Merging Veil

Merging Veil is a site-specific installation at the Hairpin Arts Center, where the gallery’s fifteen windows become display cases for suspended reflective veils. Located at the intersection of N. Milwaukee, W. Diversey, and N. Kimball, the gesture of covering highlights the triangular corner where three streets converge, tracing the contours of the historic Morris B. Sachs building itself.

The piece explores light reflection as a flexible material, able to highlight space by contouring it. This silver interruption addresses those who pass through the intersection—commuters, bus riders, and neighbors—intervening in the everyday landscape.It seeks to question how we experience and understand what we see, and the depth of feeling that emerges through shifts in perception.

SECOND STORY WINDOWS

The Hairpin Arts Center was established as a 501(C)(3) not-for-profit in 2009, as the Logan Square Chamber of Arts. LSCA’s mission is to empower, engage, and transform our communities through the arts. The Logan Square Chamber of Arts was organized to promote the greater Logan Square community of Chicago as a vibrant and attractive cultural destination by enhancing cultural opportunities in the Logan Square area, showcasing local cultural institutions and artists through community events, and participating in the larger Chicago cultural community.

Maria Burundarena was born in 1989 in Paris, France, and grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is currently based in Chicago, USA. Maria is a visual artist and educator who has developed work as a textile designer and photographer printing different narratives in diverse objects and environments such as garments, sculptures, installations and LED screens. Maria’s work is currently focused on installations using large scale printed images, light projection and reflective materials.

One Was Already Too Many

This piece centers the children killed in the Gaza Conflict. The four-part window installation is self-luminous, featuring flickering electronic candles. Each of the four windows will display a frame built from foamcore and translucent mylar vellum in addition to the lights. The first window will feature a single name of a child killed in the conflict, accompanied by a single electronic candlelight. The second will feature four names and lights, indicating the rapid escalation in violence and death endemic to this conflict. The third window will feature 16 names, and the fourth will feature 32 names. The multiplication each time of the number of names implies the further tens of thousands of child deaths.

Front Windows | Upper Panes

Uprising Theatre is an innovative arts and performance non-profit working to give voice to people of Palestine and others who are marginalized. 

Founded by Iymen Chehade.

A native of Bogotá, Colombia, Paola Cabal has lived in Chicago since 2001. Trained in observational realism, Cabal continues to implement responsive looking in her increasingly diverse practice, which includes site-specific installation, collaborative work, and more recently curating and writing in addition to her ongoing engagement with more traditional drawing media.

Lemon

This mural installation is inspired directly by pages from my sketchbook. I am going through a part of my healing journey where I am making an effort to be more genuine with myself, carrying that raw, unfiltered, and intimate energy into this project. This piece, to me, was a practice to let ideas come to life without judgment or pressure to be perfect. This casual, sketch-like aesthetic is intentional as it reflects my commitment to being more honest and vulnerable in my creative expression, letting go of the urge to polish or hide parts of myself for the sake of outside approval.

The mural features elongated, almost dancing figures. Each one has flowers on their cheeks, symbolizing our deep connection to nature and the idea that, like flowers, we are natural beings meant to grow, bloom, and exist as we are. By embracing this imagery, I remind myself and others that authenticity is not only powerful but necessary for feeling truly connected to who we are.

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Brenda Quetzali is a Mexican fine artist based in Chicago, Illinois. She is a proud alumnus of the Osceola County School for the Arts. In 2016, she received the Visual Arts Merit Award from the National YoungArts Foundation. Her work was featured in the 2019 Scope Miami Art Fair and in a 2021 solo exhibition, “Leo”, at Evanston’s One River School of Art.

Quetzali’s paintings create a balance of the bright and whimsical with the dark and mystical, exploring how these elements coexist and inform one another. Through her art, she investigates the ways in which nature acts as a bridge to spirituality, using symbolism to connect the viewer to something larger than themselves. Her subjects are often adorned with flowers, especially on their cheeks, as a reminder that, like flowers, we come from the Earth. This motif speaks to the idea that we are all part of the same cycle, grounded in nature’s rhythm. Quetzali is  interested in how distortion and exaggeration of form can evoke emotional realism. She likes to manipulate and distort her work through methods like bleeding ink drawings with hand sanitizer and smudging wet acrylic paint with my fingers. Her muses are often fashion models.

“I have such a deep connection to faces and I love to paint them. 9/10 my paintings start with a face Once that’s locked its like the painting has found its identity and from that moment on I am just listening, no longer directing. I like exaggerating their features by giving them long fingers, legs or necks. My work, much like waves crashing against the shore, move and transform, capturing a sense of time passing, of evolution, and transformation,” Quetzali says.

La flor, el Sol, y Amistad

La flor, el Sol, y Amistad is a depiction of eternal love for community and nature, with influences of my heritage in the works. It’s imperative that we continue building relationships with our community members and practice mindfulness to fully experience the beautiful environment we are in. During such a tumultuous time, our community is how we continue growing, practicing empathy, and moving forward. We cannot enjoy community without taking care of ourselves and the environment around us. This is a love letter to those who inspired me to become the person that I am and appreciate the Earth around me.

This installation activates an otherwise vacant storefront on the street. This space is currently available for rent!

“Grief has played a major role in my pieces, displaying intensity and sorrow in concepts that were personal to me. However, I discovered that the core of the grief was a profound love for those who have touched my life. Drawing from my own experiences, I’ve woven romance into my work with vivid hues and unique portraits with the queer perspective. I am compelled to show the immense love in my life and by sharing my journey of love, I hope to evoke a deep emotional connection between the audience and the piece,” Nogueron says.

Fleeting Hopes

Fleeting Hopes reflects the artist’s desire to keep hopes and dreams alive in times of uncertainty and despair. Through this work, Aral seeks to create a space of awe and wonder—where the viewer can pause, look up, breathe, and feel connected to their own sense of longing and resilience.

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Pinar Aral (b.1970, Istanbul, Türkiye) has a BA from the Institute of Industrial Design in Florence, Italy. Since her introduction to clay in 2015, her creative practice has become a therapeutic one, finding clay indispensable for her emotional and mental well-being. Her sculptures are interpretations of feelings, experiences, and memories with an attempt to find meaning and beauty. Pinar’s work has been shown at SOFA, the Merchandise Mart, and reputable galleries in Chicago.

City of Conversation

This text-based artwork will join a collection of public text works that can be seen around Chicago and on Josue’s Instagram @josuepellot. When discussing this body of work, the artist, who was recently interviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times, explained:

“My first exposure to art was graffiti — text-based, direct, and in the street. That never left me. It’s not just about what’s said — it’s about where and how it lands,”

EXTERIOR WALL MURAL

Terrain Northwest is an expansion of EXTRA’s mission to support emerging artists by creating space for unconventional interactions with art and the community. EXTRA has been presenting shows of emerging and mid-carrer artists’ work since its inception in 2018, and it is dedicated to reducing barriers to new artists by cultivating opporitunity and allocating space.

Pellot currently resides in Chicago. He received his MFA from NorthwesternUniversity and his BFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Pellot has received attention through a number of solo exhibitions, among them: Universidad Catolica De Puerto Rico, Ponce, Puerto Rico; Museo de Arte de Caguas, Caguas, Puerto Rico; Chicago Cultural Center; and Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago. His work has been included in group exhibitions at: Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Contemporary Art Society, London; Vane Contemporary, Newcastle, England.