Just as in-person events begin to return, PAGODA RED founder Betsy Nathan had the pleasure of seeing the current exhibition at The Art Center Highland Park. Follow along with her, as she views the show guided by curiosity and love of ephemeral expression. It was great to visit The Art Center Highland Park and take in artists’ thoughtful perspectives […]

For 33 years, Jim Rose has cultivated the mind of a maker. He’s absorbed the practices of Ming and Shaker furniture makers, not just through study, but through the physical creation of objects that carry their influence. Instead of traditional carved wood, he uses hot-rolled and reclaimed steel — coaxing the material into clean-lined forms. […]

The work of Chicago-based artist Michael Thompson defies even the most ardent attempts at classification. He’s the kind of creative whose technique, spirit, provocation and form is always cut with a little mischief. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he has been prolific, expressing himself through an array of media, […]

A leader in the global craft resurgence, Japan-based artist Toyoharu Kii works with hand-cut Italian marble and smalti, Venetian glass handmade by the same Italian family for over 400 years. Constructed using traditional techniques, his art is nonetheless modern. Kii’s work is monochromatic, abstract, and highly textured — highlighting the intricate process in the often-overlooked art of mosaic […]

Through September 9, 2019 PAGODA RED, 1740 W Webster Ave, Chicago  A exhibition of Patrick Fitzgerald’s Box Cars, Jackets and Helmets.  Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1962, Patrick Fitzgerald grew up in an industrial Midwestern landscape. “It was loud, daunting and dirty,” he says, “yet it possessed a powerful beauty that is still so […]

Whether she’s working with paints or pencils, artist Yoko Tanaka rarely strays from her chosen palette of soft, smoky tones that lend her pieces a hushed, otherworldly quality, and a rich undercurrent of emotion. The somber figures depicted in her works are frequently placed in spare, but fanciful settings, lending them a fabulist, folkloric air. […]

Beijing based artist Deng Ying embellishes small, everyday objects, such as porcelain plates, apothecary jars and paper hand-fans with playful, folk art scenes. The vignettes often feature the artist herself in caricature participating in typical daily activities. Though Deng Ying’s illustrations are inarguably contemporary in style, her frequent use of blue and white directly references […]