Chicago Gallery Open

Gray is pleased to participate in NADA’s Chicago Gallery Open. Taking place September 30 through October 4, 2020, the event showcases online and in-person exhibitions hosted by Chicago galleries, non-profits, and artist-run spaces.

For Chicago Gallery Open, Gray will present healing:work, a new series of works on paper by Chicago artist McArthur Binion. Under quarantine this year, Binion began working on a site-specific installation for an altarpiece at the Museo Novocento in Florence, Italy, scheduled to open in October 2020. The museum project inspired a fruitful and concentrated period of working, with the artist adopting the arched shape of the altarpiece to create this new suite of ink and graphite works on paper. “It was a really difficult time in the world,” Binion states, “just as the pandemic was sweeping the country, I was beginning the Altar Project and I needed some emotional healing...Therefore, healing:work.”

Each work begins with a ground-layer composed of carefully placed pages from Binion’s personal address book, or facsimiles of his birth certificate. Rich tones of purples, blues, and greens form arches that overlay the gridded ground, with some areas further obscured by a thick layer of silvery graphite with the ink wash glowing beneath.