Rituals

CHICAGO, IL – The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is pleased to announce the opening of Rituals on December 4th, 2021 featuring works by artists Brenton Good, Mandy Cano-Villalobos, and Marissa Voytenko who have come together for their first joint exhibition.

The present age has been defined by shirking customs, breaking traditions, and celebrating the informal. Yet it is through formal, practiced and ceremonial-like actions that contemporary artists Good, Cano-Villalobos, and Voytenko have found their expression. Though their work is varied in medium and approach, the three artists regard ritual as an integral part of their work. Hailing from Amish country in western Pennsylvania, Good's hard-edged, checkerboard woodcut prints draw heavily from traditional quilt patterns. Meticulously planned and executed, his prints display multiple layers of historical color combinations. Cano-Villalobos honors her personal history, and our broader human history, through the collection of mementos assembled into shrine-like sculptures. Looking at these assemblages one can spot objects that connect the viewer with their own memories. With waxy encaustic paint, Voytenko creates images that are lyrically structured through the use of repeated shapes and lines.

Brenton Good is a painter, printmaker and professor of art at Messiah University in Grantham, Pennsylvania. His work is in collections throughout the United States as well as the UAE and Turkey.

Mandy Cano-Villalobos is an interdisciplinary artist based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She's exhibited throughout the United States as well as in Berlin, Germany and Puerto Montt, Chile. She received her Master of Fine Art from The George Washington University in D.C.

Marissa Voytenko is an encaustic painter based in the Chicago suburbs. She's represented by several galleries throughout the United States and her work has been on the covers of the American Psychologist and Comment magazine.