Eleanor Spiess-Ferris and Her Magical Realism

Well, if Komechak Art Gallery was to start off an exhibition season with a smash up painting show, Eleanor Spiess-Ferris would have to be the logical choice. Her work is stunning, engaging, curiously quirky and richly painted. The woman's subjects range from swans, to women morphing into other animistic forms and flowers and birds abound.

The delightful way in which Spiess-Ferris engages her audience is a classic game of cat and mouse. The audience is seduced by her subject and color, and caught in the cat's clutches with her mastery of the painting process, which in this case is oil and gouache. Spiess-Ferris knows her animals and birds. Many of her works include species indigenous to the Midwest, and her purpose in describing them so accurately is to preserve the wildlife around us. The same is true when she describes flowers. Their delicate blooms are handled gently by her feminine subjects.

Spiess-Ferris has been moving toward a smaller composition in this exhibit, using intricately woven painted borders around the subjects. They have a woven, protected feel from the elements, and the figures are securely placed centrally in the compositions.

I enjoy the way Spiess-Ferris' female subjects emanate out of watery bodies, and move lithely through a river. They carry the gifts of Nature (flowers and birds' nests) on their heads like crowns, or on their arms one finds a swan wrapped around the figure's body. Curous little bugs and creatures morph into one another easily, and one cannot imagine a world where this kind of things does not exist. Spiess-Ferris' imaginaiton allows the viewer to transport to her world, and we do not care if we return to our own world. The places she paints are far too interesting to leave.

Her sense of magical realism is based upon her own upbringing in New Mexico and the visual and literary influences of Latin America. That sense of a special place where things are not quite real, but surreal, is where Spiess-Ferris' own images come from.

Spiess-Ferris was born in Las Vegas, New Mexico in 1941. As a recognized artist, Spiess-Ferris’ work incorporates influences of the Spanish and Native American cultures of Northern New Mexico. She earned her B.F.A. degree at University of New Mexico, and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Her works blend mythological, spiritual, psychological, environmental and feminist themes in dreamlike contexts. She plays with the ideas of Symbolist art by morphing figures of women into roots, trees, leaves and birds, and her work integrates elements of surrealism, symbolism and expressionism. Spiess-Ferris teaches at the The Art Center of Evanston, Illinois. She has received numerous major art awards and citations including Artist-in-Residence grants at Anchor Graphics and Paper Press, Chicago, Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Grant and a Vielehr Award from the Art Institute of Chicago.

Public Collections: Benedictine University, Lisle, IL Block Museum at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, IL Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL James R. Thompson Center, Chicago, IL Portland Museum of Fine Art, Portland, OR Wustum Museum of Fine Art, Racine, WI

Chicago's Art Pioneer Dr. Margaret Burroughs Celebrated at Komechak Art Gallery

Dr. Margaret Burroughs' artistic legacy in Chicago is well-regarded. She was an artist who made paintings, drawings and prints as well as making works from found objects. She wrote poetry and taught art in the public school system, as well as visited and taught art to prisoners in the city's jails. Her energy to plant the seeds of creativity in young African-Americans had its rewards in the numbers of students who went on to become professional artists and art collectors. At the time of her passing in 2013, this art pioneer had shared her art and poetry with thousands of people and her passing was noted with accolades from the Mayor of Chicago to the President of the United States. Truly, this woman was an important figure in Chicago's art scene, and her artwork and writings are left for future generations to admire and enjoy. The Komechak Art Gallery is celebrating this artist's life and work with an exhibition of 24 pieces, plus photographs and awards from the family's personal collections. Additionally, Oakton Community College's Koehnline Museum of Art graciously lent works from their permanent collection.

Throughout the exhibit one finds Burroughs' fascination with portraiture and iconic persons. Her subjects range from African-American icons like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, to Malcolm X ('Allah's Angry Man') and spiritual and political leaders like 'Pharoah' and the 'Black Madonna and Child'. Burroughs also portrays views of racial identity, and 'blended-ness'. Several prints in the exhibit show family group portraits and their faces are deliberately segmented and divided. The parts of the faces are black, parts are white, and parts are filled with lines to suggest they are both. The faces show happiness in their unity and an exude an optimism.

Burroughs' choice to work in the relief linocut printmaking method further enhances a bold statement in how her pieces are executed. The lines are clean and clear. The medium doesn't permit much in the way of nuanced surfaces the way other printmaking mediums do, but Burroughs approached these portraits with gusto and ferocity. They are all in black and white, which may have been a deliberate choice for the expediency of production, but no matter. They have power and presence, and they earned her exclusive shows at museums along the east coast, including the Studio Museum in New York.

There are a couple of color images in the exhibit, and One is the Birthday Party, which was based upon a painting. The piece shows the joys of a family gathering for a child's birthday party. The original painting once hung in a bank at 78th Street and State Street. The black and white print of the same subject loses nothing in translation. Burroughs sought to bring her life to art and her works leave the viewer with a sense of hope and respect for one's physical and spiritual lineage. This exhibition will run March 9 through April 25.

Artist Biography Burroughs started making art as a child and her works reflect the pride of her heritage, and the optimism of creativity. Born in Louisiana, Burroughs moved with her parents to Chicago in 1922. She met fellow artist Charles White in high school and they formed a group known as the Art Craft Guild. Burroughs attended Chicago State, and later the Art Institute of Chicago. She joined other South Side artists to form the South Side Community Arts Center (SSCAC). The federal government had offered financial support through the Federal Art Program (FAP) of the Works Projects Administration (WPA) to help support the facility. The center opened in 1939, and was officially dedicated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1941. The SSCAC continues to show African-American artists and offers workshops and classes. Burroughs married Bernard Goss in 1939, divorced soon after, and then married Charles Gordon Burroughs in 1949. The Burroughs’ home held weekly gatherings which brought in notable poets and artists like Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, Margaret Walker, Richard Wright and Paul Robeson. They established the Ebony Museum of African American History in 1961, which would later be renamed the DuSable Museum of African-American History; which has more than 100,000 pieces in its permanent collection.

In 1975 she received the President’s Humanitarian Award from President Gerald Ford and was named one of Chicago’s most influential women by the Chicago Defender. In the 1980s Burroughs served on the Chicago Board of Education. In 1989, she was inducted into the Chicago Women's Hall of Fame. President Jimmy Carter appointed her a member of the National Commission on African-American History and Culture. Her other notable awards include the Paul Robeson Award, and the Legacy Award from the Art Institute of Chicago.

In a statement, President Barack Obama praised Mrs. Burroughs, saying... "Michelle and I are saddened by the passing of Dr. Margaret Burroughs, who was widely admired for her contributions to American culture as an esteemed artist, historian, educator and mentor," Obama said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to Dr. Burroughs' family and loved ones. Her legacy will live on in Chicago and around the world."