3418 W Armitage Ave Logan Square

Kevin Dill is a Chicago interdisciplinary artist. His work primarily consists of film photography, mixed media, and painting. Kevin is an educator and community leader in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago where he currently teaches 7th and 8th grade visual arts. Instagram: __Kev​

 

Jimena Hernandez is a Mexican artist and educator born in Chicago. Growing up in Mexico influenced her artistic work in many ways. Her favorite medium is watercolor, and though she specializes in drawing and painting, she also loves exploring other mediums and art disciplines. Her favorite themes are nature, magic and fantasy, portraits, and literature. Since she was little, she has been interested in painting, which led her to study for a Bachelor's Degree in Visual Communication Design at the Faculty of Arts and Design (FAD) of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México. Since graduating, she has taught art in Chicago and different cities across Maine and Mexico.

 

Annamaria Castellucci Cabral is an art educator and mixed media collage artist. She has created sculptural and conceptual pieces from discarded materials and has exhibited around the Chicago area and in galleries along the East Coast. She received her Masters from Columbia College Chicago in Interdisciplinary Arts Education and has been an art educator for 22 years. Annamaria has taught a variety of visual art disciplines to all age groups, and is a CAPE partner in the Collaboration Laboratory (CoLab) program as an art teacher at Taft High School.
Annamaria is developing a series of cardboard sculptural organs, exemplifying her focus on internal systems and connectivity. In her classrooms, she encourages students to use everyday materials innovatively, as a way to see potential in the world.
Annamaria writes, “Themes of interconnection and humanity foster a collaborative and inclusive classroom, where each student's perspective enriches the collective experience. My playful, experimental process models for students, encouraging them to explore, take risks, and value the creative journey as much as the finished product.”
"As a mixed media and collage artist, as well as a mom and educator, I find beauty and potential in discarded and repurposed materials, particularly drawn to the raw qualities of cardboard. This often-overlooked material becomes a canvas for exploring themes of interconnection and humanity.
My work frequently features motifs of internal organs and life's intricate systems, symbolizing the unseen forces that connect us. Through these biological forms, I create dialogues about our shared human experiences.
I engage playfully and experimentally with my materials, discovering new dimensions and pushing boundaries. Each piece is a journey where creation is as significant as the final artwork. I invite viewers to reconsider the value of discarded items, reflecting on our interconnectedness. My art elevates the ordinary into the extraordinary, revealing hidden beauty and complexity in the simplest materials."

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John Zilewicz is a Chicago-based artist who creates mixed media abstract paintings inspired by the simplest of elements - line and color. The free flowing, untamed and often impulsive mark-making found within his artworks breathe life into his work, activating the space. These marks are unrehearsed, often repetitive, overlapping and giving a sense of rhythm to the chaos. Intricate surface textures are created through the build up of transparent and opaque layers of paint resembling a weathered, decaying appearance.
John Zilewicz lives and works in his home studio located in Lemont, Illinois. He has a Masters of Art in Drawing & Painting and his Bachelors of Arts in Studio Art and Art Education. The artist’s work has been exhibited in various exhibitions in and around the Chicagoland area. Many of his works are also held in private collections.
Zilewicz is also a full time Art Educator and has been teaching Visual Art for the past 27 years. He is currently teaching at Niles West High School in Skokie, Illinois where he has been working since 2005. In 2016, Zilewicz was the recipient of the Illinois Art Education Associations (IAEA), Art Educator of the Year. He is the Co-Creator and Executive Director of ArtConnectED. A group of art educators who are responsible for developing one of the largest high school art exhibits and scholarship shows in the country called the Illinois High School Art Exhibition. The show has gained national recognition around the country from top art schools, colleges and universities.
Contact: jzilewiczart@gmail.com
@jzilewiczart

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Renee Kuharchuk is a painter and teacher living and working in the Chicagoland area. Her work captures close-up portraiture that experiments with dynamic brushwork and abstract colors. Through painting the human form, she explores themes of feminism and the human experience. As a woman battling anxiety and depression, her practice not only brings these issues to light, but creates a space for self-healing and, on a broader scope, awareness of our inner battles.
"My work is a visual representation of my inner psyche and past experiences as I navigate what it means to be a woman in our society. My day-to-day experiences are colored with systemic sexism and stereotypes while negotiating the power struggle of gender norms. What does it mean to be a woman? Smiling, being pretty and demure, quiet and not emotional, nurturing and not confident? The challenge is knowing when to call out these injustices or face being labeled emotional, hysterical, or out of control. As a person who struggles with anxiety, facing these sexist acts and standing up for what is right can be emotionally and mentally crushing. My work gives a voice to these feelings and calls to all those who’ve struggled, been made to feel lesser because of their gender, or have been held back by an unseen force.
The process of creation helps heal these painful situations. These images personify a feeling and highlight a habit or symptom when emotionally heightened. I use up-close imagery to confront my viewers - they must deal with the image presented to them. I exaggerate the existing colors of my imagery to increase the emotional effect and heighten the movement.
The style of each piece illustrates the symptom or situation. Some works use short feathered marks that mimic meditative, repetitive movements such as yoga, prayer beads, or worry stones while others use loose swooping lines and layered energetic strokes to exemplify anxious or painful situations. The loose and wild brushwork create chaos and disorganization - a reflection of the internal struggle.
I hope these works bring awareness to our debilitating pain and hopelessness when faced oppression, anxiety and sexism."
 

My name is Raina Williams, and I am in my 3rd year of teaching art to middle schoolers. I graduated from Northern Illinois University with my Bachelors of Science in Art and Design Education. I worked as a photographer for several years on my own and at NIU. My favorite art to create currently is watercolor paintings, pencil sketches, and photography.

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​Anna Nardulli is a Chicago artist and educator who creates work that reflects the joy she finds in nature in her own backyard urban garden. She has been teaching art for 18 years, the last 13 at North Park Elementary School, as an early childhood art specialist, in the North Center neighborhood. She received her MA in Art Education, BFA in Painting, and BFA in Art Education all from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.
During covid quarantine, her family adopted a few chickens and they have been a surprise delight and inspiration to her work. She has found these creatures to be an endless source of interest in their personalities, mannerisms, and pecking order drama. She has most recently started a project “A to Z of Chicken Breeds” where she has found chickens posted on social media by their owners and reached out to them to paint their birds. Finding connections with chicken owners over social media with a shared interest in their birds has been a fascinating way to get to know strangers and feel a sense of a greater flock community.

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​Gabriela Almonte​

I am an artist, art teacher and gardener. I received my BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. I received my Masters of Arts in Teaching also from SAIC in 2023. I am a mixed media artist and I love experimenting and combining mediums. Currently I am the Makerspace teacher at Brentano Math and Science in Logan Square. I attended a Cyanotype workshop at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina in 2023. I completely fell in love with the medium and I have been working experimenting and expanding my skill set.
I am inspired by the ephemeral beauty of flowers and the captivating elements of nature found in my garden. My cyanotype artwork is an exploration of the play between light and botanical forms. I create unique and evocative blue and white compositions that celebrate the delicate intricacies of botanicals in my garden.
By bringing elements from my garden into the realm of cyanotype, I want to evoke a sense of wonder, encouraging observers to pause, reflect, and appreciate the intricate beauty that surrounds us daily, yet often escapes our notice. My garden has been a place of solace and reflection, through my work I hope to share that with the viewer.

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​Fay Elizabeth is a multidisciplinary artist & art educator located in Chicago, IL. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago & Masters in Science: Teaching and Learning Best Practices. Fay received her National Board Certification in Visual Art - Early Adolescent/Young Adult, in Winter 2023.
In Fay’s mixed-media artistic practice, she explores how shadow & color are layered in the world, highlighting the innate beauty & complexity of ephemeral moments. The work she creates challenges viewers to question what they see, blurring the lines between real & imaginary. Her teaching philosophy is centered in culturally responsive pedagogy, uplifting student voice through transforming complex ideas into physical forms.

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​Deanna Sortino (Illinois Secondary Art Educator of the Year 2020) hails from Willow Springs, IL, and has been teaching for over 20 years with more than a decade focused on the digital arts at Niles West High School in Skokie, IL. She is a trained photographer and designer, who focuses on capturing the decisive moments, interesting lighting, and minimalism within her art. Her favorite form of photography is street photography, where you might see her transform into her alter ego, "Ninja Mouse" while out with her camera -- quickly capturing the scene as silent as a mouse. Ms. Sortino is also the Mini Portfolio Day Creator, SlideRoom/Scholarship Coordinator, Data Analysis Coordinator, Assistant Graphic Designer, Assistant Early College Program Coordinator, and Educator Art Throwdown Co-Creator for ArtConnectED (www.artconnected.org) which is an organization that connects students to millions of dollars of art college scholarships each year.

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