art, culture, current calendar
Be sure to get over to Intuit: The Center For Intuitive and Outsider Art to meet outsider artist, Lonnie Holley who's visiting Chicago from
Birmingham, Alabama as
their first artist in residence. You can actually see him at work until this Friday when he'll be showing the results of his two week visit to Chicago at a 5 PM reception.
Holley has taken over the main gallery of this non-profit arts organization, a recent participant in Artropolis, to demonstrate how he makes his work. With the aid of Lucy Slivinski, a mainstream artist who uses discarded materials in her work, he has toured much of the city and its' environs for appropriate salvage and any remnants of urban life he may want to use.
Holley is the confident survivor of an extraordinarily difficult life. He was one of 27 children, lived for a time in foster care as well as in the Industrial School for Negro Children in Mount Meigs, AL., from which he ran away. He left school before completing 7th grade and became a student of National Geographic magazine.
His art began with carving sandstone which was used as industrial waste and progressed to painting and sculpture using found or recycled material.
His work has been shown at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC., the American Folk Art Museum in New York and the High Museum in Atlanta.
Do stop in to meet Holley while he's in town. He's extremely articulate and is happy to answer questions. The exhibit continues at Intuit through September 1, however. Don't miss it. The photo of his chair sculpture is included, courtesy of William Arnett.
For more information about Intuit and its' many activities, access its' website www.art.org.
Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11AM-5PM and Thursday, 11AM-7:30PM.
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