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12.11
Rituals of Presence
Thursday, October 16, 2025 from 5-8pm
Chelsea Bighorn an emard Ruth Poor
Christine Magill
Chicago Artists Coalition presents Rituals of Presence, a three-person exhibition by 2024-26 Artist Residents Chelsea Bighorn, an emard, and Ruth L. Poor, curated by 2024-26 Curatorial Resident Christine Magill.
What is a ritual? Repetitive actions and words done with specific intent for a certain outcome.
What then is the process of making art?
Conversations delving into this process were the catalyst for the creation of this exhibition. Each work selected is an example of the ritual of creation: time spent performing repetitive movements of brushing paint on a canvas, looping thread through beads and fabric, smoothing clay into its desired shape, soldering glass pieces together. Each work explores the artist’s presence, their history, their thoughts and ideas and experiences, made by their hands to give something of themself to the world and have the world feel something in return.
Chelsea Bighorn’s hand-beaded, hand-dyed canvases are at once a remembrance and an embrace of her Indigenous identity. Her large works emit a sense of sweeping grandness while a step closer reveals intricate detailing – the individual aspects adding up to a remarkable whole while also making something greater. Each piece creates a confluence of broad movement and minute stillness; the flow of the dye, the shine of the beads, and the drape of the canvas echo the moment that stretches into infinity before we are released into motion.
an emard gives the viewer a window into the mythic reality of queer existence. Their paintings come to life through techniques of giving and taking, their hand both adding and removing, demonstrating a confluence of moments. Their glass works accentuate a dual reality, using light and shadow alongside a concurrent breaking and rejoining to create a moment of multiplicity - how we are now and how we are after.
Ruth L. Poor invokes the dichotomy of strength and fragility through their use of feminine religious imagery amid the intersection of textiles and ceramic. Their pieces, while small and seemingly breakable, are a testament to dedication, power, and resurrection – handworked raw materials enter the fires of the kiln and exit as a new version of themselves. The detail in their works is an act of worship, of acknowledging and paying homage to the existence of multiple universes within the self and throughout the world.
In a moment of ever-pervasive technology, artificial intelligence, large learning machines, and the ubiquitousness of screens, Rituals of Presence invites you to engage with the physical process of creating, embrace the multitudes of existence, and experience each instant of time. These works remind us that the hand of the artist is everywhere, and those hands speak through their creation rituals. Their hands are present throughout. Present past, present now, present future.
The ritual demands your presence.
The opening reception will be on October 16 from 5-8pm.
About Curators
Christine Magill (she/they; b. Boston, MA, 1996) is a curator, nonprofit administrator, and art collections professional currently based in Chicago, Illinois. She received a BA in French Studies from Boston University in 2018 and MAs in Modern and Contemporary Art History and Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2023. Previous curatorial projects include two iterations of <i>New Work</i> and the 2022 SAIC <i>Faculty Sabbatical Triennial</i> at SAIC Galleries.
Christine's curatorial practice centers around ideas of space, time, materials, and connections, specifically examining architecture and spatial layout of display spaces in direct conversation with the artworks shown alongside artists' material processes of creating. They are also interested in languages, translations, cultural differences, and global understanding as methods of both curation and communication. As such, she speaks proficient French alongside her native English and is working on their literacy in Korean and German.
Image: Christine Magill, Installation shot of New Work, 2021. Work pictured: Liang He, Running Bunny (2021), plastic fabrics, fans, cardboard, and wires; and Xinyan Wang, Intriguing Uncertaintied (2020), acrylic on cardboard
About Artists
Chelsea Bighorn (b.1989) was born and raised in Tempe, Arizona, and is Lakota, Dakota and Shoshone – Paiute. She is a textile artist that works in finding the beauty in her rich mixed Native American and Irish American heritage. Finding great inspiration in the history of traditional dance, Bighorn works to celebrate her memories of attending Powwows with her grandmother through her large-scale textile pieces.
Bighorn has a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Fiber Material Studies. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, SITE Santa Fe, EXPO Chicago and Center for Native Futures.
Image: Chelsea Bighorn, Vertebrae, 2024, Canvas, MX dye, artificial sinew, glass beads, 64" x 68"
Headshot: Lillian Heredia
an emard’s practice is a meditative process exploring world-building mythologies and the myth-making potential of queerness. Working with oil paint and leaded glass, they find poetry in the space between art and meaning; between concept, intention, and form.
In emard’s paintings, the surface of the canvas is in an interstitial state at all times. The image finds its way through processes of rubbing and blending paint on the surface and acts of removal by sanding and scraping. It is through this approach that emard creates an atmosphere of becoming, where boundaries are forgiving and time is nonlinear. Emard’s leaded-glass objects function as viewfinders and are a means to implicate and imprint physical space. The accumulation of glass and solder impose image, gesture, and frame onto their surroundings as an acknowledgement and question. In doing so, these leaded-glass objects create a kaleidoscope of the coexisting queer mythologies.
Like queerness, the future exists in the cracks and gestures of the present. It is from this devotional, affective space that emard creates art that enchants, clinging to the notion that art is a conduit towards new places, dimensions, and futures.
an emard was born into a working-class family in suburban Chumash Land / Ventura, CA and spent their formative years navigating queerness in the shadow of the Catholic Church and the light of lemon orchards, asphalt, and the Pacific Ocean. emard now resides on the unceded homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires / Chicago, IL. emard has exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Vermont at venues including Steve Turner Gallery, Block Museum, Usdan Gallery, Kibum MacArthur, Weatherproof, Some Clouds, among others.
Image: an emard, Viewfinder, 2022
Ruth L. Poor (b. 1989), raised in Indiana, uses their work to dissect memories of the rural Midwest and to investigate intersections between power, American history, faith, and deviancy. Poor received their MFA from the Painting & Drawing department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and completed their B.A. in Studio Art and Religious Studies at Cornell College and DePauw University. They currently reside in Chicago, Illinois, where they teach at SAIC, North Central College, College of DuPage, and advise with the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project. They have shown work nationally and internationally at venues such as the University of Chicago [Chicago, IL], A.C.L.I. Gallery [Monte Castillo di Vibio, Italy], Secrist|Beach Gallery [Chicago, IL], the New York Academy of Art [New York, NY], Zolla/Lieberman Gallery [Chicago, IL], Art EXPO [Chicago, IL], The Green Gallery [Milwaukee, WI], ADDS DONNA Gallery [Chicago, IL], Manifest Gallery [Cincinnati, OH], Woman Made Gallery [Chicago, IL], and Indiana University [Bloomington, IN]. They are also the current Artist-in-Residence with the Chicago Artist Coalition (2024-2026).
Headshot: Ricardo Bouyett
Image: Broken Covenant (After the World on a Foot), 2023, Found tapestry, embroidery, spray paint, acrylic, and oil on canvas, 18" x 24" x 1"
(updated 2025)
