After enjoying the burst of 50-degree weather this weekend, I decided to pop into Heaven Gallery with a few friends. Heaven, which has served as a vintage shop and DIY gallery in Wicker Park since the late 90s, was exhibiting Gwendolyn Zabicki’s solo exhibition “In a Room with Many Windows,” titled after a poem by Jane Hirshfield. It’s a fitting name for Zabicki, who has worked with themes of mirrors, windows, and passageways in previous paintings and projects. Zabicki earned her BFA from SAIC in 2005 and an MFA from UIC in 2012. Since then her work has shown all over the city—from Hyde Park Art Center to Roman Susan to Comfort Station
Self Portrait with Theodora is a piece in the exhibition featuring the artist holding her daughter. Here, the viewer sees the artist multitasking in the bathroom where she is holding her baby while brushing her teeth. Both Zabicki and Theodora are gazing in the same direction as if something has caught their eye. These images that Zabicki has created—the moments in-between the rush of life—are related to the artist’s relationship to time. The fleeting thoughts that Zabicki illustrates stitch together to create her everyday life. In the piece Hold the Door, Zabicki has painted a silhouette of a person exiting a building and going outside towards a blue landscape. Looking at this painting feels like summer. The rush of Lake Michigan is so close and shorts weather is just around the corner. The distance between the person opening the door and the viewer reaching this same door is close but not close enough. If you lived inside of the painting, you can imagine the little jog you would do while running to catch the door. The person would be awkwardly standing there, arm extended with a tight-lipped smile as you picked up the pace. Hold the Door is a familiar moment. It’s relatable, banal, and average. But here are where Zabicki’s thoughts are taking her.
Through 3/7, Fri-Sat 1-6 PM or by appointment, Heaven Gallery, 1550 N. Milwaukee, second floor, heavengallery.com, free.
