125 S. Ridgeland Ave.
Claire Ashley, host
Alexandria Eregbu, curator
Danny Giles, artist
Project Title: “Visitor”
Description:
I will be exploring the spaces within and in between Oak Park and Garfield Park, two adjacent west side communities with distinct economic, social and cultural identities. Coming out of my own work with public interventions and ambulatory prop-based performance, I’ll be activating two exhibition spaces— Terrain by way of Claire Ashley’s front yard and the Franklin, as well as the space between. Throughout the run of two separate exhibitions, I will be shuttling a large black monolith (á la Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: a Space Odyssey") back and forth between the two venues. The performance of the traverse will be filmed and ultimately presented as an accompanying video work. I’m using the space between these locations as a stage to consider how objects, bodies and spaces cross-inform and begin to produce identities.
Danny Giles is a Chicago-based transdisciplinary artist. His practice addresses the mediation and consumption of cultural mythologies and the permutation of social archetypes. Employing a range of practices including sculpture, drawing and performance, Giles negotiates the spaces, tropes and artifacts of consumer display, public spectacle and political speech. Giles received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and his MFA from Northwestern University in 2013. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013 and ACRE Residency in 2014. Giles has exhibited and performed at spaces including The Socrates Sculpture Park (NY), Smack Mellon (NY), Threewalls (Chicago), Roots and Culture (Chicago), The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art (Evanston, IL), and Fernwey Gallery (Chicago). Giles is a lecturer at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is represented by Andrew Rafacz Gallery.
Alexandria Eregbu is a visual artist whose work often takes shape in the form of performance, programming, and curatorial practices. Her concerns frequently address community, materiality, performativity, and visibility of racialized and gendered bodies in space. In 2012, Eregbu was commissioned by Out of Site Chicago to perform 11/10/10, a project that confronted the physical and geographical boundaries of the city of Chicago. Eregbu's work has been featured in two solo exhibitions and several group exhibitions including Seminar (New York); Exodus at the University of Chicago's Arts Incubator in Washington Park; and Mythologies at Sullivan Galleries (Chicago). Eregbu was a recipient of the Propeller Fund Grant (2013), a 2014-2015 Resident Curator with HATCH Projects at Chicago Artists Coalition, and a Public Studio Artist in Residence at the Chicago Cultural Center. Eregbu received her BFA from the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. She was recently highlighted in Newcity’s Breakout Artists 2015: Chicago’s Next Generation of Image Makers — and is anticipating a Curatorial Fellowship and Artist Residency with ACRE this upcoming year.
Claire Ashley
Adjunct Associate Professor: Contemporary Practices, Drawing and Painting (2000). BA, 1993, Grays School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland; MFA, 1995, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Exhibitions: Highland Institute for Contemporary Art (HICA), Scotland; gallerA1, Art in Architecture, Scotland; Devening Projects, Chicago; Spoke, Chicago; Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL; Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago; Brown Triangle Gallery, Chicago. Site Specific Events: 'Hide and Seek,' Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; 'Rhinofest 2010,' Chicago; 'Art 44/46: Art in Public Spaces,' Chicago; 'Site Unseen 2007 and 2008,' Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago.b
