The Curators
Paloma Trecka
Paloma Trecka was born in Xalapa, in the state of Veracruz, Mexico, in 1964.
Her formative years were spent traveling around Europe and Mexico and living in Montreal where she studied Studio Art and Design for the Theater at Concordia University. Paloma was raised by artists and anthropologists and grew up in an environment filled with music, folklore and art. Her parents were also thespians that passed on a love for performance and pageantry. She chooses to use as an artist name Paloma Shaloma to reflect her humor as well as a deep affection that she has for her family’s Sephardic Jewish roots from Mexico.
Her collage art is influenced by geometric abstract artists such as Kurt Schwitters, Conrad Marca-Relli and Eduoardo Paolozzi. It is from Mexico that she gains the most inspiration for color and from Chicago, the love of the grid, line and texture found in architecture. In the 1990s, Paloma discovered her attraction to stop motion animation and the possibilities of setting her art in motion with sounds and music. In her work, the rhythmic repetitions of the grid, and the push- pull effect of abstraction are devices used to both hear and see the art. Today she is an educator and artist based in Chicago.
Ray Borchers
Multidisciplinary artist Ray Borchers has turned the key on Alice herself. With her signature delicate vows her work lives on a pendulum of minuscule detail and contrasted weighted forms. Her large format paintings are constructed through a collage-like process in sourcing images and in practice. Her subjects range from storybooks to lazed female forms; her dry humor and understanding of art‘s greater life context is never far from her finished works. With a strong exhibition history she has refined and morphed her content and technique.
She is also an avid clothing designer constructing original block prints for her co-label BOY NAMES, as well as a noise foundling in the band AITIS BAND. Ray’s committed practice has propelled her forth to constant new mediums to express her singular color vision of tension reimagined. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Tony Fitzpatrick
Tony Fitzpatrick is a Chicago-based artist best known for his multimedia collages, printmaking, paintings, and drawings. Fitzpatrick's work are inspired by Chicago street culture, cities he has traveled to, children's books, tattoo designs, and folk art. Fitzpatrick has authored or illustrated eight books of art and poetry, and, for the last two years has written a column for the Newcity.
Fitzpatrick's art appears in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC. The Neville Brothers' album Yellow Moon and the Steve Earle's albums El Corazon and The Revolution Starts Now also feature Fitzpatrick's art. In 1992, Fitzpatrick opened a Chicago-based printmaking studio, Big Cat Press, which exists today as the artist exhibition space Firecats Projects. Before making a living as an artist, Fitzpatrick worked as a radio host, bartender, boxer, construction worker, and film and stage actor.