On display in a large exhibit titled “Logarithms of Two Seasons,” Jens Hanke’s acrylic paintings at Fassbender gallery have the quality of silkscreens with their highly patterned surfaces, vibrant colors and quirky forms. Hanke, who was born in Eilenburg, Germany, has studied design. But the canvases, both large and small, appeal for more than their decorative surfaces. Built in layers that create a rhythmic whole, they reflect Hanke’s effort to create order out of chaos — albeit a very energetic order — as well the way he has come to grips with two major events in his life.
Hanke was born in a country that has dramatically changed during his life and that he no longer thinks he really knows. He lived and worked in Chicago for two years, which also represented a novel experience for him.
“Hitherto,” he writes, “I had lived in an absolutely different hemisphere, in a world nearly devoid of speed, in a society in which time and money had no substantial meaning and where movement and flexibility were far from normal. The society I had lived in was a kind of discount version of the `Land of Milk and Honey,’ in which individuality carried little weight. A process of structuring began in which new experiences were stored and classified. The series of paintings for this exhibition is a kind of a visual cross section of this process.”
Hanke’s larger canvases are far more successful than his smaller canvases because the scale allows him to juxtapose a greater number of his exuberant patterns, floating rectangles and lively colors. In his 72-by-68-inch “Untitled” (No. 4), he mixes small red rectangles with larger blue ones, adds a curved form that resembles an abstracted horse and fixes these various parts in four large rectangles — three vertical and one horizontal. Two of the rectangles are a yellow-orange and two are shades of blue. Of particular note in the exhibit is how Hanke arranged the canvases in a lively grid that hops and skips along the gallery’s walls rather than in a sedate, traditional format. The show continues at Fassbender, 309 W. Superior St., through Jan. 3.
Bill Riley’s oil paintings at Eastwick Art Gallery consist of an organic assemblage of shapes in mostly murky olive and beige colors that bear a slight resemblance to cells, trees and flowers. Most noteworthy, though, is Riley’s painting technique of richly impastoed yet delicate strokes. The most interesting work in the show is “Subhuman Delights,” composed of rounded forms that have a slightly female erotic quality and that are painted in layers of pale whites, yellows, grays and beiges.
The paintings are displayed alongside Chris Garofalo’s mixed-media artworks, which present a similar organic theme, though of mostly underwater creatures. Her ceramic tabletop objects have an amateurish look. But Garofalo also exhibits a charming book, “The Sixth Extinction,” which consists of her computer-generated artwork and writings, and two larger sculptures titled “Prairie Coral” and “Siamese Rock Coral.” Both shows will be up through Dec. 24 at Eastwick, 245 W. North Ave.
Although Aron Packer closed his Bucktown art gallery in the Flat Iron building last month, he has not totally disappeared from the Chicago art scene. Packer has organized a brief nine-day group show of many of his former gallery artists and vintage American folk artists at the Northern Illinois University Art Gallery, and the offerings are as whimsical and unexpected as those Packer typically displayed in his own gallery, though usually one artist at a time.
There are Robert The’s books that are cut into the shape of guns; photographs by the artist known as 40,000 Murphy; and Nancy Bromberg’s solo illuminated “Canary Joan,” a flashy female figure posed in a cutout canary cage with flickering lights, feathers and pearls. The show continues through Saturday at the gallery’s third-floor space at 215 W. Superior St.