Chicago painter Brenda Barnum was born in 1955 in Hartford, Wisconsin. During the 70s, she was employed as a layout artist in the advertising department at Boston Store in Milwaukee. She attended The Minneapolis College of Art and Design from 1978 to 1980. In 1980 she transferred to the San Francisco Art Institute and lived in San Francisco until 1984. In 1984 she relocated to downtown Chicago.

Exhibiting nationally and internationally since the early 80s, she is represented by Thomas Masters Gallery in Chicago; Butters Gallery in Portland, OR; and Walter Bischoff Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany. She lives in Rogers Park with her partner, Steve Press, their dog, Elote, and Bob the parrot.

Brenda Barnum Demonstrating Her Painting Technique

Read more »

Technorati Tags: Chicago painter

Dale Washington has turned his cozy apartment into a self-made gallery with his paintings, drawings, ink work, assemblages, and new art hanging on nearly every square inch of wall space. His work deals with everyday people and situations from nudes to landscapes, from jazz clubs to fish fries, and everything else in between depicting the urban Chicago lifestyle. A self-professed “obsessive-compulsive,” Washington creates when he is driven to do so and is talented enough to work “in all media” or uses “whatever is available at the time.” Featured in Daniel T. Parker’s book African Art: The Diaspora and Beyond, Washington has exhibited at Gruen Gallery, Steele Life Gallery, South Shore Culture Center, Southside Community Art Center, Beverly Art Center, Hyde Park Art Center, and other galleries in Chicago and throughout the U.S.

Landscape. Oil pastel on panel board. Courtesy of the artist.

Read more »

Technorati Tags: Chicago lifestyle

Bob Krawczyk, an architecture professor at Illinois Institute of Technology, specializes in new media art with a focus on algorithmic art to generate 2D and 3D art. Instead of brushes, paint, and canvas, he uses custom-designed software and his computer monitor and printer to create his art, and occasionally a laser-cutting machine and a fabrication shop to generate his 3D models. His BitArt website discusses the intricate models that he uses to generate his Escher-like geometric art. Krawczyk’s related projects can be found here.

Polar Flowers. Courtesy of the artist.

Read more »

Technorati Tags: new media art, algorithmic art, 3D models

Italian Still Life 17. Oil on panel, 26″ x 30″. Courtesy of the artist.

ArtStyle: How would you describe your art?

Susan Kraut (SK): I don’t really like calling myself a “still life” painter because it suggests pictures of apples and wine bottles. My paintings for many years have been representational descriptions of small organic objects, usually on a window sill, always in some sort of natural light, sometimes with elements of the particular landscape beyond the window.
Read more »

Technorati Tags: still life

Chili Peppers. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

Amy Lowry, a painter, illustrator, children’s book author, and mosaic artist, reflects: I always knew I was going to be an artist. Growing up, I was the class artist. I carried sketchbooks everywhere I went. After graduating from college, I moved to New York City and worked in a variety of jobs while maintaining a studio in my apartment. I never went to art school, but took classes at the School of Visual Arts and the Art Student’s League. I married in 1982 and moved to Beijing in 1990 with my now ex-husband. It was right after Tiananmen Square. We lived in China for 4 years, and it was there that I studied scroll making and learned traditional methods of working with rice paper using wheat paste, ink, and gouache. I moved to Chicago in 1994 with my three daughters and have been here ever since.

Read more »