Mirror Face
Sarah McEneaney, Christa Donner, & Keiler Roberts
March 9 - April 13, 2017
Opening Reception: March 9, 11a.m. - 1 p.m.
Artist Reception: Saturday, March 11, 1 - 3 p.m.
Mirror Face showcases the work of Sarah McEneaney, Christa Donner, and Keiler Roberts. For all three of these artists the documentation of their everyday lives, both internal and external, serves as part of the inspiration for their work. In contrast to the highly crafted representations of self we have grown accustomed to seeing in contemporary society, the paintings, drawings, and comics in this exhibition present actual portraits rather then idealized ones.
Whether chronicling the mundane locations and conversations of their everyday, monitoring the cumulative cost of their daily consumption or documenting the exceptional moments of their lives these artists’ work highlight the ways in which the vulnerability of a true self portrait is individually empowering and provides valuable common connection.
Christa Donner is a Chicago-based artist and organizer known for her innovative large-scale drawing installations. She has exhibited at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Cleveland), Bank Art NYK (Yokohama), the Museum Bellerive (Zurich), Kravets Wehby Gallery (New York), as well as Gallery 400, ThreeWalls, International Museum of Surgical Science, and the National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago). Donner currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute Chicago.
Sarah McEneaney is a Philadelphia based painter who has exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), Hood Museum of Art, Mills College Art Museum (California), and the List Gallery (Pennsylvania). McEneaney is the recipient of the Yaddo Fellowship (2006, 2005, 1997, 1995), the Pew Fellowship in the Arts (1993), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2000), the MacDowell Colony Fellowship (1998), and the Chianti Foundation Residency (2009). She also does activist work in Philadelphia and has been instrumental in the creation of the Rail Park Project, a community project that is underway to convert the former Reading Co. railroad viaduct into a 25,000-square-foot linear park. McEneaney serves as President of the nonprofit Friends of the Rail Park. She is represented by Tiber de Nagy Gallery in New York and Locks Gallery in Philadelphia.
Keiler Roberts is the recipient of the Ignatz Award-Outstanding Series for Powdered Milk (2016), was published in The Best American Comics 2016, and appeared as a special guest for CAKE—Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (2014). Her work has been shown at the Naughton Gallery at Queen's University in Belfast, Block Museum of Art, and at Columbia College's A+D Gallery. Roberts' fourth book, Sunburning, from Koyama Press, will debut in May, 2017. She currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute Chicago and DePaul University.
