Peeta : White Out

For Immediate Release

Peeta : White Out
January 11 - March 1, 2014
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 11, from 6pm - 10pm.

Chicago, IL [December 3, 2013} Maxwell Colette Gallery is proud to present White Out, new paintings from the renowned Italian graffiti artist Peeta (Manuel Di Rita). This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

With his work, Peeta attempts to isolate the sculptural quality of individual letters, namely the ones that spell out his own moniker. He breaks them free from their generic typographical forms, stylizing them with shape and volume beyond their mere semantic function. Thus the lettering is brought into the fluidity of urban culture, where words are continuously ruptured from their own histories and readapted into idiom and gestures learned off the street. Peeta fuses traditional lettering and three dimensional style into a unique visual rhythm of twisting conic and cylindrical surfaces. The choice to represent and reiterate his own name is akin to painting self-portraits.

The exhibition,White Out, will present white-on-white canvases inspired by the aesthetics of crystalline water ice: its consistency, its colors, its perceived changes in shape and texture. Peeta explains “tone on tone canvases are painted with the aim of integrating light and shade with the study of shapes. By using the same color for the object and the background, I am able to isolate the projection of shades in their precise variations while also modulating the contrasts between different tones of the same color.”

Peeta states that the paintings in White Out are an “attempt to render the most deceptive condition that snow can cause; in which visibility and contrast are so severely reduced that no reference point remains, and the individual experiences a distorted orientation.” Far from cold, these new paintings instead exude a "bright, sparkling, total whiteness".

About the Artist: Peeta, also known as Manuel Di Rita, currently lives in Venice. A graffiti artist since 1993, he is a member of the EAD crew (Padova, Italy), FX and RWK crews (New York City) and has been exhibited widely in Europe and the Americas. His work explores the potential of sculptural lettering, both in painting and in sculpture. Peeta's works are aimed at revealing the deceptiveness of human perception and the fallacy of narrow and fixed points of view through visual tricks which confer a three-dimensional semblance on a pictorial representation, ultimately revealing their will to deceive.

Alecks Cruz : Redemption

For Immediate Release

Alecks Cruz : Redemption
January 11 - March 1, 2014
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 11, from 6pm - 10pm.

Chicago, IL [December 16, 2013] Maxwell Colette Gallery is pleased to present Redemption, new sculptures from the Chicago-based artist Alecks Cruz. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

Alecks Cruz is, at his core, a lettersmith. He explores the composition of individual letters and the unique beauty that each character has to offer. For his large-scale letterform sculptures, Cruz utilizes discarded cardboard shipping boxes as his materials. He focuses on the structural form of individual graffiti style letters, creating a framework for finer detail; embellishment with marquetry-style geometric panels fashioned from sections of the box’s printing. The three dimensional sculptures are meant to be viewed from all angles, and range in height up to three feet tall. Redemption will feature the debut of six new sculptures. With regard to the title of this body of work, Cruz states “just as graffiti art was forged out of penury into an eloquent art, I chose to redeem abandoned materials.” The fusion of classic style lettering and repurposed materials creates works that, in this case, are not merely crafty updates of throw-back visuals.

These pieces, fashioned out of redeemed cardboard, are Cruz’s personal reaction to the co-opting of graffiti by external forces. Through the act of slicing the cardboard's printed branding and commercial typography, destroying it, and ultimately reconfiguring it into a graffiti based form, Cruz is able to exact a measure of revenge for the distasteful marketing that threatens to reduce graffiti to cliche. 

About the Artist: Alecks Cruz was born in Chicago, IL in 1984 and currently lives in Berwyn, IL. Alecks works within the realm of graffiti art, creating pieces that are unbound by a single dimension. Although he started with a spray can as most graffiti artists do, Alecks now focuses on creating three-dimensional graffiti letters that extend outside the traditional application of the art but retain the stylistic essence of the art form. Alecks is a self-taught artist and graphic designer who was the winner of the Chicago Cut & Paste Characterized competition in 2013 and Chicago's 2011 Fringe Festival design contest.

Opening November 9th: Sidewalk Scholar

For Immediate Release

Mario Gonzalez Jr. : Sidewalk Scholar
November 09 - December 31, 2013
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 09, from 6pm - 10pm

Chicago, IL [October 01, 2013]- Maxwell Colette Gallery is pleased to present Sidewalk Scholar, a solo exhibition of new work from Mario Gonzalez Jr. The show will present large-scale mixed media paintings on wood along from the noted Chicago painter. The exhibit is slated to run from November 09 - December 31, 2013 with an opening reception on Saturday, November 09 from 6 - 10pm.

Gonzalez’s paintings have been described as abstract, but they are far more interested in realities than abstractions. A comparison may be drawn with the loose spontaneity of Asian calligraphy as these works are conceived in the mind’s eye and executed with the swiftness of thought. But the true inspiration for the bold, sinuous forms that inhabit Gonzalez’s paintings are street glyphs, painted with rollers by gang members in the sixties and seventies. These primal markings were intended as signposts for an urban sub-culture but they ended up inspiring the international graffiti culture that would follow. For Gonzalez, who grew up in a world emblazoned with these markings, Sidewalk Scholar is an opportunity to re-contextualize these cryptic runes from the past, and to redirect their energies. Gonzalez’s paintings are shot through with a powerful sense of place, presenting stunned memories of archaic street symbols, objectified and distilled down to their true visual essence.

About the Artist: Mario Gonzalez Jr.’s artistic vision comes from the fusion of fine art training at SAIC plus twenty years of graffiti practiced on global streets. In 2013 Gonzalez has seen his work exhibited in a number of museums including MIIT in Turino, Italy, The National Mexican Museum in Chicago and The Chicago Cultural Center. Sidewalk Scholar is the first solo exhibition for Mario Gonzalez Jr. at Maxwell Colette Gallery. Further information may be found on his website: www.mariogonzalezjr.com. 

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7 Questions: Zore

Chicago-based graff writer-turned fine artist Mario Gonzalez Jr., also known as Zore, has been keeping busy this summer. He just had a killer solo show at the Museo Internazionale Italia Arte, and represented the US in the International Meeting of Styles in Wiesbaden, Germany, before heading back to the states to prepare for MoS Chi and a solo show this fall at Maxwell Colette. We caught up with him before his European tour, while he was painting a mural on  the Violet Hour in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.

How did you first get into graffiti and painting?

Believe or not my exposure to graffiti was since birth. My parents and family members wrote on buildings and subway stations here in Chicago since the early 60s. Later on in my youth I grew up in the 70s where muralist and activist took over the streets of Chicago.

Do you remember your first tag? 

My first "tag" was JR/JUNIOR in tall simple blockish letters when I was like 9 or 10.

Any good close call stories you can share with us?

Lots of "close call" stories...but the best were subway stories... Like the times we would get caught right outside the subway yards with a car full of young mixed race kids with bags of paint and the cops are like "wtf is going on here," and I would tell everyone the same story, "I'm an artist at SAIC! And these are my students and we've been painting all night and I'm dropping them off at the train station," hearts racing knowing damn well half the crew was in the train yards painting already...probably even watching us from the yards talking to the cops, only to be let loose half hour later.

Have you bombed anything you later regretted? 

One of my biggest regrets came early in life..I must have been 15 and I would keep tagging the same wall on 35 st day after day only to see it had been cleaned the next day. Till one day I was on the 35 st bus and saw this old ass man that walked slower than a snail scrubbing and scrubbing away and it was then I vowed to keep my bombing to public property...which in the end was a good thing.

Where do you draw your inspiration? 

My studio work comes from hanging out at museums and walking the streets my whole life observing the urban grime. My tags are inspired by old Chicago hand styles. My full on burners have more of a Trixter/Orko feel. They're two writers that influenced the crap out of true Chicago pieces.

How do you feel about graffiti moving into galleries? 

Graffiti in museums and Galleries have occurred longer than 90% of us been writing. One of the first graffiti exhibits in the world was here in Chicago at the museum of science and industry in 1973! I was 3 yrs old..lol! I've been showing in galleries and museums since the mid 80s and it changes nothing. I believe that knowing our place in art history is important seeing that most artists have no place in history. Makes me feel proud for never quitting or giving up.

Mario VS Zore?

Well that is an interesting subject right there... I believe that both of my alter egos have a place in this world and the man/child inside of me must harvest this energy and make them both function on a level that won't end up killing me, lol. I've been working my whole life developing both souls and staying clear from negative energy from both the art world and graff world, as well and have come to the conclusion that life is about living the best case scenario.

As I sit here in a hallway for better reception in a bed and breakfast from across the world knowing where I came from and where I am now having solo shows in museums and galleries while painting in the streets and packing bags of paint at night fully sponsored as well as self funded from sales and commissions I would say that I am right where I need to be Right Now! Thanks to my familia! Sergio Gomez! The Zhou Family! Liz Lazdins and MAYA for everything that I am doing today. Stay Bold Chicago!