Miguel Cortez – Recurring Abstract Themes: Tactile & Virtual

At this point in my career I have become interested in revisiting artist's studios and musician's practice spaces. Reflection, persistence, rejuvenation, and change-in-focus, tend to be recurring threads in these encounters. This week, the COMP Magazine took the Pink line down to Marshall Square (Little Village) to do a ...
February 7, 2023
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Kim Piotrowski – Big Walls Need Big Brushes

Kim Piotrowski makes BIG art, both metaphorically and physically. Her drawings, paintings and public works clearly relay the pulse of a transitioning milieu. The ideas and palette are contemplative while disruptive, exciting while calm, and psychological while visceral, simultaneously. Simply put, Piotrowski's visual output is complex as is the ...
October 8, 2022
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Julie Weber – Subtleties in Light, Form, and Being

There is a sensual luminosity in the elegant approach to visual meditation in the practice of artist/photographer Julie Weber. In her photobook REMNANTS, published by Chicago's Skylark Editions, light experiments, and installation works one finds a clean and clear translation expanding investigation that references formal elements and ideas that ...
December 13, 2018
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Cody Tumblin – Nourishing Lambent Visual Provisions

When one considers the aesthetic practice of Cody Tumblin, they might envision an individual who is part alchemist and part cuisinier with one foot in the kitchen while the other firmly planted in the studio. In recent time, Tumblin has produced a handful of curious visual and culinary presentations ...
November 26, 2018
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James Kao – An Idea, Reference or Sensation

There is a quiet sensibility in the painter James Kao. Upon initial observation of his drawings and paintings one may recall artistic concerns and practices employed during the early 20th c. However, through deeper inspection one finds an investigative practice that questions the present. This can be seen in ...
May 6, 2018
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Claire Ashley – Inflatable Absurdity

Claire Ashley is a breath of fresh air (no kidding)! Creating larger than life inflatable and interactive sculpture, Ashley bridges formal and performative aspects in a playfully intelligent voice. The Comp Magazine recently visited Ashley at her Oak Park studio to discuss her unconventional practice and why artists don't ...
December 8, 2014
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