The organic process of creating community through art. Fostering relationships with nature, the people around us, and the environment.Â
Curated by Barbara Leahy – Edwards
Music Performance by BKE 613 at 8:30pm on 2nd fl. Zhou B Art Center
Opening Reception July 19th 7-10 pm
Closing Reception August 16th 7-10 pm
8 Selected Visual ArtistsÂ
Adrien Atwater, Timothy P. Brennan, Rachel Joyce, Hai S. Lam, Karen Sako, Leonard Tamburro, Christopher M. Trejo
Adrian Atwater
Adrian Atwater is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in New York state. Atwater finds inspiration in the interplay between history and complexity. While their work often employs software, sound, and video, painting remains central to their practice.
Barbara Leahy-Edwards
Barbara Leahy-Edwards is an artist, gallery owner, curator, coach, retired educator, and advocate for women. Her primary focus is on that of the abstract, specializing in vibrant colors and energetic shapes. She takes inspiration from life experiences, overcoming challenges, emotions evoked by nature, and the current climate of the world in which we live. In addition to creating and exhibiting her artwork, Edwards enjoys running the B&L Gallery in the Zhou B Art Center. The gallery provides an opportunity for a variety of artists to showcase their work to a vast audience.Â
Christopher M Trejo
Christopher M Trejo was born in Kansas City, Mo in 1972. Chris’s art is characterized by emotionally engaging figurative work, as well as abstract landscapes and topography. Trejo is especially noted for casting light into the dark comers of the human psyche bravely exploring the complexities of inner turmoil and emotional depth. Trejo is a self-taught artist whose work is exhibited in galleries throughout Chicago and has produced work for various not for profit organizations of note. Chris Trejo is a working artist residing in the Bridgeport.
Hai S. Lam
In the Windy City, where the skyline’s high,
Hai the ARThlete makes colors Fly.
With high energy and passion so Bright,
his vibrant paintings are so Delight.
Textures and layers, each stroke a Song,
Honoring nature, where we all Belong.
Abstract scenes that burst on the eye, capturing beauty from earth and sky.
Celebrate the world in colors so true,
Hai’s paintings bring new views to you. Hai The ARThlete with vision, compassion, and grace,
Honoring Earth, our shared space.
JoyKo
JoyKo is the creation of Chicago artists Rachel Joyce and Karen Sako, artists who collaborate together to create unique, abstract, mixed media, oil & cold wax paintings. After years of working together and sharing studio space we decided to join forces to bring our collectors beautiful and affordable original art.
Karen Sako
My oil paintings fuse traditional art principles with exploratory techniques and materials. Working from direct observation and through abstraction I examine the elusive quality of light and the complexity of nature. Soulful marks and energetic colors create an emotional connection to light and form that directs my imagination 
into existence.
Rachel Joyce
Rachel is a Chicago based visual artist with a focus on painting. After years of searching for her artistic voice, she has found it somewhere in the space between her traditional foundation and her love of play: the combination of the two results in energetic yet harmonious compositions. For Rachel, painting, no matter what the subject, is a balancing act: a push, a pull, a scratch, a stroke, a mark, a highlight, a shadow, water, oil, wax, happy accidents, and intentional developments all engaging together to create something meaningful out of nothing. Rachel is constantly seeking to push new boundaries in her work both personally and aesthetically. While this exploration is evident in the variety within her body of work, a constant can be found among the major themes that inspire her. The human condition, nature and how the two interact, coincide and impact one another are common threads exhibited in her work.
Leonard Tamburro
I have always had the desire to create art; it started early in my life. I was fortunate enough to have exposure to art as a teenager in high school, where I started working with drawing and painting. It gave me the confidence to go to art school, where I studied graphic and fine art. Over time, I have worked in different fields outside of art, but I have always come back to what I love. My techniques are evolving and changing, but my true enjoyment comes from oil painting. I love to experiment with color and techniques, and as I paint, I grow and change. I look forward to what comes in the future.
Timothy P Brennan
What we create is inextricably tied to who we are, what we have experienced, and what has both upset and inspired us. A large part of who I am has to do with where I grew up – on a farm in rural Ohio. It was a childhood of hard work, but also one of great adventures, wonderful animals, and the best food. I left that lifestyle behind me when I went off to college, but I was drawn back to it and bought a farm of my own a decade ago in the farm southern suburbs if Chicago. It is here that I am inspired to tell the stories, through somewhat unconventional means, of the story of the wonderous plants, animals and insects that I see around the farm every day.Â
Questions or Inquiries, Please contact info@ohartfoundation.org
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