Press Room --
CHICAGO, IL—Please join us for a gallery talk on Thursday, May 9, 2013 at 5:00 p.m. with Suellen Rocca, one of our artists in the current exhibition Focus 4: Four Solo Exhibitions. This informal conversation with the artist will be lead by the exhibition curator Doug Stapleton.
Suellen Rocca's works are inhabited by mysterious figures that conjure up images of sentinels, journeyers and guardians. Rocca's figures wait, and weep, they sleep or dance, they comfort and hold—connected by delicate patterns and radiant auras. Reduced to their essential form, they are potent, nearly abstracted set of personal symbols meant to call us, like sirens, to their devotional and darkly poetic presence.
Suellen Rocca is an artist and educator with deep roots in the Chicago area. She graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1964 and two years later began exhibiting her paintings with a group of artists who became known as the Chicago Imagists. She teaches art at Elmhurst College, in addition to curating the college’s art collection.
Focus 4 is an ongoing program that highlights the work of accomplished Illinois artists in four separate exhibitions. The artists are selected by four fine arts curators from various sites of the state-wide Illinois State Museum system.
The Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery, 100 West Randolph, Suite 2-100, is located in the James R. Thompson Center and is one of five art sites around the state featuring Illinois artists and works from the Museum’s permanent collection. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM, closed state holidays. The Gallery is free and wheelchair-accessible. Tour and school groups are welcome. Please call for appointments for guided tours at 312-814-5322. Visit our website at: www.museum.state.il.us/ismsites/chicago/exhibitions. Note to editors: Selected high-resolution images are available for publicity. Contact Doug Stapleton, dstapleton@museum.state.il.us or (312) 814-5320.
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