Art

The Difficulty of Representation is a visual essay composed of illustrated voice notes that trace frustration, a projected future, boredom, or a memory that bursts into consciousness.

The video piece works from the façade itself as a key support, continuously transforming.

A collage of possibilities and ideas in constant mutation.

Building on two years of successful collaboration, ART on THE MART’s Spring 2026 season spotlights emerging talent from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), the internationally recognized Chicago institution and one of the world’s leading schools of art and design. Guided by SAIC faculty and artists Jan Tichy and Austen Brown.

Led by faculty member Colleen Plumb, the MoCP worked with 95 high school students from Prosser Career Academy and South Shore College Prep. After learning about her practice as an artist and environmental activist working with trees, the students participated in educational tree walks led by Tom Ebeling from Openlands. The students then took part in artmaking workshops with Colleen, creating camera-less cyanotype prints using tree specimens they collected. The video animates the students’ cyanotypes alongside Colleen’s interjections on tree root systems to convey the importance and beauty of Chicago’s urban tree canopy. You see learn more about whole program here and about the Museum: https://www.mocp.org/

Art is our first language, an elemental expression that predates the written word. It begins in personal resonance and expands outward, connecting colleagues, friends, neighbors, cities, and the world beyond. Across distances and differences, we communicate through gestures, forms, and shared curiosity, guided always by purpose. Why? To seek growth, affirmation, and a sense of belonging. To be human is to create with intention and to design with love. At its essence, this is our Love Language.

Trazos (Traces) is a forthcoming projection by Chicago artists and filmmakers Alan Medina and Wills Glasspiegel. The projection expands upon the living history of public art in Pilsen, a neighborhood on the near southwest side of Chicago. Trazos amplifies and animates the murals, dances, and sounds of life in this historically Mexican-American neighborhood. Accompanying Trazos’ release in the summer of 2026, Medina and Glasspiegel will also share a series of short oral histories related to public art and its protagonists in Pilsen since the
1960s.

Sodalite cages are structural units found in the mineral sodalite and related materials like zeolites. Machine learning models are used to
understand growth processes and atomic-level dynamical transitions in silica. Naturally occurring and synthetic zeolites have numerous applications,
including water purification, catalysis in oil refining, and as components in detergents.