In Chicago, artists initiate interdisciplinary and intergenerational exhibitions of their backyards, basements, showers, and even of their flower vases. It’s the spirit of experimentation fostered by the town’s academic institutions, especially the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which cultivates a mess of talented artists annually.

In line with Kate Sierzputowski, co-director of Julius Caesar and programming head of EXPO Chicago 2022, these shoestring projects are susceptible to extinction and rebirth from their rapid burn-out. It’s unsustainable to supply shows every six weeks in a dirty, leaky space on top of operating a practice and job. MICKEY, which began as grassroots venue Courtney Blades in 2010, underwent a technique of “forced upscaling and metamorphosis” in 2018 to stay viable.

The gallery, which is committed to advancing artists’ careers, goals to construct long-term relationships with collectors and acknowledges that sales alone don’t forecast success. Nevertheless, legitimisation makes it harder to organise shows purely for fun. With its playful approach, Barely Fair, which launched in 2019, goals to bridge this gap by combining emerging and established galleries in a single international, miniature art fair. Tables lower than belly height allow viewers to peek into dollhouse-sized booths.

In Chicago, visitors can enjoy as many as ten shows in a single afternoon across neighbourhoods (assuming they’ve a vehicle). While established galleries across River North and West Town normally coordinate openings, artist-led spaces have a tough time connecting since they’re scattered. Despite the geographical dispersal of creativity, Chicago still faces the results of redlining, which enforced segregation throughout the twentieth and twenty first centuries.

The Black Arts Movement was largely rooted in South-side neighbourhoods – as an example, Bronzeville-inspired American poet Gwendolyn Brooks’ seminal poetry collection, “A Street In Bronzeville” (1945), while the Grand Boulevard area is home to visual artists AFRICOBRA’s outdoor mural “Wall of Respect” (1967-1971). In light of the town’s complicated history, many artists develop projects that address social issues: be they policies, politics, or placemaking. Chicago’s Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) artists continuously create artistic spaces inside their communities, but sustaining their practices beyond these is the challenge.

The low rent in Chicago and its centralised location inside the US make it a chief launchpad for growth and development; just two hours from Latest York and 4 from Los Angeles by plane. Artists thrive here, there isn’t a pressure to suit right into a trend and the culture of competition is absent. For this reason, creatives aren’t only supported but in addition have space to experiment with mediums and take risks than in additional densely populated areas.

Although artists often start in Chicago after which leave to pursue a world audience and greater earnings, its role as a training ground is changing. Technology has played a big role in people staying longer and investing more, largely because everyone involved is increasingly socially connected. Because the city is persistently on the move, so too are its project spaces and apartment galleries. But while the Windy City’s environment changes continually, the prominence of artists stays constant.

Graphic design, music and fashion intersect in artist Brandon Breaux’s practice. His penchant for portraits stems from studying those that impact him. Having led a fast-paced life, gratitude guided his “Meditation” (2020) exercise series, and appreciation guided his “28 Days of Greatness” painting series (2021). The artist’s first solo exhibition “Big Words” at Blanc Gallery combines typography with figures, testing the mind’s right and left functions. Despite the title suggesting complex language, his ’big words’ are exactly that: ’Seen’, ’Dignity’ or ‘Lord’.

By buying a house in his childhood neighbourhood, the artist became rooted in his family dialect. Then he realised he didn’t wish to speak in one other’s voice about his practice. A central theme presented is just not conforming his work to another person’s language. His artworks examine the expectations of jargon and the way it defines areas. In line with Breaux, “the language we use and what we express do indirectly correlate, since all of us perceive things otherwise.” ​​A variety of what we are saying is just not even of our own selecting but is influenced by socialisation and conditioning.

Having studied sculpture in Baltimore, artist Taína Cruz began painting after relocating to Chicago. Her fondness for image-making stemmed from collecting visuals on Tumblr and Dump FM. Her free-flowing pieces explore color and materiality through intuition. The artist grew up in Latest York and has family ties to Puerto Rico and North Carolina, which explains the mix of agriculture and graffiti in her work. Having ancestors who lived in America for 400 years, she describes herself as “coming from a magical heritage where spirituality exists even within the dirt.”

Exaggerated characters with elf ears combined with symbols like weapons are utilized by the artist to handle mysticism, satirise the witch stereotype, or uncover meanings behind objects. Despite their evil nature, her villainous characters also enjoy comfort. Her work falls into satire-horror tropes, especially when reconciling trauma, colonialism and Black femininity. Cruz’s portraits possess an otherworldly quality, their neon colors evoking traffic lights in addition to sunrises and sunsets over Lake Michigan. In her role as a guide and storyteller, she believes discussing history is vital. Nonetheless, much more so is ensuring their survival.

The visual lexicon of artist Yvette Mayorga intersects consumer culture, immigration and militarisation with Rococo iconography. She grew up in Moline before moving to Chicago, where her parents settled within the 70s after emigrating from Mexico. 50 years on, Mayorga revives her family’s forgotten history through her work, exhibited in vibrant containers on the acclaimed group show Skin within the Game.

The artist builds layers of acrylic directly onto canvas and wood, which she squeezes from a piping bag, presenting narratives in a celebratory and complex way. A primary-generation Latinx, her artwork is informed by labour-intensive techniques reminiscent of cake piping, which recalls her mother’s former occupation as a baker. The hints at food correspond to consumerism, which is a culture of capitalism. The American Dream, a perfect rarely realised, is subverted through Mayorga’s use of a Late Baroque aesthetic, very à la Marie Antoinette. The color pink is used to satirise this facade, suggesting femininity. Her practice draws on girl-centric, decadent and opulent celebrations that she claims reflect the flourishing of culture of immigrant families in a foreign land.

A Chicago local, artist Isabelle Frances McGuire combats depression with their artwork at MICKEY in EXPO Chicago. They explore how people cope when losing agency or power, especially during times of climate disaster or accelerated political turmoil. The artist’s sculptural machines, coded to maneuver and generate a symphony of sounds, evoke emotion. Their silicon faces are sourced from sex robots and their oversized female bodies are modeled after child mannequins. Being plus-sized of their childhood, they’re excited by the complexity of human form in relation to society. 

The sculptures, which have youthful faces with aged features, cosplay a movie incarnation of sixteenth US President Abraham Lincoln and a videogame avatar of ​​​​German philosopher Karl Marx. It’s no surprise that folks turn to games and flicks for solace amid today’s chaotic conditions. Within the words of McGuire, they seek “a simulated control or a sublimated release of hysteria, disenfranchisement and powerlessness.” Of their practice, they explore minimal means of constructing people comfortable and use this tactic to awaken people’s repressed feelings in regards to the world.

Popular culture, anime and porn inform the fleshy and pouty hybrid avatars of Texas-born, Chicago-based artist Ricardo Partida. He takes inspiration from the promotional content of online platform OnlyFans, particularly the anticipation within the “click for more” button. The artist claims that his figures act like a slap within the face, one “that’s presented to you, and sometimes you get to look at it, but the actual interest comes when it gets to look at you back.”

His compositions mix art historical trolls with Kim Kardashian’s posts, serving as suits the artist can wear to enter into or project fantasies onto. The figures may even bend over to accommodate the canvas’s square shape, letting as many pinpoints through as possible. Carol Ockman’s book Ingres’s eroticized bodies (1996) influenced Partida in tracing where the female or ’other’ gender originated in art. The writer describes the crossover between femininity, seduction, and beastliness. The soft body shapes that Partida uses explore how gender is perceived. His oil depictions emphasise the queer-coding of villains through their long capes and thigh-high boots, making them appear menacing and evil.

Though artist Nereida Patricia’s beaded and glittered art appears digital, it’s been handcrafted in Chicago. While living in Latest York, she created miniature paintings in her bedroom, now her works cross sound, text and sculpture. Having Peruvian ancestry, she is inspired by Arpilleras, patchworks made by Chilean women for social motion. Her works don’t avoid pain and protest, explaining, “as a former sex employee, my experiences find their way into my work, sometimes troubling ones.”

Skeletons often symbolise mortality and problems with biology, together with doves signifying transformation at funerals and weddings. Latex and rubber are seductive materials used to color vogue performers, people sporting looks, and the queer nightlife scene. Her textural pieces explore trans femininity, violence, gender, Black queerness, alternative family structures, remembrance, and natural processes within the body. Growing up together with her father who was a construction employee, she is very concrete-forward, even photographing jewellery within the cracks of sidewalks. Diagnosed with autism as an adult, she has also worked alongside Arts of Life, a collective of artists with developmental or mental disabilities. Her technique of creating art in a physical space is spiritual; a communion together with her personal narrative.

Originally from St Petersburg, Florida, artist Jake Troyli moved to Chicago in 2020, attracted by its welcoming community. Since then, Troyli’s figures have transcended the canvas. Taking his cue from Renaissance paintings, he emphasises Black figuration to reflect their absence from the classical canon. His oil paintings depict him posing naked for the viewer, exploring the paradox of empowerment and vulnerability. Despite their centre stage, his subjects are reduced to things to be consumed. Besides being difficult to contain, his self-portraits don’t fit into the limited space.

Black figuration is complicated for the artist because it is in vogue in the mean time, but he also advantages from it. As a Division One basketball player, he was fascinated by the notion of being on display and a part of a spectacle, where he was often treated as a commodity, yet nevertheless presented with opportunities. In his solo exhibition Slow Clap at Monique Meloche Gallery, he created an array of daring, blown-up figures that represented anger. With social media in mind, they suggest a theatre of mourning, whereby people claim allyship and use grief to achieve cultural capital.