Opening reception: Friday, April 8 at 8 - 11 pm
Co-Prosperity
3219-21 S Morgan St, Chicago, IL 60608

Sugar Coating is a group exhibition featuring works by artists Renee Cloud, Hale Ekinci, Andrea Vail, Douglas Degges and HNin Nie.

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Sugar Coating brings together the work of five artists who conceal or reveal something below the surface. Each artist offers an array of visuals and textures that frequently deceive, leaving viewers to wonder what's on the other side of the shiny exterior. Upon closer inspection, all of the works give way to deeper questions about the utility and varied functions of accumulation, beauty, color, decoration, and nuanced language. 

Looking to undercut the perceived seriousness of nonobjective abstraction, Degges’s work deploys the visual language of gestural abstraction at a modest scale and with humor, an eye for the everyday, and appreciation for small moments of formal awkwardness. In the case of Vail’s work, her woven and looped assemblages of pre-owned objects speak to her ongoing interest in the stylistically obsolete and habits of consumption. Ekinci, similarly, collages together embroidery, found textiles, and images from family archives to explore the phases of acculturation, immigrant identity, and ideas about gendered labor and materials. Her fringes are inspired by the Turkish tradition of oya (lace edgings on headdresses) and its use of symbolic patterns that serve as a secret language between women. On the other hand, Cloud creates work that connects with the viewer through text-based explorations on mirrored glass and other reflective substrates to intertwine her personal narrative, commentary on the Black experience, and the power of the written word. The text used in her work provides only a fraction of the narrative, leaving the viewer to imagine the rest. Conversely, Nie offers the answer more directly. Her sculptures and paintings empower those who step into a fantasy world of anthropomorphised fruit and vibrant imagery layered over unsettling vignettes. Conversations about gender inequity and female liberation are prompted by the slick, candy-like sheens and relatable imagery.