This week’s picks. More listings here.

Let There Be Geo @ A D Gallery

Geometric work is fun as hell to look at, and Let There Be Geo (curiously curated by the organically inclined Elizabeth Burke-Dain) promises sixteen variations on the form from artists Jesse Brown, Nick Butcher, Jeff Canham, Jacob Hashimoto, Maya Hayuk, Cody Hudson, Steven Husby, Barbara Kasten, Chad Kouri, Nadine Nakanishi, John Parot, Sam Prekop, Archer Prewitt, Geoffrey Todd Smith, Jason Urban and Vanesa Zendejas. Show opens tonight, Thursday March 4th, from 5-9 PM @ A D Gallery, 619 S Wabash Ave.

Jesse Brown, Painting C

Steven Husby @ PEREGRINEPROGRAM

Speaking of geometric art, you can catch more of Steven Husby’s work the next night at PEREGRINEPROGRAM’s We Speak the Way We Breathe. The show opens Friday, March 5, from 6-9 PM @ PEREGRINEPROGRAM, 500 W Cermak Rd, 727.

Steven Husby

Matthew Metzger @ DOVA Temporary

Matthew Metzger somehow manages to get away with blending highly realistic painting with old fashioned modernist subject matter. His new show, The Interrogative Remainder, opens this Saturday, March 6th, from 6-9 PM @ DOVA Temporary, 5228 S Harper Ave.

Matthew Metzger

Vibrator @ Knock Knock Gallery

Carmen Price, Her Temple

Colonize it!

This week’s picks from Ryan.

Abu-Bakarr Mansaray, A Nuclear Mosquito From Hell

Ala Ebtekar, 1388: Pariya

Charles Irvin, Turd Science

Drew Beckmeyer, Arizona Souvenirs

James Castle, House (Back)

Ross Bleckner, Inheritance

William T. Wiley, Canetti in Marrakesh

Don’t open it!

I know for a fact that there are brilliant studios with white walls and painted ceilings, glowing with LED panels and humming with tastefully sourceless, low-volume public radio; but for young artists plodding through unfunded gap between undergrad and graduate school, sometimes the studio is wherever you can find it. This week Chicago painter and photographer Jacob Goudreault (acceptably mis-pronounced good-row) invited me to his studio in the western suburb of Winfield, tucked in a tiny and mostly unfinished corner in the basement of his parent’s nice big house. As we went downstairs he gestured to the rest of the basement, sparse and freshly occupied by a pool table and a few boxes. “I used to have this whole space before we put the carpet in.”

Jacob Goudreault

As the most hyper-provisional of the city’s sculptural painters fascinated with shitty materials and gross surfaces, Goudreault’s dim studio makes sense. He points out some of the paints he’s been using, Craftsmart acrylics in aisle ten pinks and greens. A few of his small paintings show the neon paint almost shattered on the surface, a result of the temperature shift between his car and his studio. Bottle caps serve as hanging devices, staple gunned to the back of the scrap-wood blocks he stretches paper and fabric and second hand cashmere over. The work was clever and reveled in its rough edges, a play off of materials and grunge that make me wonder whether the lights were low on purpose.

Jacob Goudreault

Jacob Goudreault

While Goudreault keeps another studio in the West Loop and works on occasion up at the Poor Farm estate, much of his smaller and recent paintings he’s known for are made here in the Winfield space. If you’re looking to see that new work, you’re in luck: most of the paintings are downtown or close to it, currently installed in the Fever Dream group show at Roots and Culture or getting ready for the upcoming Vibrator at Knock Knock Gallery.

Check out these picks for my picks or more listings for more listings.

Fever Dream @ Roots & Culture

Expect a lot of physical, almost sculptural use of paint at Fever Dream at Roots & Culture, and some of the weird and shitty materials painters love so much these days. Paintings and the rest from Jacob Goudreault, Angel Otero, Max Reinhardt, Simon Slater, with special guest Easton Miller. The show opens this Friday, January 26th from 6-9 PM @Roots & Culture, 1034 N Milwaukee Ave.

Simon Slater, Hey Lew! I Can Never Be You.

TYPEFORCE @ Co-Prosperity Sphere

This weekend Bridgeport’s Co-Prosperity Sphere opens TYPEFORCE, a pretty broad-reaching survey of Chicago typography artists and designers, with work from (deep breath, since designers actually have websites): Jeremiah Chiu, Renata Graw, David Weik, Billy Baumann, Matthew Hoffman, Chris Eichenseer, Chad Kouri, Ryan Thurwell, Luke Williams, Tnop, Andy Luce, John Pobojewski, Darren McPherson, Lora Fosberg, Margo Harrington, Greg Calvert, Aaron Pedersen, Duncan MacKenzie, Will Miller and Nick Adam. Show opens Friday, February 27th from 6-9 PM @ Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S Morgan St, Chicago.

Darren McPherson

Ken Fandell @ Donald Young

Mysterious new work from Ken Fandell at Donald Young this month, some kind of off-site exhibition while Tony Wight puts the finishing touches on the new Washington Blvd space. Opens this Friday, February 26th from 5-7 PM @ Donald Young Gallery, 224 S Michigan Ave.

Ken Fandell

Isabella Ng and Millie Kapp @ Monument 2

Isabella Ng and Millie Kapp

Matt Saunders @ The Renaissance Society

Matt Saunders, Hertha Thiele (Frau Lehmann's Töchter) #3

I went to high-school with two of the artists mentioned in this preview!