Working in painting, drawing and sculpture, Beacon, New York–based artist Torkwase Dyson (born 1973) combines expressive mark-making and geometric abstraction to explore the continuity between ecology, infrastructure and architecture. Dyson deconstructs, distills and interrogates the built environment, exploring how individuals, particularly Black and brown people, negotiate, negate and transform systems and spatial order. She confronts issues of environmental liberation and envisions a path toward a more equitable future. Of Line and Memory draws from years of Dyson’s own research and spatial memory of navigating the waterways and urban architecture of Chicago. Using the South Shore Cultural Center, a lakeshore landmark . . . .go to book page >>

Titled after a poem by Hettie Jones, Real Monsters in Bold Colors unites the geometrically abstract paintings of Candida Alvarez (born 1955) with those of her inspiration, Bob Thompson (1937–66), exploring the interplay between two artists who have reshaped the discourse of figurative and abstract traditions.

Since the 1980s, Chicago-based artist Judy Ledgerwood (born 1959) has confronted and expanded the history of abstract painting by decentering perceptions of its neutrality and prioritizing visual engagement and pleasure. Drawing upon rich and diverse sources from the realms of both fine art and popular culture, her optically bold, large-scale canvases engage viewers in active looking and challenge conventional notions of beauty and taste. Titled after Frederic Edwin Church’s 1860 painting, Twilight in the Wilderness presents four new paintings inspired by the drama and color of refracted light just before nightfall. Monumental in scale, these works blaze with hot pinks, . . . .go to book page >>

In Oh, You’ve Got to Come Back to the City, Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates (born 1973) brings together a new series of tar paintings, sculptures and installations to tell an allegory of the city in decay and the potential contained within its ruins. The exhibition’s title comes from a song by Chicago musician and poet Marvin Tate, in which the city, personified as a character, has cleaned up its act and attempts to lure its residents back from the suburbs. In this body of work, Gates wrestles with the burden brought on by aging infrastructure to create new narratives that . . . .go to book page >>

Conceptual artist John Stezaker’s (born 1949) Raft compositions splice together sublime renderings of pastoral and urban spaces. The artist creates continuity and flow between the two disparate images, resulting in a dynamic perceptual oscillation.

After briefly considering a career as a minister, Alabama-born artist Roger Brown (1941–97) studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and became a member of the Imagists, exhibiting alongside such artists as Ed Paschke and Christina Ramberg. Though Brown’s paintings contain the hint of irreverence that became a trademark of the Imagists, his subject matter deals with the tense border between the built environment and the natural world. Playing with shifts of scale, Brown communicates reverence and awe for the power of nature while his perspective on human plight sees a fraught and tenuous future. Featuring 11 . . . .go to book page >>