SUMMER CLASSES NOW LIVE!
Aneliya Chalakova
Artist Talk & Closing Reception, May 29, 5-7pm
Blending ancestral Bulgarian weaving traditions with modern, nature-inspired design, this work creates woven pieces that honor nature’s rhythms and the depth of human emotional landscapes.
This contemporary weaving series explores the connection between nature and humanity—how both evolve, heal, and renew through cyclical rhythms. Rooted in a mindful, contemporary practice, the work combines natural fibers, texture, and design to reflect emotional landscapes and the harmony between the natural world and inner life.
Join us for the Closing Reception & Artist Talk on May 29, 5-7 pm.
Zhivko Zhekov will present a spiritual and artistic interpretation of Aneliya’s work through improvisation, curated specifically for this installation.
Zhivko Zhekov is a Bulgarian-American saxophonist who brings a unique approach to jazz and Bulgarian music, fusing the two genres while channeling the deep spiritual nature of each, creating a supernal sonic experience.
Patrick Miceli / Darren Oberto
Inside Looking Out
INSIDE LOOKING OUT
Work by Patrick Miceli and Darren Oberto
May 30 – June 30, 2026
Opening reception Thursday, June 4, 5-8pm
Patrick Miceli and Darren Oberto present paintings, prints and sculpture influenced by the macro and microcosmos, exploring the celestial as a way to look beyond everyday problems. Both work in interdisciplinary media rooted in the craft of traditional painting.
Darren Oberto was born 1978 in Ann Arbor, MI. He received a bachelor of fine art degree from Kendall College of Art and Design in 2001. His work is multidisciplinary but radiates from a nucleus of traditional painting. He is interested and concerned with all media and conceptual horizons that are defined by art, science, and the human experience. He considers himself a “maker” and has an obsession with creating that permeates every aspect of his life.
A lifelong resident of Chicago, Patrick Miceli began to study art at the University of Illinois, SAIC and Columbia college. He received a BFA from the University of Illinois in 95 and an MFA from SAIC in 97. During this he began teaching classes at LillStreet Art Center.
Kat Powers
Hortus deliciarum polypi
Lounge Gallery / June 1-30, 2026, Opening reception June 4, 5-8pm
Kat has designed and installed various sculptural and decorative mosaics in the midwest and on the west coast. Her installations can be viewed at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center in Santa Cruz, California, and at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago, Illinois. Kat currently teaches at Lake Forest’s Stirling Hall and Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation in Back of the Yards.
Varieties within stained glass, which are combined when glass is in a liquid molten state, make each piece unique. Like watercolors bleeding together on paper, I’m hoping these stained glass fragments can work together to celebrate and bring to life these abstractions of marine life. As primordial life originated in the ocean, those mysterious depths continue to be the epicenter of diversity of animal life. Phases of invertebrate development, from the larval and nymph phases before their exquisite maturity, are full of stunning contrasts ripe for contemplation. Many thanks to UC Davis marine biologists Eric Sanford, Jackie Sones, and Sam Briggs at the Bodega Marine Laboratory for the use of their many gorgeous reference photographs of intertidal invertebrates. Jackie’s blog, The Natural History of Bodega Head, was instrumental in inspiring this intimate meditation on the thriving ecosystem along the central coast of California.
For a Darkend Room
Hidden Gallery
For a Darkend Room
installation by Dutes Miller
March 1 – May 31, 2026
For a darkend room is a small immersive installation exploiting the particular architecture of the gallery. The space is part cave, part temple, and part bathroom stall, all of which can be small spaces of an intimate but public nature. Elements of the installation include a cast ceramic sculpture, painted spray foam objects, a tinted plaster room divider, dark mylar curtains, small lighting elements, a small corner seat, and a soundscape.
Dutes Miller’s work has been written about on artforum, Hyperallergic, the Huffington Post, the Chicago Reader, Time Out Chicago, New City, and the Chicago Tribune and has been included in exhibitions at several national venues including Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York, Lump in North Carolina, White Flag Projects in St. Louis and in Chicago at the Hyde Partk Art Center, Ukrainian Museum of Art, Tiger Strikes Asteroid and The Franklin.
His collaborative work with his husband Stan Shellabarger, as Miller & Shellabarger, won a 2008 Artadia Award and a 2007 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation award and has been written about in Art in America, Artforum, Art & Auction, Frieze, Artnet, The Art Newspaper, Flash Art, and the Chicago Tribune. They have work in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, DePaul Art Museum, Indiana University Art Museum, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Spencer Museum of Art, among others. Miller received a BFA from Illinois State University. He is represented by Western Exhibitions in Chicago and lives and works in Chicago.
