News

Joy Machine and Vertical Gallery are excited to share their first collaborative exhibition, Wanderland by Collin van der Sluijs. This marks the artist’s sixth solo exhibition in Chicago and more than a decade in partnership with Vertical Gallery. It’s his first presentation at Joy Machine.

Wanderland comprises a new body of work developed during a two-year period. Spanning enormous mixed-media paintings, intimate drawings, and skate decks bearing the artist’s signature birds, the exhibition reflects both the momentous and mundane, particularly loss, grief, and the therapeutic powers of nature.

A portmanteau of wander and wonderland, the title evokes van der Sluijs’ continued devotion to imagining a vast, dreamlike ecosystem. For the past decade, he’s produced various bodies of work as a sort of world-building exercise, intuitively selecting a blend of oil paint, acrylic, watercolor, and more to render dynamic still lifes and portraits of figures subsumed by chaos. Wanderland continues in this vein, once again presenting hazy bouquets that allude to the artist’s Dutch heritage and a melange of symbols and markings referencing his background in street art. "Collin works in such a wide range of styles—like a modern twist on classical painting, with graffiti and illustration mixed in," Patrick Hull, Vertical’s owner and curator, shares. 

Each collection emerges through a lengthy process of trial and error, and often, van der Sluijs will work on a piece for years, even turning it around to face the wall periodically to provide a brief respite while in his studio. “I really need to make big mistakes and fight my way out of it,” he adds. In this way, cultivating wonder and an unceasing desire to explore his inner emotional and external landscapes is an essential part of the process.  Wanderland is about “a walk to the visual world that you create around yourself, like wandering around. But it's also like diving into the unknown.”

Following a collection of darker pieces made in the early years of the pandemic, Wanderland emerges with more levity and hope, albeit not without difficulty and grief. While working toward the exhibition, the artist broke his ankle, rendering it impossible for him to stand while painting larger canvases hanging on the wall. Instead, he had to sit, stretching himself across the horizontal surfaces and contending with a novel, challenging mode of making.

And despite his physical limitations, van der Sluijs also spent more time venturing outdoors during the last two years. Making small works on paper amid natural settings was a sort of balm in processing the recent death of a friend. “All those personal stories, they make the context of a show,” he adds.

To celebrate more than a decade of collaborations, Vertical Gallery published a book commemorating the occasions, titled Wanderland: 1991-2026. Its pages juxtapose the artist’s exploits as a painter, muralist, and graffiti writer with the more personal moments that define his roles as husband, son, father, and friend. 

Wanderland runs from July 10 to August 22. An opening reception will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. on July 10. The artist will be present.

Collin van der Sluijs: ‘Wanderland’
July 10 – Aug. 22
Opening reception: Friday July 10, 6:00-9:00pm
Joy Machine, 4148 N. Elston Ave., Chicago

REQUEST THE COLLECTOR'S PREVIEW HERE

Florist fills the cracks of urban life. The London-based artist’s hand-cut, pixel-patterned mosaic installations transform blight into beauty, bringing color and purpose to forlorn spaces across Europe, India and Africa. 

Now Florist (@florist.ldn) is setting his sights on America. On July 1, Vertical Gallery will release “Stars, Stripes and Stems,” his first screenprint for the U.S. market, produced in celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary. Learn all about Florist’s blossoming career in the latest installment of our web-exclusive Artist Spotlight series. 

Vertical Gallery: Tell us about “Stars, Stripes and Stems.” 

Florist: It's a symbol of affection for your country — for your culture and your way of life.

There's an artist here in England called Fat Cap Sprays, and we went out for a walk the other day. He said to me “It was really refreshing to hear you say on one of your Instagram videos that you love America. That’s a very controversial thing to say.” Which I think is absolutely bonkers. There are parts of any presidency that people aren’t going to like, but I'm not here for that. I'm here for the America that I loved seeing on TV when I was growing up — the films, the cartoons, the stories, the history. 

I’m sure somebody's gonna pick apart all these things. That's the time we live in, where everybody's arguing over everything. But I just really love America, and I'm not afraid to say that. 

You’ve installed mosaics everywhere from Manchester to Mumbai. Where and how did you learn your craft?

I lived a lot of my life going off the beaten track, and not being as productive as I wish I was. I was drinking and taking drugs and stuff like that. When I got sober, I decided I needed to do something with my life. I had a folder with mosaic photos I’d saved from Instagram, and I was like “I want to do that.” I wanted to create something that would last, you know?

I started out by watching videos on YouTube. I scoured [French street artist] Invader’s videos, trying to learn how to make it efficient and quick. But the process is very confusing to get across in a video, so I became quite stuck. I then paid for a very short course at the London School of Mosaic, which has since closed down. They liked what I created, and said that I should apply for a scholarship. I got the scholarship, but I only stayed there for one term. To be honest, it was too slow, and I already knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to fill these bits of plaster that have fallen off of buildings or whatnot. 

At first I wanted to fill them with quotes, or proverbs, or famous lines from films or songs. But it was too complicated. The biggest mosaic I did read “In the blue of this life,” which is a line from the Beach House song “Lazuli.” It meant the world to me. But when I showed it to a friend of mine called Joe, he said “What the fuck does it mean?” He didn’t know the song. I realized anybody walking by is gonna objectively look at it and be like “It’s meaningless.” I needed to focus on images, so that people can draw from them what they want. 

What is your process? What kinds of materials and tools do you use?

Originally, I would make old-style mosaics laid by hand, the way the Romans and the Mesopotamians made them. The name for that is Andamento [an Italian term for the visual flow, movement and directional lines created by a mosaic’s tiles, known as tesserae]. Putting them up in the street is a real challenge, though. The version I do now is called “pixelated,” and it’s a lot quicker. You just slap the tiles down. You can do a square meter in about three days, whereas a square meter in old-style mosaic will take you a week.

If you’ve ever seen mosaics laid out in grid fashion inside a swimming pool or a sauna or a steam room, there are grout lines in white or black or grey. I don't like grout lines, so I had some trays 3D-printed to remove them. The tiles sit next to each other, held in place using industrial-strength glue. The rest is just my eye — knowing which colors look good, where to put the piece on the street, visibility, and stuff like that.

It takes so long to make a mosaic. A lot of thought goes into it, and it's expensive, so it's kind of soul-crushing when the stars don't align and one gets removed. But with some of my mosaics, the stars have aligned, and they're still there. They're the best ones. Someone recently shared with me an image of a piece I did last year in Barcelona. I love the art, but I'm more interested in the fact that it's still there. It means I did a good job.

Where did this passion for mosaics originate in the first place?

I love repeating patterns. I’ve looked into why using a bit of ChatGPT — Freudian psychology, Jungian psychology and stuff — and it's probably to do with the safety of predictability. The cityscape is chaos. It's lights, it's police sirens, it's this and it's that. A repeated pattern that fills a space gives people a sense of calm very deep down.

I’m most interested in mosaics and alfresco wall paintings from the antiquity period — art that’s stood the test of time. When I was young, I went to a Roman villa, where I saw a mosaic of Medusa. I vividly remember my teacher saying to me “Don't stare at it, or you'll turn to stone.” 

Why did you adopt the Florist alias?

I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between humans and flowers, and how that must have come about. Flowers are just the most beautiful things in the world. They’re arranged for weddings, anniversaries, deaths — the most profound moments in our lives. I remember reading in a book by [self-help author] Eckhart Tolle that flowers could have been the first form of currency.

There was also a game I played when I was younger, called Final Fantasy VII. I loved this game so much. A character in it is called Arieth, and she was a florist — a flower seller. Arieth gets killed in the game, and my friend Dean and I have always said that moment was kind of our first introduction to grief. It was just so sad. 

What’s next for you?

I’m in ‘Ascending’ [Vertical Gallery’s September 2026 group exhibition]. I've spent the last few days thinking about what to submit. This will be my first U.S. gallery exhibition. I'm excited for that. 

I've also been toying with what to put in Brick Lane, a spot near where I live in London. During the daytime, there’s a lot of commerce there — people buying stuff. At nighttime, there's a lot of addicts running around, and a lot of drunk people. It's the last place you would go for tranquility. I want to do a waterfall: rocks and flowers and a blue sky. Something that would really stand out. It's all about creating little moments of serenity.

PURCHASE "STARS, STRIPES AND STEMS" HERE

Five Questions with… Vertical Gallery’s Patrick Hull

It’s shaping up to be a busy summer for Vertical Gallery, highlighted by the biennial return of longtime favorite Collin van der Sluijs. ’Wanderland,’ Collin’s sixth solo show in Chicago, runs July 10 through Aug. 22 in partnership with Irving Park’s Joy Machine Gallery, accompanied by the release of the Dutch painter, muralist and graffiti writer’s first comprehensive career retrospective book. Vertical’s third-quarter slate also includes the debut American print release from UK mosaic maker Florist as well as ‘Ascending,’ a globe-trotting group show spotlighting the next generation of artists poised to take over your walls. Vertical owner Patrick Hull reveals all in the latest installment of our web-exclusive Five Questions with… series.  

Question 1: What can you tell us about Collin van der Sluijs’ ‘Wanderland’? 

Patrick Hull: It's gonna be a beautiful exhibition. It’s a wide range of work in Collin’s signature style, and if you think you know what to expect based on his earlier solo shows, think again.

There’s something for everyone in this show, including a selection of small drawings starting around $300, some mid-sized canvases and what Collin calls BACs — “big-ass canvases” — priced up to $15,000. A couple of the BACs are inspired by his small, mixed-media watercolor drawings, but these are giant versions that he calls “Watercolor XLs.” There are also two skate decks, along with a whole series of small paintings that kind of blend in with them. Collin painted on skate decks back in the day, and this is the first time he’s returned to that. 

We first showed Collin back in 2016, and we keep bringing him back every two years. (The photo above is from our first meeting in Brussels 11 years ago; he's on the right, I'm on the left.) As soon as Collin finishes one show, we plan another, and he starts working on it — in fact, he began one of the drawings and one of the paintings in ‘Wanderland’ right after he got home from Chicago in 2024. He starts on something, adds layers of oil paint or mixed media or whatever it is, and just lets it form over time. 

Question 2: What else do you have in store to make this exhibit one for the ages?

We’re publishing a monograph, ‘Wanderland: 1991-2026.’ It’s the first comprehensive book of Collin’s career. It's a really personal project for him: It goes back to the very beginning, when he first discovered graffiti, and continues all the way up to this current exhibition. Almost all of the wall murals that he's done over time are included, and he contributes commentary on many different projects. It’s a really exciting book — [writer] Jason Ankeny and I have been working on it for close to a year. 

‘Wanderland: 1991-2026’ is a 180-page, full-color hardcover, strictly limited to 175 copies total. The regular version of the book is priced at $85. There’s also a deluxe version limited to 30 copies. It’s the same physical book, only it’s signed by Collin and includes an original watercolor drawing. It's a really great way to get one of his originals, and each buyer gets to pick the drawing they want. You also get a signed mini-print. 

The deluxe edition is priced at $275. If you do the math, the book itself is $85, and if you were to buy a small original drawing from Collin, it would cost you $250. Something like the signed mini-print would cost around $50. So it’s a $385 value that you are getting for $275. 

We started the pre-order on June 4, and we only have a few copies of the deluxe edition remaining. People who pre-order can pick up their copies at Joy Machine when the ‘Wanderland’ show opens Friday, July 10, or we’ll begin shipping them out July 9, once Collin arrives in Chicago to sign them. 

Question 3: Just before ‘Wanderland’ opens, Vertical is releasing a limited-edition screenprint from a UK artist named Florist. What do we need to know? 

Florist is a London-based mosaic street artist who’s found his own unique style. I followed him on social media before connecting with him through Patrick Coulson at Always Art, which provides Florist’s certificates of authenticity. Patrick thought Florist and Vertical would be a really good match, and after discussing ways we could work together, we’ll be releasing our first collaboration on July 1. 

Florist’s screenprint is titled “Stars, Stripes and Stems,” and it celebrates 250 years of the USA. It’s kind of funny that we’re working with a British artist to commemorate our country’s anniversary, but he's come up with a really fun image. It’s printed by Chicago’s own POP!NK Editions, and Florist found a great way to make his style work in a screenprint format.  

Question 4: Vertical returns to Chicago in September for ‘Ascending,’ a group show presented at Frame Chicago in Lincoln Park. Where did the title originate, and what does it mean in this context?

When you’re looking for a name for a group show, it's always a challenge if there’s no specific theme. Nowadays, the word “emerging” is used a lot for up-and-coming artists, and then there's “established” when somebody is well-known and further into their career. The title ‘Ascending’ implies these are artists moving to the next level, whatever that level is within their career. They’re all on the rise. I really feel like “ascending” should be the word or category for many of the artists that we work with. 

We will have 45 artists in this show, each doing two works sized 11 inches by 14 inches. There'll be some names everyone will know from the long-term Vertical family of artists, but there are works from several new artists, too, including two originals from Florist — his first time exhibiting in a U.S. gallery. 

It’s a great group of artists. To me, these are must-haves for every collection. We're really excited. 

Question 5: How will you wrap up 2026? 

We are returning to Aqua Art Miami in December, and then we have a couple of projects already lined up for the first quarter of 2027, including a very special project with Flog and a solo show with Jerome Tiunayan. We’re also planning our 14th anniversary show. There’s a lot in the works. 

Paper is the subject and the medium of Joseph Renda Jr.’s latest Vertical Gallery release.

“Drawn In,” a limited-edition print on sale now via Vertical’s website, celebrates the art of juxtaposition, contrasting how our planet appears in reality with how it might look through the eyes of a child — one armed with a box of crayons and a sheet of wide-ruled paper. 

“I wanted to explore how each person views things differently,” Joe says. “We all spend our lives processing what’s happening around us. Kids just have a more innocent way of looking at the world.” 

Joe originally created “Drawn In” as part of a collection of paper-themed paintings exhibited at February’s Affordable Art Fair Brussels. Whether shredded, folded, cut or crumpled, each sheet of paper depicted in the series boasts the Chicago-based pop surrealist’s signature fidelity to photo-realistic detail and depth.

Click here to purchase. 


“I like painting paper. It's fun,” Joe says. “It’s important to make stuff that's really serious and in-depth, but there's a point where you just want to do something that makes you feel good and makes you feel happy, you know?” 

Joe’s painstaking rendering of a torn sheet of notebook paper occupies the left-hand side of “Drawn In,” a contrivance for revisiting another of his favorite motifs: painted crayon textures scrawled in a child’s hand, a subject he discussed with Vertical Gallery late last year. The right-hand side of “Drawn In” further demonstrates Joe’s formal precision: Each element is vividly tactile, from the ersatz Crayola to the cottonball clouds in the summertime sky. 

“The whole paper series is inspired by childhood,” Joe says. “I want to take you back to the time in your life when you drew for the fun of it — not focusing on detail or technique, just going for it. I spent hours painting something that looks like it was drawn in five seconds. I'm not trying to make it look good. I'm trying to make it look exactly how a kid would do it.”  

There is a third side to “Drawn In,” Joe adds: the unseen image behind the half-sheet of paper. 

“The paper being on the surface blocks the landscape behind it. You don't know what that half of the landscape looks like, because there is a piece of paper blocking your view, and the person drawing the landscape is just kind of guessing what's behind the paper,” Joe explains. “It’s a staple surrealist technique: Masking the front so the viewer has to guess what they’re missing.” 

Vertical’s new print edition of “Drawn In” is signed and numbered, and limited to just 25 copies. The print is priced at $175. 

Click here to purchase. 

Vertical Gallery’s 13-Year Anniversary Show features 13 contemporary artists from across Chicago, across the U.S. and across the globe. But only one of these artists, Grant William Thye, can trace his relationship with the gallery back to its very first exhibition on April 6, 2013. 

Grant’s dazzlingly geometric, cubist-inspired paintings and collages reinterpret the shapes, structures and forms synonymous with everyday life. He was born and raised in Iowa, where he attended Central College, a small liberal arts institution 40 miles southeast of Des Moines. “When I was a teenager, I wanted to be an architect. I'd come home from school, and I'd spend hours up in my room, drafting. Cartoons were always big in my world, too,” Grant says. “I took a lot of art classes in college, mostly printmaking and drawing, but I don't have an art degree. I wanted to do art, but it didn’t seem like a way to make a living.” 

Grant instead spent close to a decade working a series of sales jobs, which led him everywhere from Cincinnati to Charlotte to San Francisco. ”I'd do good at a job until I figured it out, and then I'd get bored with it, and then I'd get a different job and go somewhere else,” he recalls. “Each time I moved, I'd get a two-bedroom apartment, and the second bedroom was gonna be my art studio. I'd set up my easel, and I'd put a blank canvas on it. When I got to the Bay Area, it finally hit me that the canvas I was putting on the easel was the exact same canvas I started with seven years earlier. In all that time, I’d never painted a thing. So I paid off all my student loans, got myself debt-free, quit my job and said ‘I'm gonna make a living as an oil painter.’ I had never in my life painted a picture with oil paint.”

Grant gave himself two years to achieve his goals, aggressively honing a flowing, dynamic aesthetic rooted in cubism — i.e., analyzing, breaking apart and reassembling subjects into abstracted forms viewed from multiple perspectives simultaneously. 

“The first time I saw Picasso, it made perfect sense — just shapes and lines, and using your imagination. You could even say I was raised by a Cubist [Central College professor of art Larry Mills]. He taught the last art class that I ever took, and I was the only student,” Grant says. “My first day doing this full-time, I went down by the Pacific Ocean and just watched the waves roll in. Somewhere in my archives I still have these big, cool Conté crayon drawings of abstract waves coming in to shore. And I'm like ‘It's the same shape as the rolling hills of North Carolina, and the clouds that you see.’ There's a rhythm to the world — the way things move. And it can turn into whatever. Even now, making my own shapes is what’s most interesting to me.”   

After a few months of trial and error, Grant launched an email newsletter to keep friends and family updated on his professional progress; recipients forwarded the newsletter to their own friends and families, and in short order he began receiving purchase inquiries from collectors throughout the country. Seeking a more affordable way of living, he relocated from San Francisco to Chicago in late 2007, making his first group show appearances the following year.  

“By the time my two-year drop-dead date came around on May 12, 2009, I was selling enough work to pay rent, buy food and everything like that,” Grant says. “Then I did it the next month, and then the next month and the month after that. All these years later, I’m still doing it.”

Grant first encountered Vertical owner Patrick Hull during the gallery’s grand-opening group show ‘The Young and the Restless,’ curated by Chicago street art legend Dont Fret. 

“When some gallery owners find out you’re an artist, they literally turn around and walk away. They won’t talk to you because they think you're going to ask them to look at your stuff, and they don't want to do that,” Grant explains. “But when Patrick learned I’m an artist, he said ‘Oh, really? Do you have a card?’ Two or three weeks later, I got a phone call: ‘Hey, this is Patrick at Vertical. I was looking at your website. I really like it. Do you care if we come over and do a studio visit?’ We talked for a little bit, he looked at stuff, and he said ‘We'd love to do something with you.’”  

Patrick initially planned to feature Grant as one-third of a group exhibition concluding Vertical's first year of operations. When the two other artists dropped out, Grant stepped up. “I said to Patrick ‘I don't know if you know this, but I work in three different styles. How about if I do all three shows, and we call it “Three Sides to Every Story”?’ He goes ‘I like it.’ And I'm like ‘Oh shit, now I gotta do it.’ I worked 12 to 15 hours a day every day to get it all done.”

‘Three Sides to Every Story,’ which showcased Grant’s signature figurative abstractions alongside regionalist-influenced landscapes and cut-paper constructions, opened in March 2014. “What’s interesting about Vertical Gallery is that the shingle out front says ‘street art and urban contemporary,’ but it encompasses a lot more than just that,” Grant says. “Patrick loves the art that he shows, and he likes a vast variety of things. I’m not a street artist, but somehow my stuff fits in with his style.” 

Twelve years on from ‘Three Sides to Every Story,’ Grant remains one of Vertical’s tentpole artists, headlining two subsequent solo exhibitions, 2019’s ‘Second Time Around’ and 2024’s ‘Release,’ and contributing to multiple group shows. For this year’s anniversary show, he and the other 12 featured artists were asked to deliver four original works sized at 12 x 12 in. (30 x 30 cm); Grant responded with a collection of animal portraits evoking Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other beloved children's books.   

“I originally planned to paint the giraffe and the flamingo in a different format — tall and skinny. It was fun scrunching them and changing them around to fit into the square format,” Grant says. “Some might say ‘Well, that's not right,’ but why is it not right? You can do anything you want with your art, you know?”

Vertical’s 13-Year Anniversary Show is on display inside Jackson Junge Gallery, located at 1389 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood through April 19. View the exhibition here.