Jelena Berenc’s exhibit Humanity portrays indelible imprints of the individual and of humanity.

Belenc believes every art piece has a responsibility to provoke an awareness of a very specific social, somatic or scientific truth/issue. Based on “durational, repetitional, excessive and endurance drawings,” minuscule elements become colossal art pieces through unique repetition of each mark. Most pieces contain tens and hundreds of thousands, even millions, of particularly chosen drawing elements.

“My work challenges how it is to be seen; whether to look in sequence or randomly, whether to look close up or just take it all in at once,” Berenc says in her artist’s statement. “The details pull the viewer towards the piece yet the collection of drawing elements creates the overall new visual experience that lets one appreciate the severity, seriousness or immensity of the issue.

Humanity begins on Tuesday, March 12, in the Barbara A. Kieft Accelerator ArtSpace and ends on Saturday, April 13. Built around a 20-foot-high particle accelerator dating back to the 1950s, the Accelerator ArtSpace is open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from noon to 4:00 p.m. The exhibit will be closed from March 25–31 for Spring Recess.

A public reception for the artist will be held from 4:30–6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 20, with an artist’s talk beginning at 5:00 p.m. Admission to the exhibition and reception is free, and the public is invited.

This 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 Director of Exhibits Suellen Rocca at (630) 617-6110 or [email protected].