Morpho Gallery Presents “Expressionist Treasure”
May 18th- June 13th Exhibition Curated by Sarah Braden

Opening Artist Reception:   May 18th 6pm-10pm

Featuring: Sarah Braden, Amy Rodriguez, Jesy Grose, Zac Franzoni and Kerry Lange

May 2018 (Chicago) Morpho Gallery is pleased to announce its “guest curator” program continuance, with “Expressionist Treasure” Exhibition. We are exhibiting 5 local creative artists, each with their own style yet all very compatible. Sarah Burden wi:  be guest curating at Morpho Gallery and presenting selective pieces from Amy Rodriquez, Jesy Grose, Zac Franzoni, Kerry Lange, and herself.

About the Artists:

Amy Rodriguez
Growing up the youngest of eight, Amy Rodriquez enjoyed doing fun crafts with her family at home. She received her BFA in illustration from Montserrat College of Art in Massachusetts in 2013, but after visiting a friend in Chicago she fell in love and moved to the city in 2015. Straying from her illustration studies and artistic style, Rodriguez found inspiration to paint from the “uniqueness within each body shape,” and the liberated feeling it left her feeling. Her nude paintings exhibit vivid colors, overlapping to create the curvaceous shadows and contours of the human form. Rodriquez is growing as an artist, and with that she feels that “my paintings are just as chaotic as what I feel most of the time. Especially that my paintings are starting to develop, I’m starting to be more honest with myself about what I want from them, and that’s just a dialogue with myself and the paintings.”

Kerry Lange
Hailing from Cleveland, Kerry Lange recently transplanted to Chicago, IL. Lange is a self-taught artist that comprises her most common mediums to be watercolor, pen/ink, and pencil. She finds inspiration from surrealist illustrations and abstract wonders. In her series of pieces titled “Creatures of Flight,” Lange explores the “sense of freedom and the sequential life stags of winged beings. Much of the artwork incorporates images of winged creatures against abstract backgrounds, while some focus on the wing itself. For her this work of art and these creatures hold a power, “flight can change your location, view, options, and perception. It’s no wonder why this actions frequents our dreams.” Her most recent works of art center on the concept of transition. As she says, “transition: a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another. Our lives are in a continuous state of transition,” coincide with the juxtaposition of rigid shapes and fluidity of colors.

Jesy Grose
My true canvas is of old glass windows. I paint backwards so everything you see is a reverse from the image. The materials used are acrylic, oil markers, India ink, spray paint and much more. Through my series of abstracts it’s about manipulation and spontaneity. I ask gravity to play with the colors watching them collide and mix together. There’s grace in its movement with a yearning to connect. It’s about space, color and time. One instinctive way to bring color back with fluid movement.

I’m a self-taught artist and started my career in faux finish. I’ve painted since age 10, perfecting my way of seeing colors. I started selling my abstracts in restaurants and left the Faux Finish business for my art career in 2007. I traveled a couple years and ended up back in Chicago. Mixing culture and affairs of the world through my own experience I’ve created. Your mind is the master of your reality.

Zac Franzoni
Considered a working mans artist, Zac did not go to art school and learn how to paint; instead he painted until he mastered his own style. The result is a unique process that creates visceral, organic, and even cosmic works of art that connects us to something deeper. Some have called him a visionary, but that is too pretentious for Zac. If you ask him about the importance of his art, he will most likely shrug and ask if you think it is pretty. He lives in Chicago and likes The Rolling Stones and drinking good beer.

Sarah Braden
Originally from Phoenix, raised in rural Wisconsin, Sarah Braden attended Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 2007. In 2012 Braden moved to Chicago where she has been creating a new body of paintings and drawings. After leaving the corporate world in 2015 Braden has been creating visual art in Chicago since then. Most of her art is inspired by the action painters of the Abstract Expressionist movement in the mid 20th century, while also gathering inspiration from the collage artists of the Early 20th Century Dada movement and mid 20th century Pop Art movement.

Channeling new energy in 2018, Sarah Braden is working on a new collection of artwork that adds to her ever-growing artistic breadth. The new collection shows Braden’s interest in new techniques while combining a sense of raw and unplanned experimentation to her artworks. Braden’s painting style is always evolving, but her use of color remains constant. In much of Braden’s recent work she experiments with fluid/ liquid painting techniques. According to Sarah, part of the beauty of this type of art is letting go of control, and giving way to the flow of the paint as the different types of paint, ink, and dyes run together to create chemical reactions. The beauty of nature and the vastness of this universe consistently inspire Braden. Many of her subjects reflect this inspiration with portraits of distant planets, scenes of flora, and abstract depictions of our own earth