Opening Reception Friday  Jan 5, 2024, 5-8pm

Put anything in front of me and I’ll worship it. Worship zooms me into a thing and zooms me out to the absence of myself.

One part deep history, one part plexiglass from Home Depot. The collaboration of old and the new, the history of myself and the space. The arrangement of objects in a particular room at a particular time.

The care that goes into worshiping something is the kind of humanity I wish for.

Sometimes I go into a museum and everything is dead. It takes a significant amount of work as the person viewing artwork to put myself inside it.

When I make something, I feel the reverence of walking into a museum, taking art off the wall, adding to it, and hanging it back up.

We can worship anything. 

When worshiping, we don’t even need to know what it is we are worshiping. To enter into worship, we place ourselves in the spot of our psyches where we want to receive and give.

By perpetually inventing ourselves, we are inventing the world. There’s nothing more appealing than that. This is what freedom is. The existentialists say: ‘You are free. In other words, invent.’ Moral choice is constructing a piece of art. Choosing ourselves in the presence of others is the opposite of superstition. 

Choice is the worship of everything.

Opening Reception, Friday, January 5, 5:00-8:00pm

• Exhibition dates: January 4 – 26, 2024

• Gallery hours: Thurs – Fri 2-6pm, Sat – Sun 12-4 pm

• Artist Walk-through Sat. Jan 13, 2024, 2pm

• Artist Studio Visit Sat. Jan 20, 2024, 2pm @ 4001 N. Ravenswood Ave, #603B

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

About this show, Chat GPT says:

"This show reflects on the concept of worship, not in a strictly religious sense, but as an intense appreciation or reverence for anything placed before oneself. It explores the idea that worship can be a means of deeply connecting with an object, an artwork, or an idea, while simultaneously experiencing a loss of self-consciousness.

The author describes the fusion of history and modernity, symbolized by elements like deep history and plexiglass from Home Depot, indicating how worship involves both acknowledging the past and embracing the new. This blend represents the personal history of the individual and their current context.

Worship is also seen as a form of care and humanity, something the author longs to see more of in the world. The reference to museums where everything feels 'dead' highlights a contrast; it takes effort and a personal connection to truly engage with art or objects in a way that brings them to life.

The process of creating art is likened to an act of worship - a sacred, reverent experience akin to modifying and rehanging a piece in a museum. It suggests that creativity is a form of deep engagement and transformation, both of the art and of the self.

The author also touches on existentialist philosophy, emphasizing the freedom and responsibility in choosing our actions and defining ourselves. Inventing ourselves and our world is likened to creating art, and this continuous process of self-creation and decision-making is seen as a form of worship. In this view, every choice is a form of reverence and celebration of the possibilities of life.

In summary, the passage presents worship as a profound, creative, and transformative engagement with the world, where the act of choosing and creating is itself a sacred and liberating experience.”