Itatani 2015

MICHIKO ITATANI: Cosmic Wanderlust II

InMichiko Itatani’scurrent exhibition, Cosmic Wanderlust II, she has created a world of dreams. Painted in miniature, the visual poetry of her imagination invites the viewer into enchanted spaces. Radiant chandeliers light an opulent theater. A library holds glowing planets as globes. A magical moonlit landscape seems inhabited by fairies or ghosts.

Itatani often describes her painting process in terms of writing, composing each phrase, paragraph, and chapter. Over the course of her career she has become a painter who writes paintings and a writer who paints novels. She has been called a world traveler informed by her experiences in transit. Cosmic Wanderlust II celebrates the complexity, beauty and creativity that are our better nature.

Originally from Japan, Itatani now calls Chicago home and has been a professor of painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 1979. She has received many prestigious awards including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship among many others. Her work is held in the public collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; American Embassy Permanent Collection, Brasilia, Brazil; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea, Museum D’art Contemporani, Barcelona, Spain and numerous others.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11-5 p.m. & by appointment.
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