The work of graphic artist CHema Skandal! and artist/illustrator Diana Solís will be featured in “Este no es un cuento de hadas/This is not a fairy tale,” this year’s Hispanic Heritage Exhibition at Elmhurst College.
Solís and Skandal! describe their exhibition as “a journey through the bittersweetness of humanity, personified in children.” The main body of work reflects contemporary concerns and issues through almost whimsical images of childhood, notions of home, community, migration and displacement while still maintaining the instructional and cautionary tale aspect of their fairy tale background. Other work in the exhibit exemplifies the artists’ love of popular culture, graphics and music through their use of illustrations, paintings, posters and silk-screened work.
“Este no es un cuento de hadas/This is not a fairy tale” can be viewed days and evenings in the Founders Lounge of the Frick Center from Monday, September 15, through Friday, October 24. A reception with the artists will be held on Thursday, October 2, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Founders Lounge, with an artists’ talk at 5:00 p.m. Both the exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. For more information, call (630) 617-3390.
Solís and Skandal!, who have worked collaboratively before, present work that speaks to their interest, involvement and active participation within the contemporary discourse of urban art making. Solís’s acrylic and ink works and Skandal’s graphics are inspired by retro culture, Mexican and pop surrealism, politics, music and underground art.
The Hispanic Heritage Exhibition is one of about a dozen art shows that Elmhurst College hosts each academic year in two campus venues. In addition, the College’s A.C. Buehler Library permanently houses the College’s unparalleled collection of Chicago Imagist and Abstractionist Art, which explores the vibrant, often outrageous, yet precisely crafted works of Chicago artists between 1950 and the present. For more information, please contact Suellen Rocca at (630) 617-6110 or srocca@elmhurst.edu.