex issues of identity, self-worth, and inter-personal relationships, this celebratory series speaks to all ages, so we invited Pope to make a more public installation “on the wall.” During the run of the exhibition, Pope will switch out the banners three times, grouping the unlabeled truths and lies in various combinations, and will engage the high school students from Roberto Clemente Community Academy, which is practically next door to the gallery. The format of that collaboration is still being developed.
Cheryl Pope (American, born 1980, lives Chicago) received a Masters in Design in 2010 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which was supported by a Full Tuition Merit Scholarship, and Bachelors in Fine Arts from the same in 2003. Her work has been in exhibitions at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, the Evanston Art Center, Swimming Pool Projects, and the School of the Art Instituteof Chicago, to name a few. In 2009, she was selected for Art Chicago’s exhibition New Insight, a selection of the top graduate students from the best art schools in the country, and was named one of the “Rising Stars” in the Fall issue of CS Interiors. Pope and her work have also been discussed in The New York Times and The Cleveland Scene. She has been the studio manager for artist Nick Cave since 2003 and credits him and his work as a great influence on her practice. Pope is part-time faculty at the School of Art Institute Fashion Department in Chicago. In September 2011, Pope will have a solo exhibition titled Matter of Fact at Dorsch Gallery in Miami.
The “on the wall” series is a rotation of projects on the gallery’s 10 x 25 foot wall viewed through our floor to ceiling windows on Division Street visible 24/7. Designed to engage the community and challenge the white cube notion of “viewing,” the series features site-specific projects in a wide range of media made by an equally diverse group of artists. The gallery hopes to bring new work to Chicago and views this series as an opportunity to work with an exciting group of artists new to the gallery. The “on the wall” series is generously funded in part the Wicker Park Bucktown Special Service Area 33.
