NOT REALLY | Tall Grass Arts Association

N O T R E A L L Y

Seeking Abstraction

Tall Grass Gallery will present NOT REALLY, a huge new show that opens on Saturday, October 2, 2021, with a reception from 1–3pm. Everyone is invited to view the exhibit and visit with the artists that afternoon. Refreshments will be served, and masks are required during this event.

This exhibit focuses on artists’ works that move beyond or alter literal portrayals, illustrations, or documentations of observed reality using various means of abstracting images. Included will be more than ninety pieces by 53 artists who have explored the idea of abstraction through a range of definitions, directions, and interpretations. Their works have been created as photographs, collage and mixed media, monoprints and linocuts, art quilts, acrylic and oil paintings, watercolors, encaustics, and sculptures.

Abstract works often exist solely as investigations of design elements and principles: arrangements in two- or three-dimensional space of lines, shapes, forms, values, colors, patterns, texture.

Balance, movement, contrast, dominant and subordinate elements, relationships and tensions, suggestions of space or forms, all may also play significant rolls in abstract compositions.

And some abstract works focus primarily on media, use of tools and materials, the process of working, and as much on the intuitive response to how the process evolves as on predetermined images or statements.

Sometimes abstract compositions are extractions from, simplifications of, enlargements of, transformations of, or expressive interpretations of existing objects or subjects. Sometimes they reduce a subject to its most basic essence. And sometimes they are simply means of drawing attention to objects that are arranged in a beautifully designed way – focusing on those essential abstract qualities of an image.

Sometimes they are pure geometric or organic inventions. They may be built upon repetitions of observed or imagined motifs, free-flowing mark-making across a surface, or rhythmic elements or symbols set in orderly rows or grids or compartments.

And sometimes abstractions are symbolic representations of intangible emotions, thoughts, concepts – visual metaphors making visible what often is invisible, through a language of personal, non-literal marks.

Artists included in NOT REALLY are: Jay Anderson, Marcia Babler, Eileen Backman, Joseph Barabe, Robert Bator, Darcy Berg, James Bowden, Maggie Capettini, Mary Carnahan, Christina Cooley, Maureen Cribbs, Karen DeWitt, Rita Dianni-Kaleel, Bill Dixon, Barbara Eberhard, Susan Flanagan, Andrea Fox, Jeanne Garrett, Janet Glazar, Carol Grant, Peter Gray, Margi Hafer, Madeline Henry, Fran Hollander, Jori Jackson, Malika Jackson, David Jagodzinski, Kevin Koethe, Jill Kramer, Alexis Krapf, Laura Lein-Svencner, John Martin, Joe McIlhany, Margaret McKerral, Janice Meister, Bob Nardi, Julia Oehmke, Kathryn Parenti, Kate Patterson, Gloria Payne, Joseph Perryman, Ginny Raftery, Don Sala, Bill Schahfer, Stephen Schiff, Richard Schmidt, John Spomar, Patricia Stewart, Patrick Thompson, Carol Thorner, Marvin Wells, Ed Whitmore, and Reg Ziemann.

The artists in the show come from Illinois and eleven other states, from California to New York, Colorado to

Florida, and many are exhibiting in our gallery for the first time. They will share a collection of personal responses to how abstract images can look, how they can be made, and how a language of shapes and forms, color and texture, can convey rich meanings and beautiful, personal visions – designed, transformed, and imagined.

Curators for NOT REALLY are Claudia Craemer and Debbie Craemer, who are joined by Paula Mattson in judging for awards. The exhibit will run through November 6, 2021.

All are welcome to view the show and meet the artists at the Opening Reception on Saturday,

October 2, 1-3pm.

Tall Grass Arts Association, 367 Artists Walk, Park Forest, IL 60466