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Vertical Gallery, Chicago’s premier urban-contemporary art gallery, presents “Miami in Chicago,” a winter group show running Dec. 1–26, 2020.

“Miami in Chicago” features new work from the same talent — Martin Whatson, Alex Face, Mau Mau, Collin van der Sluijs, Joseph Renda Jr., Mysterious Al and David Heo — that Vertical planned to feature in Miami Beach in conjunction with Art Basel’s postponed Miami Art Week 2020 event. Vertical kicks off the month-long exhibit Tuesday, Dec. 1 from noon to 6:00 pm at the gallery’s 1016 N. Western Ave location.

“Just because the in-person art fairs have been cancelled doesn’t mean we can’t still celebrate the artists that have been working all year on their collection of work,” says Patrick Hull, owner of Vertical Gallery. “We have a very strong group show roster for Miami Art Week, and are excited to feature all of the artists in our Chicago gallery for the entire month of December.”

“Miami in Chicago” gathers artists from across the globe:

Martin Whatson is a Norwegian street artist best known for calligraphic scribbles in grayscale voids. Over the past decade, Whatson has developed an unmistakable aesthetic combining abstract movement with figurative stenciled compositions: His works mirror the rise and fall of the streets, as he symbolically recreates the urban environment, then vandalizes it to reveal his vibrant transformations.

Alex Face is one of Thailand’s most respected and prolific street artists. On the surface, his work appears playful and lighthearted, but upon closer inspection each of his pieces explores deeper themes of poverty, environmental crisis and the present and future of society. His iconic bunny character, Mardi — initially inspired by his daughter — represents the feeling of confronting a troubled world as a vulnerable child.

Mau Mau is a renowned British urban graffiti artist who’s gained an international following with his humorous street, print and graffiti work. His efforts incorporate political, environmental and cultural commentary, often featuring his trademark character, a mischievous and fun-loving fox. With roots planted in the surf and country vibes of the North Devon coast, Mau Mau brings an air of rural sophistication to the art he has been creating for 20 years.

Collin van der Sluijs is a category-defying Netherlands-based artist whose dreamlike, deeply personal work employs a rich color palette and vibrant brush strokes evoking the Dutch masters of centuries past. His third and most recent Vertical Gallery solo exhibit, 2020’s “A Garden of Trust,” revealed profound new depths and dimensions, with van der Sluijs drawing on influences as diverse as vintage comics and his grandfather’s exotic bird aviary to produce his most ambitious, immersive canvases to date.

Joseph Renda Jr. is a Chicago-based artist whose paintings capture the symbiotic connection between humans and the natural world. Inspired by leaders in surrealism including Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte, Renda often depicts highly realistic human forms interwoven with illusive natural elements; his use of classical oil painting methods and modern materials, such as spray paint, provide his work with a distinct combination of old and new artistic techniques.

Mysterious Al is an Australian-based contemporary artist who rose to fame in the early 2000’s alongside contemporaries/fellow street art pioneers D*face and Banksy, developing a notoriety for wall paintings, paste-ups and street installations. His latest paintings are based on ancient tribal masks, reimagined in wild contemporary colors. His work is striking and at first glance intimidating — but look closer, and you’ll see pieces that poke fun at man’s vulnerable psyche and fragile sense of self.

David Heo is a Chicago-based artist known for paintings and collages using non-traditional materials like crayons, house paint and construction paper. Named one of New City’s Breakout Artists for 2020, Heo’s visceral, provocative work frequently documents observations and experiences from his own life, with an emphasis on the complex, emotionally charged interactions taking place in bars, nightclubs and other after-hours milieus. “Honey and Smoke” — his debut solo show at Vertical in March 2020 — sold out on opening night.

Miami in Chicago
December 1 - 26, 2020
Opening day, Tuesday, December 1^st, noon - 6:00pm
Vertical Gallery, 1016 N Western Ave., Chicago

Vertical Gallery is very proud to present “Allies,” the debut U.S. solo exhibition from street-art surrealist Anders Gjennestad, a.k.a. Strøk. The show runs November 7 – 28, 2020, with an opening day reception on Saturday, November 7th, 11:00am - 6:00pm.

“Allies” assembles 16 new pieces and a full edition of 16 smaller paintings spotlighting Gjennestad’s signature hand-cut, multi-layered stencils, leveraging elevated angles and dramatic, elongated shadows to create stunningly photorealistic, intricately detailed images that evoke an alternate universe where gravity has ceased to exist and time is frozen — a fleeting glimpse into a realm of other possibilities (or, if you prefer, the possibilities of the other, whether metaphysical or supernatural). 

“Allies,” which features work on wood, steel and aluminum, subverts perspective and perception in equal measure. Gjennestad, who bases his cutouts on his own original photographs, painstakingly creates each stencil layer by hand in order to retain the essential humanity and kinetic energy of his source material; working with a sober color palette dominated by shades of gray, black and white, he juxtaposes contorted character postures with precise explorations of shadows and light, an approach that upends conventional notions of space and surface.

Born in Arendal, Norway and currently based in Berlin, the self-taught Gjennestad first garnered attention in 2001 with a series of oversized murals credited to the alias “Strøk,” which he still uses to differentiate his street art from the studio work he produces under his given name. His output frequently bridges the present and the past, intertwining men and women in contemporary apparel with the crumbling factory walls, rusted metal and decaying plasterwork textures their figures adorn.

Gjennestad won media attention and critical acclaim for murals in locales as diverse as Europe, Sumatra, Taiwan and Hawaii. He previously held solo shows in Norway, Denmark, Germany and France.

Anders Gjennestad “Allies” 
November 7 – 28, 2020
Opening day, Saturday, November 7^th, 11:00am - 6:00pm
Vertical Gallery, 1016 N Western Ave., Chicago

Line Dot and Vertical Gallery are very proud to present “Looking for Dreams in a Kan of Soup,” a solo exhibit spotlighting Chicago painter and sculptor Sergio Farfan.

VIEW EXHIBITION IN 3D

“Looking for Dreams in a Kan of Soup” — which runs Oct. 3-17 at Line Dot Editions, located at 1023 N. Western Ave. in Chicago — assembles 12 canvases and 30 hand-painted sculptures heralding a bold new chapter in Farfan’s creative evolution. The artist will be in attendance for the exhibit’s opening-day event, taking place at Line Dot on Saturday, Oct. 3 from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm; standard social distancing guidelines will be enforced.

The pieces making up “Looking for Dreams in a Kan of Soup” directly address Farfan’s complex relationship with his hero Andy Warhol, acknowledging the pop art pioneer’s enormous influence on Farfan’s work while at the same time forging a distinctly original, deeply personal style that escapes Warhol’s shadow altogether. The “Kans” namechecked in the exhibit’s title are original characters created by Farfan; each of the 30 sculptures depicts a different Kan stuck headfirst in a can of Campbell’s Soup, the kitchen cupboard staple whose red-and-white label remains synonymous with Warhol nearly 60 years after the release of his landmark “Campbell’s Soup Cans” silkscreen series. The accompanying paintings tell the story of Farfan’s growing realization that he must abandon Warholian ideals and aesthetics in order to continue advancing his own career and craft.

“A lot of people mimic their idols. They think that’s what they should be doing. But in reality, you have to follow your own path and your own heart. That’s the whole point of the show,” Farfan says.

The autobiographical narrative driving “Looking for Dreams in a Kan of Soup” also explores Farfan’s sometimes tumultuous inner world. “The Kans are all based on me. Each is based on the personality I feel when I’m drawing that character,” he explains. “‘Kans’ come from Cancer, the horoscope sign — I’m a Cancer, and we’re known to be really emotional. The crazier the character is, the crazier my mind is. In high school, I went to art therapy, and that’s where I started to learn how to put meaning into what I was drawing. Everything I do, I want it to have meaning. I don’t want to paint something just because it looks cool.”

Farfan was born in Peru, at age 7 relocating with his family to the U.S. A largely self-taught artist raised on a steady diet of cartoons (whose reality-bending characters and colors continue to exert a profound impact on his work), Farfan first achieved notoriety while in high school, claiming first-place honors in the 2013 Congressional Art Competition. From there he briefly studied graphic design at the American Academy of Art but gravitated to fine art after attending a gallery show headlined by his instructor and mentor Anthony Adcock.

While Farfan followed a journey similar to many fledgling artists, painting murals across the Chicagoland area and presenting work in gallery group shows, he also built a reputation on the strength of live painting demonstrations at a series of public and private events, including performances featuring Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and rapper Gucci Mane. He has participated in several exhibitions at both Line Dot and Vertical Gallery over the past couple years.

Vertical Gallery is very proud to present “It’s All Wrong, It’s Allright…,” a new solo exhibit spotlighting Amsterdam-based street art duo Pipsqueak Was Here!!! The exhibition — which runs Oct. 3-24, 2020 — assembles more than 30 pieces stenciled on canvas and reclaimed wood, bringing new urgency, clarity and purpose to signature Pipsqueak Was Here!!! themes like environmental issues and youthful resolve. The show opens Saturday, Oct. 3^rd, 11:00 am to 6:00 pm.

VIEW EXHIBITION IN 3D

“It’s All Wrong, It’s Allright…,” which follows two years after Pipsqueak Was Here!!!’s sold-out Vertical Gallery debut “Caution Children at Play,” grapples with a world in crisis, its title addressing the unprecedented instability of our times as well as the survival skills and coping mechanisms that enable humankind to compartmentalize its struggles and push forward.

While “It’s All Wrong, It’s Allright…” continues Pipsqueak Was Here!!!’s longstanding commitment to reusing and recycling materials — all the wood in their bold, colorful paintings comes from discarded shipping pallets and other trash heap finds — the duo spent the better part of a year identifying and creating brand new stencil images for the exhibit, drawing on vintage magazines, comic books and the internet as well as capturing their own photos and sourcing snapshots from friends with simpatico interests and sensibilities.

“Whenever we find an image that triggers an idea that demands for us an artistic explanation, or a certain expression of a narrative that we want to tell, then we manipulate that image until we like it, draw it by hand and turn it into a stencil,” Pipsqueak Was Here!!! explains. “We have a sympathy for really strong graphical imagery that is easy to catch in one layered stencil, so it can be used in different setups or colors. We use stencils like words in a language and have built a huge collection of them over the years. Like in a sentence, these ‘words’ can be used in all kinds of different contexts, and therefore they hardly ever grow stale on us. The stencils become symbols allowing us to spin our tales.”

Children are the protagonists of most of the tales Pipsqueak Was Here!!! tell, and “It’s All Wrong, It’s Allright…” is no exception. Many of these works feature their trademark “Pipsqueak Girl” — a tough but tender figure whose future hinges on whether humanity finally accepts responsibility for protecting the planet from further damage and neglect. The typical Pipsqueak Girl is assembled from many different faces: according to Pipsqueak Was Here!!!, their paintings feature anywhere from 70 to 80 manipulated characters in all, but because they inevitably gravitate to similar images — specifically soulful, stubborn children oblivious to their own beauty, charm and strength — many viewers mistakenly believe the same character recurs throughout their body of work.

“Most of our children look you straight into the eye,” Pipsqueak Was Here!!! states. “Back in 2012, we worked on the walls of the interior of a medical center in Rotterdam named after the philosopher Levinas, who once stated that by looking straight into the eyes, hereby two people are notifying each other of their existence and becoming responsible for one another. This always stuck with us and still shows in the work we make today.”

Pipsqueak Was Here!!! chooses to let their art speak for itself, preferring to keep details about their professional and personal relationship under wraps. Their earliest documented efforts, credited to the alias Plusminus Produkties, date to 2001. The twosome has since exhibited in their native Netherlands, Paris and Miami. They've also completed murals in Chicago as well as Denver, Colo.; Ghent, Belgium; London, England; Lagos, Portugal; and Vantaa, Finland.

Pipsqueak Was Here!!!
“It’s All Wrong, It’s Allright…”
October 3 – 24, 2020
Opening Day: Saturday, October 3^rd, 11am-6pm
Vertical Gallery, 1016 N. Western Ave., Chicago