Galactic Ping Pong - Second Bedroom Project Space

Back by public demand!!!
FRIDAY JANUARY 16TH, 2009 7 TO 11PM - One night only!
Second Bedroom Project Space
1632 S. Morgan Street Apt.4r
Chicago


Second Bedroom is having another Galactic Ping Pong session before our 2009 exhibition season starts.

Come and play a game of ping pong that requires skillful abilities to avoiding asteroids, stars and black holes.

Refreshments and some snacks will be served.

Image Splimage

Image Splimage: Recent Paintings by Brad Biancardi

January 15 - February 17, 2009
Opening reception: January 15, 6-9 pm

EASTERN EXPANSION
244 W 31st Street Chicago Illinois, 60616

773.837.0145



About the work
Brad Biancardi's work begins with direct, observational drawings of specific spaces or objects that carry personal importance. Working from observation is the most important mode of informing his work. Though they begin from observational drawings, they eventually abandon their dependence on them and enter an area that exists somewhere between invention and representation. For this reason Brad describes his studio practice as “referential.” Sometimes he begins with a space, sometimes he attempts to subvert a pop-cultural icon in order to transform them into something more personal and elusive, i.e. bikes, the spacecraft from the Star Wars films, governmental buildings, etc.

The mathematical system of linear perspective is one formal tool within which Brad's explorations occur; color is another. He composes his imagery based on a symmetrical model with full knowledge that asymmetrical nuances are inevitable and will bring life to the work.

Brad also desires to retain a direct connection to art history by utterly consuming the potential of basic formal tools. As contemporary culture inevitably permeates his working process, he attempts to consume it, contemplate it and eventually either abandon it or use it. It is an ever-present concern of his to be equally aware of both contemporary culture and historical knowledge. Brad finds fault in the painter who feels embedded in twentieth century theoretical matters. At the same time he thinks that contemporary art is becoming more concerned with ideas of market and fashion, while moving further away from an artistic utopia.


Biography:

Brad Biancardi received his MFA from the University of Washington. From 2005 – 2007 he was a member the Seattle based artist collective Crawl Space: Artist-Run-Gallery. He has exhibited his paintings and drawings in Seattle at Platform Gallery, the Lawrimore Project, Soil, and was an artist-member of the Crawl Space gallery from 2005 through 2007. He has exhibited in Chicago at the Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Zhou Brothers Art Center. He teaches at Gallery 37, was a visiting artist at Harold Washington College, and has taught at the University of Washington, Pratt School of Fine Art in Seattle, the Northern Indiana Artists Association and at the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago. His studio is currently rejecting him like a virus.

January 16, 2009 YPA @ Co-Prosperity Sphere

January 23 6-8PM Dawn Blackman / Devlin Shea

Dawn Blackman and Devlin Shea comprise the next exhibition in a series of quarterly exhibitions at Normal Projects. Shea, born and raised in Manhattan, recently relocated to Stockholm. Shea has been awarded artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's swing space program, chashama North, Brooklyn College, and the Experimental Television Center. Shea co-foundeded The Sunday Experiment (2007), a monthly film and animation club, housed at the Interborough Repertory Theater in New York. Futurescope is a hand drawn frame by frame animation that will be exhibited with pieces from the animation process, as well as gouache on paper works.

Dawn Blackman works on paper aim to develop a more personal and meaningful dialogue through drawing. Blackman uses the tradition of drawing melding surface contour in couture and imageries with the photographic environment creating collages much more behind self identity as feminine or female, sibling and sister. Speaking specifically in twos, an interesting duality transpires in her works on paper. Blackman lives and works in Brooklyn.

Normal Projects is an independent apartment gallery space in Bridgeport, an industrially historic area of Chicago. Working within a conceptual rhetoric, the embarking into curatorial ventures has been one of science, rather, a growth in the interest in ecology. The Chicago School described a way man and machine comprised one another during America's manufacturing and industrial age. Here, ecology has then the opportunity to describe environs and expresses also the physical way in which artists visually describes contemporary landscapes.

Normal Projects exhibits work on paper and video by emerging and established contemporary
artists. This exhibition will be on view from January 23rd - February 28, 2009 by appointment only. There will be a reception from 6-9p on January 23rd. For more information, please email Emily Schroeder at normalprojects@gmail.com or ring 917 312-8889.

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forthcoming: luke dowd / lydia moyer (march 2009)
All images courtesy Normal Projects and the artists.
normalprojects.info
2844 s. normal ave
chicago IL 60616
917 312-8889