Scott Stack City of the Future Oct 15 – Nov 12, 2011
on the wall: Cheryl Pope A Silent I Sept 9 – Dec 31, 2011

Scott Stack
City of the Future
October 15 – November 12, 2011

Opening Reception Saturday October 15, 4-7pm
Artist Talk with artist/curator/writer Michelle Grabner Saturday November 12, 1pm

For his long-awaited third solo show at moniquemeloche, Scott Stack presents three large-scale, optically challenging paintings made in painstakingly selected shades of grey. The new works are paintings of paintings of paintings that at one point referenced source material like film stills and historic photographic images, but the further they move away from the original reference, the more they become things in themselves that the viewer must decode.  This new body of work, which does stem from Stack’s earlier “night vision” paintings, has an even stricter self-imposed code that continues Stack’s interest in what he can empty out of painting – like mark making, rendering, perspective, and even color. Yet somehow, without most of the visual clues we use to navigate our world, Stack painting’s still define and represent space – only to break it down again.

Scott Stack (b. 1952) lives in Oak Park, IL and received his BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1976. He has had solo exhibitions at White Columns NY, Chicago Cultural Center, and Thomas Barry Fine Arts in Minneapolis. Selected group exhibitions include the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Drawing Center NY, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Hyde Park Art Center, and Gahlberg Gallery. Reviews of his work have appeared in Art in America, Art Papers, New Art Examiner, and Chicago Magazine. Stack has received numerous awards from such granting institutions as The Illinois State Arts Council, McNight Foundation and Jerome Foundation. 

on the wall
Cheryl Pope
A Silent I
September 9 – December 31, 2011

Public Receptions
Part 1: on view thru October 8
Part 2: Saturday Oct 15, 4-7pm
Part 3: Saturday Nov 19, 4-7pm

For the second part of her “on the wall” project, Cheryl Pope will install another round of banners inspired by high school students from Chicago Public School Lindblom Math and Science Academy. As an artist-in-residence at Lindblom in 2010, Pope asked students to anonymously submit one truth and one lie about themselves, without designating which was which, as part of a collaborative art project.  Of the 125 submitted statements, Pope selected 20 to reproduce in the style of athletic championship banners and installed them in the Lindblom gymnasium for their initial presentation.  Addressing complex issues of identity, self-worth, and inter-personal relationships, this celebratory series speaks to all ages, so we invited Pope to make a more public installation “on the wall.”  Banners installed for Part 1 of the installation dealt with issues of internal identity while banners installed for Part 2 will reference physical identities, neither differentiating between the true and false statements. For Part 3 of this project, Pope will work with local teenagers to curate the final iteration of this project.

Cheryl Pope (b. 1980, lives Chicago) received a Masters in Design in 2010 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which was supported by a Full Tuition Merit Scholarship, and Bachelors in Fine Arts from the same in 2003. Her work has been in exhibitions at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, the Evanston Art Center, Swimming Pool Projects, and the School of the Art Instituteof Chicago, to name a few. In 2009, she was selected for Art Chicago’s exhibition New Insight, a selection of the top graduate students from the best art schools in the country, and was named one of the “Rising Stars” in the Fall issue of CS Interiors. Pope and her work have also been discussed in The New York Times and The Cleveland Scene. She has been the studio manager for artist Nick Cave since 2003 and credits him and his work as a great influence on her practice. Pope is part-time faculty at the School of Art Institute Fashion Department in Chicago. This September Pope had a solo exhibition at Dorsch Gallery in Miami, which received rave reviews in publications like Artslant, New Times Miami and more