What Women Are Thinking About is a group show of works by women artists from around the world at Liz Long art gallery at Urban Art Retreat in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago. The show is on display through Mar. 23, 2024 at 1957 S. Spaulding Ave. Chicago, Il. 60623. Visitors may catch the show on Saturdays from 1-4 or by contacting the gallery for an alternate date/time. contact@urbanartretreat.com
“Picking 4” which depicts anxious habits, work by Kuharchuk
Some artists are local such as Val Cavin who resides in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago. Her piece is about growing old. Val says look forward not backward with regrets. Julia Shangguan from the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago contributed a dynamic piece about Asian women feeling a need to assimilate. Tamara Berger of Serbia says her primary focus in painting is on feminism and LGBTQ+ rights. She has contributed a piece called “Mothers are Super Heroes”. Veronica Ceci from Texas has two pieces in the show about air quality and pesticides. Nymera of Texas has a piece in the show called Since You Asked, about women of color often being asked what is on their minds. Maria Coletsis, of Vancouver Canada, shows us a beautiful photograph of roses and when you look up close you see the pot is not a pot but a covid mask and when you look closer, you see on the mask a man spraying pesticides. One of the pieces that Cat Roberts has in the show says- I Am worthy I Am Bold I Am Melaninaire. Cassandra Robinson from Wisconsin’s assemblage piece is about Incarceration. Meghan Du from the UK enchanted everyone with her art- TRIBE about women’s land and women’s empowerment. Renee Kuharchuk of Bartlett, Illinois also fascinated people with her pieces. Both large, one is called Property or Commodity is the pelvis bones of a woman with paper money woven in & out of it, the other is hands, picking the skin especially around the fingernails and is called Picking (about anxiety). Monica Mills from Prague contributed a powerful piece alluding to (FGM)FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION. The piece is comprised of pieces of canvas not too big sewn together on a round form. The canvas pieces have traces of reddish hue. And we have a black and white photograph by a woman we shall call L who is self- identified as homeless. She lives in Australia. L told me she was hard pressed to enter the show since some men had just stolen everything she had. The photograph is high contrast mostly black above the large tree. Top heavy with black sky, at the very bottom one sees a very small woman reading/studying a book on her lap with legs crossed, on some cement, in front of where it says Modern Contemporary Art on the building.
Renee Kuharchuk’s Property or Commodity
The curator is an artist, originally from New York. Dianna C. Long has included her collaged tall cupboard piece- Woman As Survivor which chronicles the decades she has put into showing art by women who have survived trauma (mostly rape, domestic violence, incest). She has covered a tall old cupboard from top to bottom, even the door with scraps of papers about the art shows and times they existed in. The artists bared their trauma selves and allowed the public to look at their art about surviving trauma. This validation and sharing helped to heal the artists and some viewers. For others is has been an awakening.
Also included in the art show is a video of many of the actual pieces that have been in the largest Woman As Survivor art show that Dianna has curated. This silent video of one trauma piece after another on view to see is riveting. It is here to see. Dianna says that many women are thinking of wanting to be safe from rape, domestic violence, and incest.
