UNUM > MUSCLE FIBER SUNRISE: Steve Williams and Dave Richards

February 25 through April 1, 2017. Artists' reception February 25, 12-5pm.

This 2-person show features paintings, works on paper and constructions that investigate the body, inner and imaginary landscapes, connectivity and games by artists Steve Williams and Dave Richards.

Stephen Williams and Dave Richards came to prominence in Chicago in the 1990s, with deeply personal and symbolic paintings and relief sculptures that acknowledged the influence of the Chicago Imagists who preceded them, but contained a gravity, materiality and lexicon of their own.

In Muscle Fiber Sunrise, each artist explores inner landscapes and narratives through a personal material vocabulary -- Williams working biomorphic scenarios with paint on paper and ink drawings, Richards constructing and collaging artworks that resemble games, toys, contraptions, organs and drones. Both artists deftly employ erasure and accumulation, highly finished areas contrasting with the rough and a muted palette with bursts of color and intensity. Memory – synaptic or nostalgic – is a running theme most easily seen in idiosyncratic text and titles.

Muscle Fiber Sunrise: synapses firing, goo connecting, scaley surfaces, drones and biomass, puzzle pieces that fit – or not. Erasure, construction, spirituality, mystery. Connectivity, electricity, strength, resilience, landscape and light.


Call 312-909-5902 or email unummunu1@gmail.com for an appointment.