A group exhibition featuring 2012-13 BOLT Residents

Opening Reception: December 7, 6-9pm
Exhibition Dates: December 7 – 21, 2012*
*CAC galleries are closed for the holidays December 22 – January 6. Exhibition viewings during this time can be made by appointment by contacting Director of Exhibitions & Community Initiatives, cortney@chicagoartistscoalition.org

The second year of CAC’s BOLT Residency kicks off with its annual, inaugural exhibition, Preview, featuring the 2012-2013 BOLT Residents Adebukola Bodunrin, Baccara  (collaborative of Madeleine Bailey and Helen Maurene Cooper), Joseph G. Cruz, Laura Davis, Azadeh Gholizadeh, Jennifer Mills, and Christopher Ottinger and the 2012-2013 BOLT Mentors Sarah Belknap and Joseph Belknap and Stacia Yeapanis.  Preview brings together the BOLT Residents for their first and only all-group show at CAC. This exhibition presents early iterations of the artists’ works, offering viewers a glimpse of solo shows to come, which will begin in February 2013.

As part of this year’s residency, two of the 2011-2012 residents (Sarah Belknap and Joseph Belknap and Stacia Yeapanis) were selected to stay in the program to serve as BOLT Mentors throughout the year and further develop their careers and arts leadership skills.  These mentors will have solo exhibitions at two Chicago venues to be announced in the coming months.

Baccara is an artist collaborative comprised of Madeleine Bailey and Helen Maurene Cooper. Born out of the extended and often-hilarious confusion between their artistic identities, Baccara is a Chicago-based female duo that produces photographs, works on paper, performance, and video that embraced artifice and the absurd through childhood games and sexual parody. Bailey and Cooper both hold their MFAs from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and have shown their work both independently and as part of Baccara at national and international venues. Most recently, Baccara participated in the Pecha Kucha event at Los Caminos Gallery in St. Louis, MO, and in summer 2012 will have a site-specific exhibition at Electricity is Magic Gallery (EiM) in Toronto, ON.
www.baccara-collaborative.com

Sarah Belknap and Joseph Belknap are interdisciplinary visual artists whose work often merges sculpture, installation, performance and photography, among other mediums. They participated in the inaugural 2011-2012 BOLT Residency, and will continue as BOLT Mentors during this second year of the program. The Belknaps have exhibited their work in Chicago at Zolla Lieberman, Sullivan Galleries, the Chicago Cultural Center, and MDW Fair, as well as RAID Projects in Los Angeles, Los Caminos in St. Louis and Flux Space and Nexus Gallery in Philadelphia. They have been working collaboratively for the past four years, and currently teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As a result of their BOLT Residency, the Belknaps were invited to present a solo show at the Comfort Station, organized by Michael Green, and are featured artists as part of Chicago Artists Month 2012.  www.sarahandjoseph.com

Adebukola Bodunrin is a film, video, and installation artist who explores language, culture, and media. In her collage animations, she manipulates film using unorthodox manual and digital techniques in order to produce unexpected cinematic experiences. Bodunrin completed her Master of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007. Her work has been screened or exhibited nationally and internationally at venues that include the Jersey City Museum of Art, the Scope Art Fair, Onion City Film Festival, the Chicago Underground Film Festival and Festival Animator, Poznań, Poland. She lives and works in Chicago. www.adebukolabodunrin.com

Joseph G. Cruz is an interdisciplinary artist working namely in sculptural installations and sound. He is currently working with Quantum Mechanic’s method of Diffraction, investigating social paradigm shifts involving epistemology and exploration. Cruz received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011, and he has participated in numerous solo and group shows around the country. Select exhibitions include Here and Now, TLofts, Los Angeles, CA; An Ordinal of Alchemy, Cabinet Magazine Exhibition Space, Brooklyn, NY and Robert Williams, Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, PA; Excavating History, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL; and Buchanan Unsanctioned, Buchanan, MI. www.josephgcruz.com

Laura Davis is an interdisciplinary artist who examines and reconfigures society’s psychological relationships with objects. At first glance, her sculptures, drawings, and installations appear docile, but upon further inspection, the work has a dark and menacing undertone. Davis received her MFA from the University of Chicago in 2004. She currently teaches in the Contemporary Practices department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago. She has exhibited at venues such as the Evanston Art Center, Chicago; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Gallery 400, Chicago; Aron Packer Gallery, Chicago; SPACES, Cleveland; The Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder; and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI. www.lauraanndavis.com

Azadeh Gholizadeh is a multidisciplinary artist responding to past experiences and challenges that she faced while living and working in a different social environment (Iran). Gholizadeh uses materials such as mirrors, duct tape, and vinyl to obfuscate the identity of objects and the self, and the veil in her work seeks an intermediate state between masking and display, reality and deceit. After completing a Master of Architecture and Urbanism at Iran University of Science & Technology in 2009, Gholizadeh received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012. She has exhibited her work in Tehran, Iran, and Chicago. www.azadehgholizadeh.com

Jennifer Mills is an artist and comedian working in Chicago. She explores the various ways in which works of art are valued in our lives, both personally and monetarily. Mills’ multidisciplinary practice merges humor and large-scale installations as she aims to re-imagine definitions of success, the viewer, and the exhibition site. After receiving her MFA in 2011 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she remained at SAIC working as an instructor in the Contemporary Practices department. Mills has exhibited work at Culturefix Gallery, NY; 6018 NORTH Gallery, Chicago; NEXT Fair, Chicago; Galerie Kollaborativ, Berlin; and The Invisible Dog Center, NY. www.jennifermills.org

Christopher Ottinger uses various media technologies to compress and distort our sense of time and space. He is particularly interested in how we as viewers no longer engage with the world itself, but instead how we interface with the world through technological mediaries. Ottinger received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2011, and his work has been exhibited in a number of American and international group shows including venues in Chicago, Missouri, Utah, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Berlin, Germany. www.christopherottinger.com

Stacia Yeapanis is an interdisciplinary artist and a member of the feminist art collective, Henbane. She participated in the inaugural 2011-2012 BOLT Residency, and will continue as a BOLT Mentor during this second year of the program. Yeapanis’ work, which explores the emotional and existential significance of repetitive and mediated experiences, is included in both the rotating Midwest Photographers Collection and the permanent collection at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006, and her first monograph was co-published in 2009 by Aperture and The Museum of Contemporary Photography. Exhibitions include Losing Yourself in the 21st Century (Atlanta and Baltimore), MP3 (Chicago), Everybody Hurts (Chicago), and Please Stand By: Stacia Yeapanis + Readymade (New York). Yeapanis has been nominated for a 2012 3Arts grant. www.staciayeapanis.com

BOLT Residency is a highly competitive, juried, one-year artist studio residency program offering contemporary emerging artists the opportunity to engage the Chicago arts community and its public in critical dialogue about contemporary art. The residency provides nine professional open-plan studios and a 500 square foot gallery space dedicated to residents. BOLT functions as an incubator program—taking a holistic approach to the development of residents’ artistic careers by providing: Studio Work Space (healthy and safe, open studio shared work spaces); Exhibition Opportunities (monthly rotating exhibitions of residents’ work in a dedicated gallery, including professional curating and marketing support); Professional Development (one-on-one studio visits from key arts/cultural leaders; free access to CAC’s monthly A.B.C. professional development workshops; and ongoing support from CAC staff); and Creative Community (creative peer/professional development community and environment encouraging and fostering collaboration among residents). Uniquely comprehensive, BOLT is structured to provide artists with myriad resources and support to create, build upon, and sustain a long-term career in the arts.

Chicago Artists’ Coalition, 217 N. Carpenter Street, Chicago, IL 60607. 312-491-8888
Holiday Gallery Hours December 7- December 21 are Monday-Friday 9:00am-5:00pm, and Saturday 12-6pm
CAC will be closed December 22, 2012-January 4, 2013 (Viewings available by appointment)