EXPO CHICAGO 2024
Chicago Navy Pier | Eric Firestone Gallery | Booth 212
April 11–14, 2024
EXPO CHICAGO 2024
Vincent Baldassano • Cato • Uday Dhar • Susan Fortgang • Regina Granne • Huê Thi Hoffmaster • Soren Hope • Sana Musasama • Michael Rosch
Vincent Baldassano
Carole #3, 1977
acrylic on canvas mounted on wood
50 x 64 in.
127 x 162.6 cm.
(VBAL022)
Vincent Baldassano (b. 1944) is a rigorous experimenter who has worked in a wide range of styles, mediums, and techniques, always driven by an interest in formalism and rich color. The various periods of his work include figural and non-figural abstraction, surrealist and neo-humanist tendencies, as well as experiments with shaped canvas. Baldassano completed his BFA at Wagner College, Staten Island, NY and his MFA in Painting and Drawing at the University of Oregon. Breaking with the dominance of Abstract Expressionism, Baldassano integrated the figure into his work, in paintings and bronze sculptures inspired by Paleolithic fertility goddess icons. He eventually distorted the figure into biomorphic abstractions.
Uday Dhar
Untitled, 2023
acrylic on canvas board
29 3/4 x 23 3/4 in.
75.6 x 60.3 cm.
(DHAR071)
Toby Grant aka Cato (b. 2000) is a multidisciplinary artist and musician based in London. Cato pairs acrylic, collage, and airbrush in his paintings, and through his practice aims to explore the foundations of art, belonging, and Black culture. Cato paints scenes constructed from old photos he sources from his father’s books or the internet. The artist paints his subjects’ larger-than-life faces first, before constructing a scene around them with collaged puzzle pieces. The visible edges and deliberately disjointed quality of his paintings reflect the artist’s fascination with the energy of the street, film animation, and jazz.
Uday Dhar is an artist who explores identity through materials and subject matter sourced from both the Indian subcontinent and New York. Dhar was born in Britain and raised in India before immigrating to the United States. The artist’s hybrid identity, as Asian American and queer, has influenced Dhar’s interest in the tension between self-expression and cultural heritage. His artistic projects are based on personal experience and also serve as a commentary on the larger cultural transformations that are taking place in the United States and in India.
Regina Granne
Untitled, c. 1967–1970
oil on linen
72 1/8 x 60 3/16 in.
183.2 x 152.9 cm.
(RGRAN008)
Susan Fortgang (b. 1944) is an abstract painter who has maintained a dedicated studio practice since the 1960s. Growing up in Sunnyside, Queens, Fortgang’s interest in art came through early experiences making things—potholders, horseshoes, needlepoint. Fortgang approaches each canvas as an experiment, working out a specific problem or trying something new with every painting. Through this mode of working, Fortgang has created decades-long series of works in which no two paintings are the same, nor is her practice codified. She creates paintings with a physical presence, often using thick layers of paint to create textured surfaces or iridescent medium so that her works create different optical effects depending on lighting or as the viewer moves in space.
Regina Granne (1939–2013) was an artist interested in the interplay between representation, perception, and form. While working with the traditional subject matter of Western art, Granne navigated what it meant to be a woman artist. She developed a distinct approach to realism, favoring nudes, still lives, and interiors as compositions that reveal the constructed nature of representation and vision. She attended Cooper Union and eventually earned both her BFA (1961) and MFA (1963) at Yale, where she was primarily trained in abstraction. Her paintings and drawings of the 1960s–90s appear to use neutral subject matter like nudes, domestic objects, and floral arrangements. However, Granne’s awareness of art history’s weight gives gravitas to many of her choices over the period: she worked from the nude, which had long been the exclusive affordance of men, and chose a representational style, when academic taste dictated that only abstraction could be serious.
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Tied up in Knots no.2, 2024
oil on canvas
66 x 56 in.
167.6 x 142.2 cm.
(HUET014)
Huê Thi Hoffmaster (b. 1982) is the son of Vietnamese and American parents and a painter living and working in Weston, CT. Hoffmaster attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and spent his early career exploring the full spectrum of abstraction and representation; his current work reflects the formal breadth of his vision. Oscillating between improvisation and meticulous rendition, the floral bouquets of Hoffmaster’s compositions combine delicate blossoms with heavy bursts of color. The arrangements alternatively materialize as portrait-like studies and playful scenes that balance between non-objective abstraction and representational image-making.
Soren Hope (b. 1993) is a painter who focuses on the body as a site of uncertainty and instability. Using oil paint on stretched canvas and paneI, Hope weaves dynamic scenes of figures interacting and completing mundane tasks. Images of bodily disarray, clumsiness, and interruption unfold. The artist deliberately undermines the literal by employing a bright palette of greens and reds, and approaching their subjects with a simultaneous reverence and detachment. They seek to “probe the limits of the empathetic potential of looking and bring focus to the void spaces of the body. Thresholds of inside and outside are met with ambient transgression. Figures dissolve or merge, displaying ambivalence toward the calcification of recognition.” Imagery of costumes, pranks, dream worlds, and double meanings further test the trustworthiness of perception.
Sana Musasama
House Series #15, 2023
ceramic
22.0h x 11.0w x 8.0d in
55.88h x 27.94w x 20.32d cm
(SM114)
Sana Musasama (b. 1957) is a ceramic artist whose work is informed by her global travels and her interests in women’s studies and indigenous artistic practices. Musasama began traveling as a way to recover identity and cultural place. Clay was the geographical catalyst that first brought her to West Africa where she studied pottery with the Mende people in Sierra Leone (1974–75). Later venturing to Japan, China, Cambodia, and South America, she continued her quest, expanding her interests to tribal adornment practices. She is challenged by issues concerning women’s safety, specifically rituals involving rites of passage and female chastity. Her body of work ranges from intimate ceramic objects adorned with stitching and found objects from nature, to large colorful biomorphic shapes.
Michael Rosch (b. 1959) is a painter and sculptor who lives and works on the East End of Long Island. Rosch's oil paintings are based on the montage of precise vintage book illustrations with silhouetted and boldly colored and patterned figural interventions. These works create the illusion of decorative paper collaged into black-and-white scenes of classic domesticity, or dropped into settings associated with history paintings. The abstracted figures disrupt the stillness of these recognizable backgrounds and warp conventions of perspective and 3-dimensionality. Rosch looks to origins and sources that run counter to the zeitgeist, art world trends, and his own preconceptions.
EXPO CHICAGO 2024
Navy Pier, Chicago, IL
Eric Firestone Gallery | Booth 212
Thursday, April 11 | 12–9PM (Invitation Only)
Thursday, April 11 | 6–9PM (Opening Night, Limited Availability Ticket)
Friday, April 12 | 11AM–7PM
Saturday, April 13 | 11AM–7PM
Sunday, April 14 | 11AM–6PM
Chicago Navy Pier
600 E Grand Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
Cato
The Open Door, 2024
acrylic and collage on canvas
84 x 60 in.
213.4 x 152.4 cm.
(CATO001)
Michael Rosch
Capable of Labour, 2021
oil on canvas
80.0h x 52.0w in
203.2h x 132.08w cm
(MROS005)
Michael Rosch
Utter Insanity, 2016
oil on canvas
52.0h x 69.0w in
132.08h x 175.26w cm
(MROS011)
Uday Dhar
Untitled, 2023
acrylic on canvas board
29 3/4 x 23 3/4 in.
75.6 x 60.3 cm.
(DHAR071)
Uday Dhar
American Portraits from the Zeitgeist, I am what I am No. 4, 2023
acrylic on canvas board
29 3/4 x 23 1/2 in.
75.6 x 59.7 cm.
(DHAR069)
Uday Dhar
American Portraits from the Zeitgeist, I am what I am No. 3, 2023
acrylic on canvas board
29 3/4 x 23 3/4 in.
75.6 x 60.3 cm.
(DHAR070)
Sana Musasama
House Series #15, 2023
ceramic
22.0h x 11.0w x 8.0d in
55.88h x 27.94w x 20.32d cm
(SM114)
Sana Musasama
House Series #17, 2023
ceramic
25.0h x 16.0w x 11.0d in
63.5h x 40.64w x 26.67d cm
(SM116)
Vincent Baldassano
Lagos Blue, 1973
acrylic on canvas mounted on wood
69 x 24 in.
175.3 x 61 cm.
(VBAL001)
Sana Musasama
House Series #21, 2023
ceramic
22.0h x 10.0w x 10.0d in
55.88h x 24.13w x 25.4d cm
(SM120)
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Tied up in Knots no.2, 2024
oil on canvas
66 x 56 in.
167.6 x 142.2 cm.
(HUET014)
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Hard Rain Falls 1 & 2, 2024
oil on canvas
72 x 92 in.
182.9 x 233.7 cm.
(HUET015)
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Calling Butterflies, 2024
oil on canvas
58 x 44 in.
147.3 x 111.8 cm.
(HUET018)
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Certain Bliss no. 18, 2024
oil on canvas
72 x 110 in.
182.9 x 279.4 cm.
(HUET019)
Soren Hope
Where's Your Paddle, 2022–24
oil on canvas
84 x 90 in.
213.4 x 228.6 cm.
(SOHO001)
Regina Granne
Untitled VI, 1967
oil on linen
52 3/16 x 69 15/16 in.
132.6 x 177.6 cm.
(RGRAN001)
Regina Granne
Untitled, c. 1967–1970
oil on linen
72 1/8 x 60 3/16 in.
183.2 x 152.9 cm.
(RGRAN008)
Vincent Baldassano
Bryant St. #2, 1973
acrylic on canvas mounted on wood
62 x 49 in.
157.5 x 124.5 cm.
(VBAL005)
Vincent Baldassano
Carole #3, 1977
acrylic on canvas mounted on wood
50 x 64 in.
127 x 162.6 cm.
(VBAL022)
Susan Fortgang
Crosswalk, 1977
acrylic on canvas
84 1/2 x 66 1/8 x 1 1/2 in.
214.6 x 168 x 3.8 cm.
(SUFO041)
Susan Fortgang
Signal, 1977
acrylic on canvas
84 1/2 x 66 1/8 x 1 1/2 in.
214.6 x 168 x 3.8 cm.
(SUFO042)
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Hard Rain Falls 1 & 2, 2024
oil on canvas
72 x 92 in.
182.9 x 233.7 cm.
(HUET015)
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Certain Bliss no. 18, 2024
oil on canvas
72 x 110 in.
182.9 x 279.4 cm.
(HUET019)
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Tied up in Knots no.2, 2024
oil on canvas
66 x 56 in.
167.6 x 142.2 cm.
(HUET014)
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Calling Butterflies, 2024
oil on canvas
58 x 44 in.
147.3 x 111.8 cm.
(HUET018)
Uday Dhar
Untitled, 2023
acrylic on canvas board
29 3/4 x 23 3/4 in.
75.6 x 60.3 cm.
(DHAR071)
Uday Dhar
American Portraits from the Zeitgeist, I am what I am No. 4, 2023
acrylic on canvas board
29 3/4 x 23 1/2 in.
75.6 x 59.7 cm.
(DHAR069)
Uday Dhar
American Portraits from the Zeitgeist, I am what I am No. 3, 2023
acrylic on canvas board
29 3/4 x 23 3/4 in.
75.6 x 60.3 cm.
(DHAR070)
Vincent Baldassano
Lagos Blue, 1973
acrylic on canvas mounted on wood
69 x 24 in.
175.3 x 61 cm.
(VBAL001)
Vincent Baldassano
Bryant St. #2, 1973
acrylic on canvas mounted on wood
62 x 49 in.
157.5 x 124.5 cm.
(VBAL005)
Vincent Baldassano
Carole #3, 1977
acrylic on canvas mounted on wood
50 x 64 in.
127 x 162.6 cm.
(VBAL022)
Sana Musasama
House Series #21, 2023
ceramic
22.0h x 10.0w x 10.0d in
55.88h x 24.13w x 25.4d cm
(SM120)
Sana Musasama
House Series #17, 2023
ceramic
25.0h x 16.0w x 11.0d in
63.5h x 40.64w x 26.67d cm
(SM116)
Sana Musasama
House Series #15, 2023
ceramic
22.0h x 11.0w x 8.0d in
55.88h x 27.94w x 20.32d cm
(SM114)
Regina Granne
Untitled VI, 1967
oil on linen
52 3/16 x 69 15/16 in.
132.6 x 177.6 cm.
(RGRAN001)
Regina Granne
Untitled, c. 1967–1970
oil on linen
72 1/8 x 60 3/16 in.
183.2 x 152.9 cm.
(RGRAN008)
Soren Hope
Where's Your Paddle, 2022–24
oil on canvas
84 x 90 in.
213.4 x 228.6 cm.
(SOHO001)
Cato
The Open Door, 2024
acrylic and collage on canvas
84 x 60 in.
213.4 x 152.4 cm.
(CATO001)
Michael Rosch
Utter Insanity, 2016
oil on canvas
52.0h x 69.0w in
132.08h x 175.26w cm
(MROS011)
Michael Rosch
Capable of Labour, 2021
oil on canvas
80.0h x 52.0w in
203.2h x 132.08w cm
(MROS005)
Susan Fortgang
Signal, 1977
acrylic on canvas
84 1/2 x 66 1/8 x 1 1/2 in.
214.6 x 168 x 3.8 cm.
(SUFO042)
Susan Fortgang
Crosswalk, 1977
acrylic on canvas
84 1/2 x 66 1/8 x 1 1/2 in.
214.6 x 168 x 3.8 cm.
(SUFO041)