Mari Eastman 

Fan Art

Broadway is pleased to announce Fan Art, an exhibition of new oil paintings by Chicago-based artist Mari Eastman. Working in small scale on panel and canvas, Eastman has created a sequence of appropriated portraits, still-life fragments, and depictions of animals that, taken together, begin to accumulate a curious momentum and meaning.

From the swift, direct copy—as in her homage to Lynette Yiadom Boake’s A Whistle in a Wish—to a startling depiction of a crouching wolf made from a nature photograph, Eastman infuses both drama and care into her surfaces. There is a poignance here as well, and Eastman’s mysterious and deceptively casual approach to painting is, in fact, carefully considered—her brushstrokes steadily accreting force and gravity.

Elsewhere, loving depictions of wild mustangs hang in accord alongside the arcing stem of a flower plucked from fellow Chicagoan Gertrude Abercrombie, and the famously dour grace of 1980s runway model Katoucha Niane. Each of these works takes up the thread of a broader narrative that weaves the intensely personal to broader cultural concerns. Eastman aims straight for the heart, and big questions about freedom, beauty, and control inhabit her compositions belying their diminutive stature.

Upon entering the Project Room, a viewer will trip a sensor activating a playlist of music selected by the artist featuring songs by Patrick Shiroishi, Amy Winehouse, Cibo Matto and Donna Summer. These tunes give clues to Eastman’s processes and preoccupations during the making of these works, and provide another spin to the “fan” of the exhibition’s title.

To celebrate the gallery’s 20th year in operation, the Beer Endowment returns with freshly canned Green Gallery IPA. Brewed at Company Brewing, the latest iteration of this beer is inspired by old English IPAs, with a hint of ginger and a contemporary hop profile. We invite you to share in the two decade history of the gallery community while taking in the visual splendors of Barrickman’s new exhibition. Also available at the brewery.

The landmark survey 50 Paintings features works created within the last five years by 50 international artists, highlighting the artistic trends in practice today. With paintings by artists including Amy Sherald, Cinga Samson, GaHee Park, Nicole Eisenman, Cecily Brown, and Peter Barrickman, the exhibition celebrates the medium’s continued relevance and aesthetic range, and invites visitors to engage in close looking and formulate their own assessments of trends in contemporary painting.

The 50 works presented in the exhibition demonstrate myriad approaches to the medium. Painting—as a form, a language, a practice—is the focus, and the survey format underscores the many concepts and strategies present-day artists employ. 50 Paintings offers visitors 50 distinct opportunities to experience this traditional art form shaped by the imaginations of artists influencing the direction of painting today.

50 Paintings was co-curated by Margaret Andera, senior curator of contemporary art, and Michelle Grabner, artist, curator, and Crown Family Professor of Art and Chair of Painting and Drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.