Hot CIAO VIII
Group Art Exhibition
Oct 2 - Nov 13 2021
The artists enrolled in the Contemporary Art Center’s Artist Membership program (CIAO) return to the Studios on Sheridan for a dynamic group exhibition featuring one work of art from each member covering the mediums of drawing, ceramics, fiber, sculpture, painting, printmaking and many more. read more
Steph Van Doren & Jaci Willis
Oct 29 – Dec 17 2021
Two Central Illinois artists pare down their love of the natural world to the essentials in captured light and planes of color and shadow. read more
A Small Wonder Gift Shop
Oct 29 – Dec 17 2021
A small wonder means small work from local artists and that means work priced for holiday gifts! Gallery 3R is turned into a gift shop for small works of art. read more
Faces and Forms: André Petty & Scott Mossman
Aug 27 – Oct 15 2021
The pop art portraits of local artist André Petty are paired with the post-minimalistic sculpture of Chicago artist Scott Mossman celebrating the exploration of gestural shape and extravagant color. read more
Pieced Together: Chris Dokolasa & Lori Reed
Aug 27 – Oct 15 2021
These long-time friends share the practice of redefining their chosen mediums. Multiple altered photo prints are hand cut in strips and reassembled by Reed to create a fresh scene with other elements pieced into the final layer. Dokolasa pushes her sculptural vessels to surprising combinations of pattern, texture and flowing forms. read more
Hothouse
Jun 25 – Aug 13 2021
Jan Brandt’s vibrant paintings and fiber installations transform the gallery into a palimpsest of botanical wonder that combines the abstract with the observed. Her layered visual vocabulary is informed by 18th century botanical drawings, the patterning of Jacobean tapestries, the flat abstraction of Swedish floral design and a childhood spent on a farm. Since 2012, she has owned and operated Jan Brandt Gallery in Bloomington. read more
Ken & Barb Hoffman: Improvisations in Clay & Printmaking
Jun 25 - Aug 13 2021
Ken and Barb Hoffman share a love of improvisation in their work. Exploration in other mediums informs their dominant mediums of painting and photography, respectively. Ken experiments with traditional ceramic vessel forms, surfaces and glazing processes. Barb extends her printmaking skills to produce complex watercolor monotypes. read more
Brave Enough To Be It
Apr 30 – Jun 19 2021
Through their artwork, five African American women honor the dignity and heroism of African American women - past and present; both everyday women and those who made a significant impact on history. Featuring Sandra Bridges, Malika Jackson, Natalie Jackson, Alice Traore and Trish Williams, the exhibition of painting, photography, sculpture and art quilts culminates in a Juneteenth Celebration on Saturday, June 19, 6:30-8:30pm. read more
Jessica Bingham: Be Tender, My Dear
Apr 30 - Jun 19 2021
Much like the cycle of renewing a garden—clearing, turning, sowing, tending, repeating, Jessica Bingham’s odd-shaped canvases are collaged remnants of older paintings made anew. Adorned with dried, homegrown wildflowers, they reference nature’s playfulness and unpredictability. read more
Guns in America
Feb 26 – Apr 17 2021
Jeff Corwin’s conflicted feelings over finding his father’s gun collection and his convictions about gun control fueled eighteen highly charged photographs illustrating the violence America faces every day. His career as a commercial photographer took him all over the country, but when we shot for such companies as Archer Daniels Midland in Decatur and Apple Commuter in Champaign, he fell in love with the Midwest. He is proud to share the entire series for the first time in Peoria. read more
Making Faces at the World
Feb 26 - Apr 17 2021
Richard Wehrs has spent 35 years feeding his fascination to convey exaggerated facial expressions in ceramic sculpture. With extensive back stories and a twisted sense of humor, each of Richard’s creations have a hilarious tale to tell. Add to that his deep love for texture, pattern, color and whimsy, and this exhibition is a very natural result. read more
Negotiating Space
Nov 6 – Dec 18 2020
While their approaches to their craft vary, these four artists share some things in common: they are women, painting in contemporary styles, who have come from other places in the country to serve as art educators in Central Illinois. Experience how Lynette Lombard (Knox College), Susanne Nestory (Bradley University), Melissa Oresky (Illinois State University) and Lisa Walker (Sandburg College) interpret, create and occupy space. read more
7th Annual Small Wonder Gift Shop
Nov 6 - Dec 18 2020
A Small Wonder Gift Shop means small work from local artists and that means work priced for holiday gifts! Gallery 3R is turned into a gift shop for small works of art. Just like a gift shop, buyers may take home the item at the time of purchase. read more
Preston Jackson & William Butler: Walking The Line
Sept 3 – Oct 23 2020
In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the first art exhibition organized in the gallery in 1995, Contemporary Art Center’s founder Preston Jackson and Executive Director William Butler exhibit paintings together. In a return to the visceral approach of their youth, they share a fondness for bold color and big themes as they intentionally walk the line between abstraction and happenstance. read more
Mark Holmes: Open and Shut
Sept 11 – Oct 23 2020
Mark Holmes's sculpture explores the relationship of visual, material and intellectual labor in the invention of form. Whether modelled from clay or constructed from wood, his wall-mounted sculptures hold the fixed material nature of the object in tension with the contingencies of color, light and space. Holmes is currently chair of the Department of Art and Art History at Knox College. read more
Nonobjective
Jul 10 – Aug 22 2020
Peter Ahart, Lisa Nelson Raabe and Nichole Gronvold Roller all share an experience together in Bradley University’s Master’s program and the creative freedom to not reference reality while pushing the pure principles of composition. read more
Roy Rogers: Bronze Visions
Jul 10 – Aug 22 2020
Local artist Roy Rogers, a former tool designer turned sculptor, focuses on sharing his bronze sculptures, most of which were created in Bradley University’s MA/MFA program where he is enrolled in his retirement. read more
CIAO Artists Group Exhibition
Mar 13 – Jun 26 2020
The artists enrolled in the Contemporary Art Center’s Artist Membership program (CIAO) return to the Contemporary Art Center for a dynamic group exhibition featuring one work of art from each member covering the mediums of drawing, ceramics, glass, painting, printmaking and many more. All CIAO members are enouraged to participate. read more
Janis Mars Wunderlich
Mar 13 – Jun 26 2020
With playful and poignant imagery in ceramic sculpture and acrylic paintings, Janis Mars Wunderlich depicts themes of fertility, sexuality, gender and nurturing relationships. Energetic figures emerge from each other, blending animal and human characteristics to create a collective identity as they interact in complex narratives. read more
Carry Weight | Hold Light
Jan 10 – Feb 21 2020
To Carry, To Hold began as a collaborative exhibition in her studio while Brammeier was an artist in residence at International Studio and Curatorial Program in Brooklyn NY. In ISCP’s Studio #222, she created a large, vertical installation that integrated miniature works by other artists. Inspired by the common practice that artists have of gifting or trading small versions of their work, she invited artists to contribute either a miniature work that could sit on a shelf (made from a folded piece of painted canvas), or a work made on or attached to a pink triangle (also made from painted canvas). read more
Christopher Holbrook: Unique Impressions
Jan 10 – Feb 21 2020
This exhibition focuses on Holbrook’s inventive approach to the collograph process developed during the final years of his life. The images flaunt his facility with multiple techniques, yielding a highly personal and layered foray into the language of abstraction. read more
Colorful Creations
Nov 1 - Dec 27 2019
Colorful Creations will feature the photographs of Natalie Jackson O’Neal, paintings by Alice Traore and fiber art by Trish Williams. The work of Preston Jackson and other artists will also be on display. read more
A Small Wonder Gift Shop
Nov 8 - Dec 21 2019
A small wonder means small work from local artists and that means work priced for holiday gifts! Gallery 3R is turned into a gift shop for small works of art. Just like a gift shop, buyers may take home the item at the time of purchase. read more
William H. Thielen: Running with Scissors
Nov 9 – Dec 20 2019
Thielen’s abstract art runs the gamut: from two-dimensional drawings and paintings to three-dimensional free-standing sculptures in a mixed media format. The themes vary as well, but all draw from the emotional aesthetics of the artist. read more