Herman Leonard's "Legends of Jazz" Comes to the Komechak

To help celebrate the opening of the fifth season of the Komechak Art Gallery, a special exhibition comes our way. Herman Leonard's "Legends of Jazz", opens August 21 through September 23 at the Komechak, which is located at Benedictine University, in Lisle, IL. http://www.ben.edu/artgallery

The exhibition will feature several of Herman's iconic images of jazz musicians and singers such as Miles Davis, Dizzie Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Sonny Stitt, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday and Art Blakely. Leonard is widely considered the most celebrated photographer of his generation. His passion for jazz music led him to go to the nightclubs in New York City, Paris, New Orleans, Los Angeles and countless other places to photograph the best in the genre. He photographed musicians and singers, both on stage and behind the scenes, in practice sessions and impromptu settings to capture the essence of the time and the music.

Included in the exhibition will be two special educational sections: the Women of Jazz, which has five women and their biographies who Leonard considered immensely influential to the genre. The second section will show images of the nightclubs where Leonard photographed, like Birdland, Royal Roost, The Onyx, amongst others.

Additionally, the exhibit will show the 2011 documentary on Leonard, called "Frame After Frame:Images of Herman Leonard" which is narrated by Tony Bennett. The piece was produced by and directed Tika Laudun and is distributed via Louisiana Public broadcasting. Many thanks to them for the loan of this important interview with Leonard and his close friend, Quincy Jones.

Many thanks to Dr. Joseph A. Giordano and his family for donating these photographs to Benedictine University. Their passion for Leonard's work and willingness to share his work has been a tremendous gift.

In 2013, The William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, AR honored Herman Leonard's work with 'Jazz: Through the Eyes of Herman Leonard'. President Clinton has said that "Herman Leonard is the greatest jazz photographer in the history of the genre."

In 1995, Leonard released "Jazz Memories", published by Editions Filipacchi, and in that same year he was awarded an “Honorary Masters of Science in Photography” from The Brooks Institute of Photography. Other awards he received included the "Milt Hinton Award for Excellence in Jazz Photography," from Jazz Photographer's Association, the "Excellence in Photography Award" from the Jazz Journalists Association, and a "Lifetime Achievement Award" from Downbeat Magazine in 2004. Truly he was a gifted and much loved artist. The Komechak is honored to share his work with the public. For more information, contact curator Teresa Parker at 630-829-6270 or email tparker@ben.edu

Daniel Mitsui: A Modern Medievalist

Daniel Mitsui's work harkens back to an earlier time, when monks in monasteries sat in scriptoriums and created beautifully painted illuminations to go along with their hand-written and hand-printed Bibles. Those days are long ago, my friends. (European scriptoria began in the Middle Ages and continued throughout the 15th century), but Mitsui, a contemporary artist from Chicago, is continuing that tradition and he is creating a big name in religious circles.

Mitsui began drawing his images of saints and religious scenes when he was in college. His religious fervor grew once he finished his studies at Dartmouth College, and he embarked upon a field that is not common for contemporary religious artists - manuscript illuminations. The historical background of making these images goes back to a period before Europe had developed paper. They worked on a surface taken from stomach linings of sheep, goats and calfs - vellum - and created some of the most inspiring art of the day. This came from monks who worked for hours everyday in a monastery; men who were not trained artisans.

His style shows evidence of his study of earlier manuscripts, with a singular line detailing the saint and filling in the background with decorative details. But he has put his own unique twist upon the work to include references that include his own Asian background, so in some illuminations, there are characters that look European, and some that look as they were from the Far East. The sway of the figures in some compositions look like figures one would find in Japan or from Colonial period statuettes from the Philippines. Their curve is gentle and their faces appear serene.

He hand-colors the drawings, and the offset images printed from his drawings. He embellishes the saints' halos with gold and palladium gilding. The colors are spectacularly colorful, and the flow of the figures fills the foreground while his textured backgrounds and the figures' robes blend together in a manner that reminds us if illuminations from the famed Dutch Limbourg brothers, or the monks of Ireland that produced the highly complex Celtic manuscript illuminations from the 6th-9th centuries.

Mitsui borrows generously, and uniquely, from artistic details found in art of the Middle Ages; using deer, lizzards, dragons, and elephants from India, plus fabric patterns found in the paintings of the Northern Renaissance masters like van Eyck. The patterns involved complex eastern, middle eastern and western designs traded by wealthy fabric merchants who traded between Europe and China.

In a move that is at once genius and pragmatic, Mitsui has added a component to his work that would appeal to art collectors, as well as draw the interest of children. He has developed a series of coloring books for children(and I would venture to add adults since the coloring book craze has enraptured adult audiences of late). Building an appreciative audience on all ages, Mitsui's is on his way to becoming one of the best contemporary religious artists of today. His work is engaging, contemplative, curiously entertaining in addition to educating the masses on the history of the medium, and bringing a new audience to appreciating religious art. We can only look forward to more of his continued successes.

If you are interested to see more of Mitsui's work, learn more about the artist or order some of his coloring books, go to www.danielmitsui.com. The exhibition at Komechak Art Gallery runs through July 31, 2017. Summer hours: Monday - Thursday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. www.ben.edu/artgallery ph. 63-829-6270

People's Choice Award Winners from the BenU Student Art Show

The following artists and pieces were selected for this year's People's Choice Awards from the BenU Student art Exhibit recently held at the Komechak Art Gallery at benedictine university, in Lisle, IL. The winners were the top five vote-getters from over 300 visitors to the exhibit, which was held April 16-30, 2017. Congratulations to to following: Jacob T. Linao (Junior) and his oil painting called "The Howling Fjord"

Michelle Piasecki(Senior) won two awards. One for her oil painting called "Self-portrait"

Her second piece was an oil painting called "Untitled"

Megan Roy-Chowdhury (Sophomore) also won two awards. The first was for a graphic design piece called "Self-portrait"

Megan's second piece was an oil painting called "Split Complimentary"

Each winner received a certificate of accomplishment. Many thanks to all the students who participated in the exhibit, and the teachers who have encouraged them.

BenU Student Annual Exhibit Opens at the Komechak

On April 19, 2017, the first BenU Student Annual Art Exhibit opened at the Komechak Art Gallery, at Benedictine University. In it, were 152 pieces of artwork produced by the students in the university's Communications, Fine Arts and Graphic Arts programs. This celebrates the first exhibit of its kind at the Komechak Art Gallery. Student art displays are common on the BenU Lisle campus, but this is the first time that the combined works of three programs have been shown collectively, and in the Komechak Art Gallery.

Students were encouraged to enter three pieces of their choosing, from the fall through spring semester of the 2016-2017 academic year. Areas that were represented included drawing, communications, graphic design, painting, printmaking, calligraphy, 3D design, photography and mixed media.

At the close of the exhibit, five artists will receive a People's Choice Award, which were voted on throughout the time of the exhibit. This will become an annual competition showcasing the artwork produced at BenU. The exhibit runs through April 29th, 2017. www.ben.edu/artgallery Many thanks to Ms. Beatrice Turner for her installation assistance, and thanks to Mrs. Gathaleen Gaddis for her work on the handouts, reception and publicity. Thanks also to the following instructors who help gather works for the show: William Scarlato, Luigi Manca, HaiRi Han, David Marcet, Jennifer Scavone, Stacy Jo Barber, Vincent Lucarelli and Lynn MacKenzie. Below are some more pictures from the April 19th opening reception:

Jake Fernandez and his Reconstructed Collages of Nature

Artist Jake Fernandez left Cuba in 1961 and came to live in the United States. He and his family settled in Florida and he later attended the University of South Florida. Living in the tropical state Fernandez came to study and appreciate the beauty of Nature. He often took photographs of the parks and green spaces. That practice continued through his career as he documented his travels throughout the United States - New York, California, Florida and Indiana and Illinois. He amassed thousands of photographs and one day started to cut them up to make collages of those images.

The multiple views look he created from these photographs was very like the method of multiple perspectives created by David Hockney's photo collages. However, Fernandez took his collages a step further....the result after thirty years of making collages, is a wonderful exhibition of small works currently showing at the Komechak Art Gallery at Benedictine University. It is called "Second Nature".

Fernandez doesn't just cut up his photographs, he makes uniquely organic cut shapes and splinters the fragmented images into a million tiny, microscopic pieces. The scale of the images is square or rectangular. They are surely larger than the original photographs, but his incinerated cut shapes fracture into countless tiny pieces that when he glues them back together, they become a mosaic, a jeweled surface that stuns the viewer into a mesmerizing silence. The viewer is engaged to come close to see how Fernandez takes apart and then reconstructs a place of natural beauty.

The infinite layering that ultimately becomes a newly re-defined place in Nature, makes us contemplate Fernandez' technique, but moreso makes us see his natural places of wonder in a whole new way. They are definitely abstracted from the original source of reference, but they take on a cosmic type of existentialism. His works refer to the wonder of seeing a Jackson Pollock drip painting, or the elegant simplicity of a Rothko, but Fernandez' works are so densely built up in tecture and surface that we are pulled in to look at the collages literally examining singly cut pieces. The result is a type of Zen experience, where the viewer has reached a heightened awareness of beauty and destruction and resurrection.

One cannot help but take away an impression of obsessive searching, relentless pursuit for the 'Truth'. These are incredible works by an artist clearly at the top of his game.

Fernandez also makes paintings and drawings - large scale - of the same subjects. His mastery of the pencil and the brush is evident in his brushwork and his search for shape, light and depth of mysterious spaces. His work truly reflects his love of subject, and he is a man on a mission to make a new chapter into the art history books about landscape painting, drawing and collage.

The exhibition runs from March 6 to April 15, 2017. For more information about the artist and his work go to http://www.jakefernandez.com

"Contemporary Art Warriors" Comes to Komechak Art Gallery

Komechak Art Gallery welcomes in 2017 with an exhibition of Native American artists and also Native American veteran artists from the Trickster Gallery of Schaumburg, Illinois. Joseph Podlasek, CEO and owner of Trickster coordinated the exhibit which features 20 works by eight nationally recognized artists. This article will give you some information about the artists participating in the exhibit. The show runs January 17 through February 28. A reception for the public and the artists will take place at Komechak Art Gallery on Wednesday, January 25th, from 3:00 - 6:00 p.m. Admission is Free. Refreshments will be served.

Jimmy “Two-Dogs” Coplin(1958-2015) His given name was James Andrew Rokita; later in life, Jimmy changed his name to honor his Native American heritage, after learning his father was a member of the Kiowa Tribe. In his early years, Jimmy lived many places around the country because his step-father was in the U.S. Air Force. At age 21, Jimmy joined the United States Army, serving as an infantryman. He went on to a successful career as a transmission mechanic.Jimmy eventually lost his eyesight to diabetes, but that did not stop him from establishing a second career as a renowned Native American artist who specialized in creating artwork with ceramics, silver, feathers and arrows. After living in Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Texas, Jimmy moved to Chicago in an effort to gain more exposure for his art. His work was well-received, and his pieces were featured in exhibits at Trickster Art Gallery, Field Museum, and Chicago Cultural Alliance, and some exhibits still traveling with pictures of his art. Jimmy would often be seen around Chicago and the suburbs with his beloved guide dog and companion, Andy, an energetic German shepherd. Jimmy worked at Edward A Hines Jr. VA Hospital, training medical personnel about Native American cultural traditions. He was also an active member of the Native Veterans of Illinois at Trickster Art Gallery.

Bunky Echo Hawk Echo Hawk is a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, and an enrolled member of the Yakama Nation. He attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in the 1990s. He served as the "co-founder and the Executive Director of NVision, a national Native nonprofit that focuses on Native youth development," and he is also a traditional singer and dancer.

Brent Learned Learned is an award winning and collected Native American artist who was born and reared in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. Brent graduated from the University of Kansas with a bachelor degree in Fine Arts.He is an artist who draws, paints and sculpts the Native American Indian in a rustic impressionistic style. He has always appreciated the heritage and culture of the American Plains Indian. He tries to create artwork to capture the essence, accuracy and historic authenticity of the American Plains Indian way of life. Although Brent has many different styles, he is typically known for his use of bold vibrant colors in his depictions of the American Plains Indian. Brent’s work resides in museums such as the Smithsonian Institute-National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C., the Cheyenne/Arapaho Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City and the University of Kansas Art Museum in Lawrence, Kansas. He has work in private collections such as the Governor of Oklahoma Private Collection, Governor’s Mansion in Oklahoma City, the Haskell Indian University in Lawrence, Kansas and the Kerr Foundation Private Collection in Oklahoma City. Brent also has the honor of having one of his paintings displayed in the Democratic National Headquarters in Washington D.C.

George C. Levi Levi is a member of the Southern Cheyenne Tribe of Oklahoma. He is also Southern Arapaho and Oglala Lakota. He was raised in the Western Oklahoma Communities of El Reno, Concho and Geary. The art and history of the Cheyenne people motivate him in his art. He is influenced by the Cheyenne and Arapaho artists of the past. He specializes in Cheyenne style ledger art, and also acrylic and watercolor paintings. He is also well known for his custom beadwork and parfleche work. His artwork is well known and can be found in various museums, art exhibits, galleries, and private collections in the United States and around the world.

Ramos Sanchez Sanchez’s life has taken him from Ildefonso Pueblo to Okinawa, Japan, and back again. He joined the Navy in 1944 at the age of 18 and served during World War II. Later in life Sanchez served at the vice chairman of the All Indian Pueblo Council and began work on various educational boards including the Eight Northern Pueblos’ Council where he helped to recruit minority students into higher education. He retired in 1994 and now spends most of his time producing traditional watercolor paintings under his other name: Oqwa Owin. Horses, wildlife, clowns and dancers are some of the World War II veteran’s favorite subjects. “I’ve been painting my whole life,” Sanchez said. “I could fill a museum.

Robert Wapahi Wapahi’s scratch board drawings reflect his Dakota/Santee heritage. Originally dreaming of a career in music, Wapahi stumbled into the visual art world at the age of thirty-eight, when he received a huge amount of paper and technical pens. At first, he wadded up the large sheets of paper and practiced his jump shots. Then he found the pens, and those few days of scribbling went by so fast that he was hooked. It was easier to carry a pen and paper than a piano or a set of percussion instruments, and for Wapahi that worked out fine. He quickly discovered a talent for drawing and soon found a reason to draw while on a visit to Chicago and the American Indian Center. Since then, he has spent nearly twenty winters creating his art. For eleven winters, he decorated the American Indian Center’s one hundred room building. For the first half of Wapahi’s life, music was his love and it was rare to see him without a pair of drum sticks. For the last half of his life, he expects to carry a small sketchbook and pen.

Joe Yazzie Yazzie is a full-blooded Navajo, born and raised two miles from the Pinedale Trading Post in New Mexico. His parents were both artistic, my mother sculpted with clay and also did weaving. His father was a silversmith and also worked and traveled with the railroad to make a living. He came to Chicago in 1964 on the relocation program and attended and graduated from the Institute of Lettering and Design. After graduating, he decided to serve his country and joined the Army and completed a two year tour of duty in Vietnam and was awarded two Bronze Stars. Upon returning from Vietnam in November 1967, Yazzie decided to go back home to New Mexico, but as he passed the Montgomery Ward building in Chicago, he applied for a job as a commercial artist where he worked for nearly 25 years. Yazzie took art classes at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Since then he has worked as a Graphic Designer for the Daily Herald Newspaper in Arlington Heights. A lot of his ideas are from what he dreams about the Indian people of the southwest...the Navajos, and some Apaches. His artwork is now displayed at several Chicago art galleries downtown and in the Northwest Suburb area, including at the Trickster Gallery in Schaumburg, IL. His work can be seen at www.yazziegallery.com.