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Digital work debuts at Oak Park Art League
Colorful art by Karen Gubitz is part of "Carved and Composed," the new Oak Park Art League show. I Stacie Scott~for Sun-Times Media
‘Carved & Composed’
Oak Park Art League, 720 Chicago Ave., Oak Park
1-5 p.m. Monday-Friday; 1-4 p.m. Saturdays, through April 5
(708) 386-9853 or www.opal-art.com
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Updated: March 13, 2013 12:58PM
The new Oak Park Art League show really gets it all together, so to speak.
“This is the one show that answers all the things we say we should include but haven’t in past exhibits, with collage, digital art and sculpture,” said the League’s executive director David Stoklosa. “This show recognizes that there is a new world out there, beyond painting.”
“Carved and Composed,” a new exhibit at the gallery of the Oak Park Art League, examines artistic expression using three-dimensional or innovative techniques, including sculpture, photography, collage and digital/electronic media. Representing up to about 40 local artists, the show offers an exciting variety of works designed to affect viewers’ sense of beauty or ways of understanding their environment.
Whereas this is the League’s third annual “Carved and Composed” exhibit, it is the first that will display what Stoklosa calls “true digital or electronic media,” he said.
“We’ve got an artist who produces digital images and we’re going to project them on a screen, in an effect that’s more like computer-generated art than just images,” Stoklosa said. Initially, he added, the work was intended for computer screen display. The League was so impressed by its impression, however, that it opted for a more vivid presentation via large-scale projection.
“This is an opportunity for people in and around Oak Park to see art that is more non-conventional than what’s typically seen in art galleries in this area,” he said.
This year’s exhibit will likely feature about 70 percent collages and photography, 25 percent sculpture and 5 percent digital/electronic art, Stoklosa said. “Carved and Composed” is an open call exhibit — the League’s third open call show in 2013 — meaning that it accepts all submitted artwork that adheres to the exhibit’s media requirement or theme, regardless of where artists live or whether they have studied at the League art school.
Open call exhibits have become a successful League strategy for keeping shows “unpredictable and unexpected,” Stoklosa said. They also offer a way to attract a wider audience.
“We’ve had such positive feedback from the two open call shows we’ve had so far this year,” Stoklosa added.
“Carved and Composed” is free and open to the public through April 5. The League’s next exhibit, “Spring,” will be an open call exhibit launching on April 12. The show will welcome work that depicts the spring season, in any media. Artwork drop-off for that exhibit will be April 6 to 10. For more information, visit www.opal-art.com/exhibits.
