Announcing Our Artists Speak Out Participants At The Big Night Showcase #2
Our diverse batch of artists discuss the inspiration of their provocative installations on display at The Big Night showcases, and how Chicago can become a haven for other emerging and local artists from a business, educational, and creative front. There will be other activities such as storytelling, performances, and more spanning the multiple rooms.
The Big Night Showcase #2
Artists Speak Out Panel
Location: Moonlight Studios
Date: July 14th
Time: 8:30 pm – 9:10 pm
Doors Open 6:00 pm
Falyn Huang: Artist
Falyn Huang is a Chicago-based photographer whose constantly merges the lines between fashion, beauty, and portraiture. Coming from a background in painting, her work is heavily influenced by artists such as Sandro Bottecelli, Kitagawa Utamaro, Marilyn Minter, and Richard Phillips. As she challenges the perception of culture in today’s progressive millennial lifestyle, Huang often captures her subjects within their own embrace of self-love, sexual enlightenment, and newfound freedom.
Kendrick McFarlane: Artist
As an individual Kendrick used painting as a language to express his political and personal thoughts, desires, emotions, and fears. Using and combining a variety of visual languages from art and history stimulates and heightens his creative process. Because of this variety, his medium of choice is oil paint. He’s attracted to oil paint’s rich history and it’s ability to appear as itself and also appear as other mediums, surfaces, and textures. Within his work Kendrick is more interested in creating an experience rather than a statement. He see his paintings functioning as a conversation rather than a lecture. As a painter, his work allows him to accept himself, and the world around him. It gives him an opportunity to respond to truth and beauty. It also allows him to explore his spirit and the collective unconscious.
McKenzie Thompson: CEO, Maybe Sunday & Artist
McKenzie Thompson is a Chicago-based artist and CEO of Maybe Sunday, a collective of entrepreneurial Chicago artists, designers and musicians. Originally from the Appalachians of North Carolina, McKenzie’s work harkens to her upbringing in a tranquil, natural mountain environment, to her truth- and health-seeking propensity, and to her relationship with contemporary millennial culture. McKenzie holds an MFA in Visual Communication Design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was a New Artist Society Fellow, and a BFA in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Audra Jacot: Artist
Audra Jacot’s work celebrates the empowerment of sexuality. With the tactility and eroticism of clay, she reflects on the idea of woman as functional vessel by creating phallocentric, yet androgynous creatures and glaze them with white, perversely elegant Majolica glaze – a faux porcelain – which renders them semen-esque. This combined with the exhibitionist quality of neon, comments on the symbiotic relationship of pornography and technology. Jacot recently received her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied Art and Technology. Her work was recently featured in Bravo’s 100 Days of Summer. She was also named one of VAM Magazine’s Top 20 Chicago Influencers of 2015. She currently works full time at SAIC as the Campus AV Tech Manager as well as continues to show work and curate at both traditional and DIY gallery spaces in Chicago.
Jason Guo: Artist & Entrepreneur
Jason is a Chinese American artist currently working in Chicago with a focus on visual communications and sculpture. He has exhibited works both in Canada and the United States, including Aqua Miami Art Fair, The National Gallery of Canada, and more. Outside of being an artist he also the co-founder of the contemporary boutique gallery known as Maybe Sunday Inc. which is a platform for artists and designer entrepreneurs in Chicago.
WHAT HAPPENS AT THE GLAPPITNOVA FESTIVAL?
The beauty of being at the Glappitnova global celebration July 7th – 14th is you never know exactly what you’re going to get outside of the pure intellectual and experiential bliss ranging from storytelling, performances, art installations, parties, and panels in an underground environment. We smash it all together uniting extremely talented people spanning all industries at our Big Night Chicago Showcases July 13th, and July 14th 2016.
