Wilson Abbey is a proud supporter of local artists. Each art show has a free opening reception on opening night with the artist present.

Paintings by Maggie Hubbard

Indigo: The Color of Whiteness

“Indigo | the color of whiteness”, a series of paintings by artist Maggie Hubbard, presents icons of the white middle class. These objects and scenes take on new meaning when solely depicted with indigo dye, an ancient pigment fraught with power, colonization, and slavery. Hubbard’s work asks two critical questions of our time: who is white and what does it mean to be white? “Indigo | the color of whiteness”, July 20 – August 29, will be on display at Everybody’s Coffee, 935 W. Wilson, Chicago.

The series grew out of a process of examination. “The paintings worked as a kind of journaling. With each painting I was processing the white culture that formed me and the ways in which whiteness influences society as a whole.”

For almost five millennia, in every culture and every major religion, indigo has been one of the world’s most valued pigments. No color has been prized so highly or for so long, or been at the center of such turbulent human encounters. Indigo was a cornerstone of the transatlantic slave trade — one of the hidden commodities, like cotton, sugar, salt, and gold…

Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World, Catherine E. McKinley

Indigo dye, historically a product associated with colonization and wealth, also worked as a way to express grief. Hubbard uses indigo dye almost as a blue lens of grief in order to re-vision and throw the mundane into contrast.

Maggie Hubbard is an artist from Chicago, IL and holds a BS in Illustration from Indiana Wesleyan University (2013). Her work has been featured in various exhibitions throughout the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. She is pursuing a Masters of Fine Art at the University of Illinois at Chicago this coming fall. More of her work can be found at www.maggiehubbard.net

An Opening Reception and artist dialogue with guests is scheduled for Friday, July 20. The show runs from July 20 – August 29. Everybody’s Coffee is located at 935. W. Wilson, Chicago.

NEW ART SHOW: Transparency by Robin Rios

Opening Reception: Friday, September 30, 6–8 pm

September 30–Nov. 7

Everybody’s Coffee

935 W. Wilson Ave, Chicago, IL 60640

Robin Monique Rios was never one for waiting and watching. As a kid she was a whirl of movement, a biker/skater girl, until sidelined by a hip disease that put her into a brace from her waist to her knees. From that experience Robin emerged as an observer, with a whole new way of seeing and experiencing the world, and her place within it.

Her work, though not exactly collage nor strictly digital, is a combination of borrowed images re-shot or painted into a composition. Her work can best be described as digital paintings. The hands and eyes are all hers, the x-rays are donated, all transforming into something old into something new. Reinventions.

“This series is truly my voice, it conveys my personal emotional and intellectual understanding of myself and the world around me. This series is about tearing down those superficial layers built up by society, religion, politics and our own family. It’s only by shedding all that’s been put on us that we can begin to reconnect.”

Robin also works 3-dimensionally, with her abstract robots put together with wire and found objects which presage the future by letting her imagination run wild. Harkening back to her days as a skater, Robin also paints on decks incorporating a gritty, urban feel with a wicked sense of movement.

“This show is about opening up, making my art and process transparent.” Just like the human body woven into her pieces, it is about opening her heart, putting it out there for all to see.

Robin Monique Rios is a Chicago native and founder and director of 4Art Space. Robin graduated with honors from the Illinois Institute of Art, Chicago, with a Bachelors degree of Fine Arts in Visual Communications in June 2003. She currently works out of the Zhou B Art Center on the South Side.

Everybody’s Coffee is located at 935 W. Wilson, Uptown Chicago. The show runs from September 30–Nov. 7. Opening reception is Friday, September 30, 6–8 pm. Come inside and have a look.