Detail of  Magnetic Reaction, an oil on canvas painting by Art Green on display at  Garth Greenan Gallery booth at Expo Chicago

ART NEWS: The Garth Greenan Gallery will presenting artworks by Art Green and Gladys Nilsson at the 2018 edition of Expo Chicago in an art exhibition titled Two, Hairy.

BY KAZAD

CHICAGO- Paintings, watercolors, and drawings by Art Green and Gladys Nilsson will be on display at the 2018 edition of Expo Chicago in Two, Hairy, an exhibition at Garth Greenan Gallery booth 208.

The Garth Greenan Gallery exhibition features important works by the artists who have been friends for over five decades, influencing each other’s creation.  For both artists, Surrealism and Pop were important touchstones, as well as legendary Chicago painter Ivan Albright.

Art Green paintings are characterized by a confluence of images forcefully intermingling and interacting in dramatic actualizations. The images include ice cream cones, wood grain patterns, burning candles, and perfectly polished fingernails, among many others.  Using thin layers of oil paint, Art Green creates an illusion of objects “stacked” one on top of the other.

In his approach to painting, Art Green tasks the viewer with the responsibility of understanding and deciphering the meandering puzzling juxtapositions he creates. An important example is Even Odds (2016), a painting that reveals Green’s full array of circuitous visual pandemonium.

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Gladys Nilsson is an artist with a great sense of humor.  Some of her works are filled with frieze-like groupings of distorted figures engaged in different activities. While some seem to be dancing, others seem to be engaged in some arguments. Working mainly in the watercolor medium, Gladys Nilsson employs a similar strategy as Art Green. The characters in her works are layered and superimposed on top of each other in a way that draws viewers to search for their true meanings. To add context and further captivate viewers, she adds sinuous lines and brightly hued patterns of surroundings.

Gladys Nilsson, chic.con.co, 1986. Watercolor on paper, 60 x40 inches. Image: Garth Greenan Gallery

In monumental chic.con.co. (1986), all of Nilsson’s creative impulses are articulated. The painting depicts a distinct swarm of female steelworkers at a building construction site.  Many of the women are wearing some of the most seductive dress even though they are at a construction site. From Lingerie to kinky boots and sexy underwear, there is so much on display here.  Some of the women are even topless. Although the women are wearing hardhats, this painting seems to depict a fashion parade, perhaps an articulation of feminist ideals. As the figures climb railings and metal beams, they seem to be saying, in a whimsical way, that ‘whatever a man can do, a woman can do better.

Art Green and Gladys Nilsson: First Encounters and Hairy Who

The similar approach to painting evident in Art Green and Gladys Nilsson’s paintings comes from years of relationship and engagement. The two first met during the mid-1960s while they were students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1965, along with fellow classmates James Falconer, Jim Nutt, Suellen Rocca, and Karl Wirsum, Green and Nilsson formed the seminal group the Hairy Who. From that chance meeting, Art Green and Gladys Nilsson have remained close, sharing influences and exchanging ideas.

Looking at the paintings by Green and Nilsson on display at the Garth Greenan Gallery booth at Expo Chicago, it is easy to conclude that they are scared of the empty space. The filling of the painting surface with images, lines, and colors meticulously constructed, densely layered compositions seem to point to that conclusion.  However, what is also unambiguous in the works is the artists desire to achieve engaging aesthetics: aesthetics that forces viewers to search deep in their paintings and create links where possible.

Hairy Who? 1966–1969 at The Art Institute of Chicago includes works by Art Green and Gladys Nilsson

Karl Wirsum. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, 1968. The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Purchase Prize Fund. © Karl Wirsum.

While in Chicago for the Expo Chicago, art lovers can also visit the first-ever comprehensive survey exhibition of works by members of Hairy Who.  Hairy Who? 1966–1969, is on view at the Art Institute of Chicago through January 6, 2019

What do you think about paintings by Art Green and Gladys Nilsson? Share your thoughts. Leave a comment.