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Who Knew How to Dance | Frank Vega Exhibition
October 2 – November 3
Reception: Tuesday, October 10, 4:30-6:00 (talk at 5:00).
Location: Carlson Tower Galley
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00am-9:00pm
We can easily fall into a feeling of sameness, an attitude that the objects around us are simultaneously existing somewhere else – imported, shipped, branded, and digitally recreated. But through slower moving and deeper attention, Frank Vega shows us the exactness of our environments. By using found and carefully orchestrated objects, Vega becomes the conductor of materials, holding the tempo steady while allowing the interactions to swell and surprise us.
Moving between sculpture, painting, and installation, Vega’s work explores mythologies of objects, memory, and abstraction. He collages items sourced from home, flea markets, thrift stores, and weekly walks through Chicago’s streets, transforming them into larger presentational structures that take on aspects of bodies, garments, and altars. Their manipulation into coexisting units embraces new narratives of difference and otherness, all while becoming adaptable to the architecture of an exhibition site. The objects woven through his work speak to how identity and everydayness is constructed by individual parts that form a whole.
Currently, he is developing work around the idea of Units. This concept allows one to focus on the presentation aspects of his work. These Units become vessels of memory that transcend their physicality, creating objects of contemplation and power. These continuous interactions with the material world call us to consider the potential of one’s body as an altar of accumulated knowledge.
Frank Vega (b. 1992, Ecuador) is an interdisciplinary artist working with sculpture, painting, and hybrid objects. Different materials, surfaces, and shapes help Vega build what he calls “Units,” objects with unique attributions that coexist to create larger narratives. The work builds from his personal mythology, memories, current world events, abstraction, and other art histories.
Vega lives and works in Chicago. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Chicago Art Department, Chicago; MDW Fair at Mana Contemporary, Chicago; The Green Gallery, Milwaukee; Koik Contemporary, Mexico City; and the Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois. He has been awarded with a Frankenthaler Scholarship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Florence M. House Scholarship and the Helen E. Platt Blake Scholarship, both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Leroy Neiman Fellowship from Ox-Bow School of Art.