Junko Yamamoto
In between, You and I, there is space all around us
May 14 - June 19, 2010
Opening reception with artist: Friday, May 14, 6-8 pm
(Chicago) The EC Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Junko Yamamoto "In between, You and I, there is space all around us". An opening night reception will be held at the EC Gallery, 215 N. Aberdeen, Friday, May 14, 2010, 6-8 pm.
Junko Yamamoto’s abstract paintings are based on the idea of Shunyata - a Sanskrit word for “emptiness.” The Shunyata Series represents ongoing memories of texture, color and space. These are meditative, dreamlike explorations of consciousness, colored by the contradiction of fullness and emptiness.
Yamamoto continues to explore her on going theme about space between all of the atoms, spaces between people, objects, air between this room and that room; the glue and energy of the entire universe which is holding us together. She likes to push and pull two dimensional spaces with paint, ink and visual motion to make them with three dimensional depth and extension.
Yamamoto’s abstract art straddles Japanese pop culture while remaining distinctly separated from the crowd. Her Shunyata series, which may become her life’s work, is a beautiful collection that revels in opulent decorative detail.
Junko Yamamoto was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, now lives and works in Seattle. She received her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle in 1999.
Yamamoto’s work has been exhibited world-wide. Her works has been shown at numerous places such as: Gallery IMA, Wright Now at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Westcott House, King County Art Gallery aka 4 Culture, Bel- levue Art Museum, SAM Gallery, Kirkland Arts Center, Poncho Foundation, Henry Art Gallery, Gas Gallery (Torino, Italy), Fresh Paint Art Gallery (Culver City, CA), Andrea Schwalts Gallery (San Francisco), Lotus Roots Gallery (Osaka, Japan), J Trip Gallery (Tokyo, Japan), Portland, Oregon and Boise, Idaho. Her works are included in the collections of Swedish Cancer Institute, Harborview Medical Center, Aspen Hotel Group and Mulvanny G2 Architecture.
Yamamoto has been featured in publications such as The Art in America Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Conde Nast Traveler, Studio Visit Magazine and Art Ltd. Magazine.
New Paintings: Justyna Adamczyk _ January 15 - February 13, 2010
(Chicago) The EC Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of New Paintings by Polish contemporary artist Justyna Adamczyk in her first U.S. showing. An opening night reception will be held at the EC Gallery, 215 N. Aberdeen, Friday, January 22, 2010 from 6-9 PM.
Justyna Adamczyk: New Paintings will feature works from 2009, including eight acrylic paintings. In Adamczyk’s work, past lives in present as a memory re-imagined. Her complicated reveries unfold in her artwork, as they re-conceive the past, and expose the emotions as she remembers from her childhood and adolescence. The artist presents her memories in her individualistic style, producing a visual language. Adamczyk prompts the viewer to create their own version of the narrative.
The New Paintings on view retain little of the artist’s familiar imagery, but continue to evoke hope and confidence, signifying that the memories or the past are still fresh somewhere. Color, tone and organic spots of paint are the essence of her painting, holding psychological and symbolical meanings.
Distinct, organic spots of paint which create discreet physiological allusions, splash and splatter in various proportions on the unprimed, fine cotton canvas changing the work into a piece of art which becomes a place of nearly per formative action.
Justyna Adamczyk’s language can be gentle and full of allusions as well as literal. Her painting proves that art is not about building forms, but rather showing the forces which govern them.
In her composition, Adamczyk often chooses one dominant element which takes on most of the impact, drawing attention to itself. It is constructed and positioned among other elements, conveying a strong desire to explain all doubts.
There are many ‘dominating’ elements, but they do not compete with each other thanks to clear rules of hierarchy. Her works communicate a difficult range of topics such as feminism, sexuality, the existence of a relationship with herself and with the world.
Justyna Adamczyk (b. 1981 in Poland) lives and works in Wroclaw, Poland. Her work has been exhibited in European venues including Biennale of Painting "Bielska Jesien 2009, Poland; 9 Contest Gepperta, BWA Awangarda Wrocław, Poland; Joung polisch Painters I-XII, Bestregarts Gallery - Frankfurt am Main, Germany; 30 Premio Internacional de Pintura de Caja de Extremadura; More or Less, Musemu da Ciencia e da Industria - Porto, Portugal and Aula de Cultura de Plasencia. She received her MFA from the The Academy of Fine Arts in Poland, Wroclaw in 2007. Adamczyk was a board member of ArtTransparent Foundation (2006-2008).
For more information on Justyna Adamczyk: New Paintings please contact Ewa Czeremuszkin at info@ec-gallery.com or call 312.850.0924
CONTEMPORARY FIGURATIVE THEMED WORKS _ Agata Czeremuszkin-Chrut and Tadeusz Bilecki
December 11 - January 9, 2010
(Chicago) The EC Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition featuring selections of the gallery's contemporary figurative-themed works. An opening night reception will be held at the gallery, 215 N. Aberdeen, Friday, December 11, 2009 from 5-9 PM. “These highly imaginative works present powerful expression and dynamic composition”, said Ewa Czeremuszkin, curator and gallery owner.
Included are three large oil paintings of Agata Czeremuszkin-Chrut, featuring semi-abstract figure poses, and “The Apparation of a Geisha Suite”, of Swiss based artist, Tadeusz Bilecki, a large scale acrylic. This exhibition highlights Czeremuszkin-Chrut's and Bilecki’s styles. They reflect the nature of the artists, with use of bold color and powerful expression and they invite the viewer to explore the variety of the pieces and their formats.
Agata’s works do not present philosophical or theoretical background. She purposefully eliminates attachments to her paintings, achieving a pure sense of each work. Her strokes, and each extended line or figure, are elements in the temporal evolution of the work. Each has its own specification, each its own character. Her style has been described as a mixture of the new figurative representation and geometric movements of the 20th century, when color was the most important. Agata’s main theme has remained the same - the human body, the works evolving clearer and cleaner as she developed with her work and inspiration.
The prolific Tadeusz Bilecki’s manipulation of elements—the paint itself, its application, and its support—in addition to his attention to the color of a painting’s are boldly reflected in his works. His pieces are characterized by continuous, multiple repainting. His works establish a pattern as if the action itself is indisputably the motive for search after a form which can be modified without any limits in a variety of media and formats. Bilecki uses a mixture of techniques and materials (metal/paper or ceramics/fabrics).
Czeremuszkin-Chrut resides in Poland, and received her MFA from the The Academy of Fine Arts in Poland, Wroclaw in 2008. She is the recipient of the 2007 scholarship UE Socrates-Erasmus -Edinburgh College of Art. She has had solo exhibitions at Sienna Center Gallery, Warsaw, Poland; Dluga Gallery, Poland and EC Gallery, Chicago.
Bilecki’s work has been exhibited at Honen-In Gallery, Kyoto; Calibri Gallery Osaka; and AF Gallery Colombo, and other places. He received his MFA from The Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland in 1976.
For further information and/or images, please contact the gallery at info@ec-gallery.com or 312.850.0924.
Urban Abstractions: Photo Show _ Ewa Czeremuszkin and Paul Kowalow _ October 16 - November 28, 2009
No.3_NY series,2009
digital print on supra endura paper
40x30 inches / 102x76 cm
edition 1 of 4
In conjunction with the Chicago Artists Month, EC Gallery is pleased to present “Urban Abstraction”, an exhibition by Chicago photographer's Ewa Czeremuszkin and Paul Kowalow. Architecture and urbanism, and the opportunities the cityscape provides for photographers to explore visual experimentation and abstraction, will be the subject of an exhibition on view at the EC Gallery from October 16 through November 28, 2009.
This exhibition shows visual exploration of the urban environment of Chicago and New York. Both artists are inspired by fast living pace, rapid urbanisation and the aesthetics of the abstract painterly plains of the cityscape that form their artworks, viewers can easily find the stunning visual totems of the urban jungle. A series of images show their unique ability to find beauty which other eyes may regard as uninspiring.
Czeremuszkin is both a painter and a multimedia artist, and these identities influence one another in her works. Visual icons such as the street grids, skyscrapers, reflections in nighttime store windows, and the city’s almost hallucinogenic network of lighted signs propelled her to capture the metropolis as pure visual form.
Kowalow's passion in photography has always been a desire to create work of art by capturing an ordinary still subject and bringing it to life. His latest works demostrates how Chicago's downtown concrete jungle with an overwhelming symmetry and relentless repetition encased in glassy surface can be transposed to a captive art form.
An alumni of the New York Institute of Photography, Paul has been experimenting with photography since late childhood. Although he learned photography using black & white film and color transparency, he now shoots almost exclusively in digital medium. Digital imaging has undoubtfully revolutionized the art of photography by giving him more creative control and freedom in perfecting his technique.
Ewa Czeremuszkin was born in Poland in 1974. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poland in 2000 with a degree in Fashion Design. Since then she has exhibited widely and her works can be found in many private collections in United States, Germany, Poland and Sweden.
Paul Kowalow holds an MBA degree (from Santa Ana, California) and Computing Science degree (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada). A native of Poland, Paul lived in Germany, United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. He now lives and works in Chicago, USA.
For further information and/or images, please contact the gallery at info@ec-gallery.com or 312.850.0924.
Crazy Julka _ Jola Jastrzab _ June 26 - August 15, 2009
EC Gallery is pleased to present "Crazy Julka", Jola Jastrzab's first solo exhibition in the United States. Jastrzab's series of drawings expands on her use of the human figure as a subject and tries to achieve nonrepresentional constructions by using the language of expression.
The drawings by Jola Jastrzab presented at the exhibition, unusually economical and lacking the traces of used tools seem to prove that she has accepted drawing as the most compact way of describing the World. Hence the human figure presented in her works in a dramatic, expressive way, usually restricted to a few lines and stains and abstaining from the temptation to define the detail and use portrait elements in the composition which allow to distinguish other characters in her drawings. It is not the author’s aim to talk about the human condition by through examples. Rather her creative endeavor concentrates on the efforts to find equivalents of pure energy. She tries to bring to life a type of hieroglyphs of abstract concepts instead of looking for their allegories or creating parables about them.
The other characteristic of Jastrzab’s drawings is the color which frequently camouflages the differences between her paintings and her drawings.
Jastrzab is distinguished not exactly by her urge to organize the language of art with all its relevant grammar, but rather by her inclination to contain even the most dramatic message in the most economical form. She consistently purifies and eliminates.
Only those elements of which presence creates the work of art remain in her drawing.
Jola Jastrzab(b. 1971, Poland) lives and works in Poland. She received her PhD (2004) and MFA (1998) from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow (Katowice branch), Poland. Recent exhibitions include The Newest Art Trienale- Konduktorownia Gallery, Polan; PROFIL - Gallery of Contemporary Art - Poznan, Poland; Mandala Club - Warsaw, Poland ;Art Nova 2 Gallery - Katowice, Poland.
Recent Painting by Tadeusz Bilecki _ May 15 to June 20, 2009
acrylic on paper
60 x 80 inches / 150 x 200 cm
CHICAGO - EC Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of Contemporary Swiss artist Tadeusz Bilecki to be installed at the EC Gallery at 215 N. Aberdeen in Chicago.
The exhibition will be on view from May 15 - June 20, 2009.
The exhibition features six key works made by artist in the last year. The centerpiece of his exhibition, "The Apparition of a Geisha_Suite", is a large scale acrylic work on paper. Most works created by Bilecki are made by applying a variety of bold colors primarily on translucent polyester or paper. Powerful expression and dynamic composition result in highly imaginative works.
Tadeusz Bilecki is an extremely productive artist, one who creates an awful lot of works. Characterized by continuous urge to create which often leads to multiple repainting of works. Sometimes it seems as if the act of creating is for him more important than the end result. ‘Action’ is indisputably the motive for search after a form which can be modified without any limits in a variety of media and formats.
A mixture of techniques and materials (metal/paper or ceramics/fabrics) is his kingdom. He worships large formats, formats larger than himself as well as miniature sculptures the size of ostrich’s eye.
A decreasing desire to find techniques which are permanent, eternal and a growing fascination with passing, ephemera and degradation in time.
Tadeusz Bilecki received his MFA in 1976 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland. Recent exhibitions include Honen-In Gallery Kyoto, Calibri Gallery Osaka, AF Gallery Colombo.
For more information please contact the gallery.
Cast by Reflections _ photography by PAUL KOWALOW _ April 3 - May 9, 2009
CHICAGO - EC Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Chicago photographer Paul Kowalow. Nine photographs will be on view at the EC Gallery from April 3 to May 9, 2009.
"Cast by Reflection" is a new series of photographs depicting downtown Chicago jungle of skyscrapers and how their glassy surface can be transposed to a captive art form.
Paul's passion in photography has always been a desire to create work of art by capturing an ordinary still subject and bringing it to life. He has been experimenting with photography since late childhood and although he has learned photography using black & white film and color transparency, he now shoots almost exclusively in digital. Digital medium has revolutionized the art of photography by giving him more creative control and freedom in perfecting his technique.
An alumni of the New York Institute of Photography, Paul is also an MBA graduate from California Coast University in Santa Ana and holds a Computing Science degree from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. A native of Poland, Paul has traveled around the world and lived in Germany, United Kingdom, Mexico, and Canada. He now lives and works in Chicago, USA.
For more information please contact the gallery.
Color and Form _ Painting by Ewa Czeremuszkin _ February 13 - March 28, 2009
no.6, 2001, oil on panel wood, 18 x 78 inches
CHICAGO, IL - EC Gallery is pleased to present Paintings by Ewa Czeremuszkin
Ewa Czeremuszkin was born in Poland in 1974. She graduated from The Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, Poland in 2000 with an MFA and currently lives in Chicago.
Ewa’s abstract paintings focus on multiple paradoxes that refer to art history, aesthetics, process and imagery. Works of such artists as Rothko, Cy Twombly, Kandinsky, Malewicz, Klee, and even Ryman make their way into Ewa’s paintings, demonstrating an artist in full possession of history.
The paintings are created through a patient process of seduction of material and transcendental thought patterns. They are a mixture of colors, light, texture, and emotions. An extreme sensitivity to surface texture, sensuality but also tension, result in images depicting places that are beyond the visual scope.
The textural effects obtained by applying several layers of paint create surface which appeals to the eye and has tactile quality.
Color has become an important tool for Ewa’s, one which she ultimately use as a powerful expression of human emotions. The color acts as a form, volume, space and light. They reveal an artistic taste that is sublime, peaceful and dominated by pure abstraction and spiritualistic thinking.
Her paintings have a powerful sensory impact and are a source of a concrete physical experience and a questioning of this experience. They possess the power to touch the viewer in a palpable and emotional way, yet never speaking of recognizable things.
For more information please contact the gallery.
Works on paper by Agata Czeremuszkin _ January 9 - February 7, 2009
CHICAGO, IL - EC Gallery is pleased to present Works on paper by Agata Czeremuszkin
Agata Czeremuszkin (Polish, born 1983) is based in Poland. She attended Academy of The Fine Arts and received her degree from the Painting Department in 2008. She was awarded an art grant from City Hall in Wroclaw. Czeremuszkin has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally. She lives in Wroclaw, Poland.
Agata’s a latest individual exhibition was featured by EC Gallery last October. The exhibition included a new series of her oil paintings inspired by the human figures and mass media.
No less ambiguous are Czeremuszkin's mixed media collages of more intimate dimensions (most the size of a letter), which suggest fragmentary memories or stylized theatrical scenarios. Assuming the pose of a mixture of a new figurative representation and geometric movements of the 20th century, Czeremuszkin develops episodic figurative abstractions, pasting cutouts of letters, magazine models in fields of painterly brushwork, defaced portraiture and improvisatory gesture. Czeremuszkin is often challenged by risky combinations of colors and inspired by press, photography and lettering. The exhibition shows Czeremuszkin's great ability to transform base matter into spirit.
Czeremuszkin uses images mined from mass media in order to have a conversation of exposed privacy between the artist and the viewer.
Her current exhibition of figurative works include drawings, watercolors and mixed media collages on paper.
Body, Object, Texture _ Ewa Czeremuszkin, Agata Czeremuszkin and Beata Garanty _ December 5 - January 3, 2009
CHICAGO, IL - EC Gallery is pleased to present Paintings – Body, Object, Texture
Participating artists include Agata Czeremuszkin, Beata Garanty and Ewa Czeremuszkin.
All artists in our current group exhibition prove that painting can provide a vital and necessary voice, visually, conceptually, and aesthetically.
Their works of art are parsed in various registers, from pure abstraction to figurative. Each of them calls us to live new experiences, to share a perceptive and corporeal universe that is dissimilar to the preceding one. The works in the show display their strength in a unique way by incorporating a great diversity of techniques, materials, shapes and gestures.
Expanding boundaries and defining what a painting can be, the artists reveal that beauty, purity of concept, design, and visually compelling treatment of the medium.
Agata Czeremuszkin (Polish, born 1983) is based in Poland. A recent graduate of The Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland, MFA program. Agata’s works do not have any philosophical or theoretical background. She purposefully tries to eliminate everything which is only an attachment to the painting and its quintessence, and to achieve pure sense of each work. Agata’s style can be described as a mixture of a new figurative representation and geometric movements of the 20th century, when color was the most important. But for years Agata’s main theme has remained the same - the human body. The way she paints the body is becoming clearer and clearer and she is more conscious of it with each work. The new series of her oil paintings are inspired by the human figures in pure biological sense.
She gets inspiration from mass media, especially from pictures and texts. Agata’s a solo exhibition in the gallery was in October.
Chicago based artist Beata Garanty creates painting with objects.
She believes that her objects are the gates to another world - the world which we can not see and touch, something that is more mystical and magical.
Beata Garanty received an MFA in painting from The Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, Poland.
Ewa Czeremuszkin was born in 1974 and lives in Chicago. She graduated from The Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, Poland with a MFA in 2000.
Ewa’s abstract paintings center on multiple paradoxes that reference art history, aesthetics, process, and imagery. Rothko to Cy Twombly, Kandinsky, Malewicz, Klee, and even Ryman make their way into Ewa’s paintings, demonstrating an artist in full possession of history.
The paintings she creates are through a patient process of seduction of material, and transcendental thought patterns. Her paintings are a mixture of colors, light, texture, and emotions. There is extreme sensitivity to surface texture, sensuality, and tension, with resulting images depicting places that are beyond the visual and tactile. With textural effects obtained by applying several layers of paint, giving the surface a particular surface and appealing as much to the hand as to the eye.
Ewa’s paintings act as a form, volume, and space that convey relationship between nature and human spirit. They reveal an aesthetic that is sublime, peaceful and aesthetic, dominated by pure abstraction and spiritualistic thinking. Her painting becomes a source of sensory impact, a concrete physical experience and a questioning of this experience.
Ewa’s paintings possess the power to touch the viewer in a palpable and emotional way, yet never speaking of recognizable things.
New Painting _ Agata Czeremuszkin _ October 4 - November , 2008
E|C Gallery - CHICAGO, IL is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent paintings by Agata Czeremuszkin.
Agata Czeremuszkin was born in 1983 in Poland.
She graduated from High School of Fine Arts (Czestochowa, Poland) with the specialization in Graphic Design. She graduated from the Academy of the Fine Arts in Wroclaw this year with the Master degree in Painting. She has participated in several art events in Europe and North America. Her paintings can be found in many private collections in Belgium, Great Britain, Poland, Austria and United states.
Agata’s works do not have any philosophical or theoretical background. She purposefully tries to eliminate everything which is only an attachment to the painting and its quintessence, and to achieve pure sense of each work. Too many distractions kill the painting, she says. Agata’s style can be described as a mixture of a new figurative representation and geometric movements of the 20th century, when color was the most important. But for years Agata’s main theme has remained the same - the human body. The way she paints the body is becoming clearer and clearer and she is more conscious of it with each work. The new series of her oil paintings are inspired by the human figures in pure biological sense. She gets inspiration from mass media, especially from pictures and texts. Franz Kline, Francis Bacon, Teresa Pagowska, Robert Rauschenberg and Emilio Vedova have greatly influenced her, too.
Chuck Close once said:“ The best time for the painting is when everyone around announces it’s end. ”For her, it is really true quintessence.
“The human figure has been the main object of my interest for a few years now. I consider it to be the most complex and intriguing topic when it comes to painting. To some degree, I would agree here with Francis Bacon, who claimed that abstract art results inevitably in decorativeness while the one which turns a human being into a hero can move the spectator more deeply. My paintings are the result of my efforts to synthesize the image of a human being. A lot of their space is devoted to controlled accident and freedom of choice. I am often challenged by risky combinations of colors and inspired by press, photography and lettering. However, I am not interested in the messages they carry. I dissect them; strip them of their meaning while giving them a new one. Therefore, the elements of lettering included in my works have no communicative value whatsoever, but only a visual one. In a way, they are a manifestation of the modern world. Images just fall into my head and evolve into new ideas – they generate new images, create various stereotypes, largely condition the way I think. This is how a painting/image is created – processed and filtered by the mind – but with its source lying in other images, most often seen on TV or in the press. We are constantly bombarded with images, which settle deeply in our unconscious minds and control our behaviors. Created by a human being, now they lead their own independent lives. We made them alive but we lost control over them.”
Agata Czeremuszkin