The Grove Gallery in downtown Evanston hosted an opening April 5 for its “Inside/Out” Exhibition, focused on the idea of windows as metaphors.
Gallery director and curator Sarah Kaiser-Amaral said the exhibition’s theme was inspired by an article about windows by Tracy Chevalier in the Financial Times. Using the topic of windows as a springboard for the exhibition, Kaiser-Amaral then reframed it based on local artists’ work.
She invited 10 artists from Evanston and Chicago, whose paintings fit the theme, to participate in the exhibition. Most of the artists have been painting for several decades, and several of them have had their work displayed in Grove Gallery before.
Kaiser-Amaral is a painter herself, which impacts her role as a curator. She said she values the artists’ input, and other artists’ paintings have inspired her to try new techniques. Her work is featured in the “Inside/Out” Exhibition as well.
“Even when I paint, it’s really exciting to hear someone see something in it that I never really intended,” Kaiser-Amaral said. “The artist has an intention, but other people might see a completely different story.”
Ellen Holtzblatt had two self-portraits in the exhibit. In one, she is looking out her kitchen window at a view of the Orkney Islands of Scotland — which she recalled from a trip she and her husband took — replacing the dreary view she actually saw.
Holtzblatt said that over the years, those views from Scotland became a symbol for where she wants to be in life.
“When I’m working on the work, it’s a relationship between me and the work,” Holtzblatt said. “The minute I bring that to the public, then it becomes a relationship between that work and whoever is looking at it.”
Another artist featured in the exhibition expanded upon the idea of relationships between art and its viewers. Ken Minami said he wants the viewer to feel like they are God looking at a painting’s characters.
As an artist but also a viewer, Jennifer Presant said that she enjoys looking at paintings on display with a critical eye. Presant’s own work in the exhibition focused on the ambiguity between inside and outside. She felt that the theme of windows was a loose one and enjoyed seeing the variations on the theme in the different paintings, she said.
According to Minami, viewers interpret paintings based on the things around the art. He is always interested to see how different his paintings look in his studio versus in a gallery or somebody’s house, he said.
“A painting kind of gets meaning through context,” Minami said. “To see it with other paintings, especially when they’re very different from my own, I find that very interesting.”
Leslie Hirshfield, another one of the artists, said she was pleased to see how diverse the artwork was. Each painting in the exhibition was different, but they were all tied together by the theme of windows as a metaphor.
Grove Gallery hosts an opening on the first Saturday of every month, focusing on paintings, drawings and prints. According to Kaiser-Amaral, the most important aspect of these openings and their respective exhibits, including “Inside/Out,” is the narrative.
“When I curate a show, I like for there to be a story, and I feel like people could connect to that,” Kaiser-Amaral said. “Everyone has a story to tell, and sometimes we can really relate to that story.”
The “Inside/Out” Exhibition will be open through May 31, and all of the paintings on display will be listed on the gallery’s website for sale.
Email: reganhuizenga2028@u.northwestern.edu
X: @reganmichele215
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