Fission Fusion is collaborative show by Tanner Bowman and Brendan Luchik, examining the push and pull between two individual artists working with collage and painting using experimental processes. The work began at a time of transition, as Luchik was in the middle of moving to New York City. The artists questioned how they could salvage remnants of Luchik's studio space, which may have otherwise been discarded, and use the collected scrap materials in an attempt to capture the essence and grit of a domestic studio space which would no longer exist. During the construction of the work the artists used their time to to reflect upon philosophy, psychology, poetry, landscape, and the connections between their creative outputs. These personal conversations, ranging in topics from Jungian Psychology and William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”, to Sedona sunsets and gridded city living, directed the subject matter and processes used in constructing the images and assemblage. Also on display are Bowman and Luchik’s individual work which is meant to distinguish the visual conversation between the two artist's work and style. 

Tanner Bowman is an artist, designer, and teacher working out of a home/studio in Chicago, IL. Bowman works with traditional crafting techniques and materials using experimental process to make functional pieces of art. His products are influenced heavily by the domestic spaces he inhabits and often answer to a personal need or desire in his life. Bowman’s work focuses on hybridizing the fundamentals of art, design, and craft into queer and affirming objects. His work questions the normative standards relating to how we orient our bodies to the spaces and objects we inhabit and use. 

Brendan Luchik makes nature-based abstract work that reflects his love for the visual world and image construction. He seeks not only to create the feeling of space pictorially but to translate the emotional quality of it as well to the viewer. Luchik views wherever he goes as home. The internal connection to landscape or a motif carried to new places don't exist as a nostalgic thing for him. The images that stay with him mix with those of where he is in the present moment. He seeks to simultaneously draw from these images and respond to his current urban studio environment.

Artist talk – Sunday, April 8, 1pm

What just happened? We’re still trying to figure it out. We may never quite. But we feel compelled to get our arms around it.

Helplessness, dread, wishful thinking, engagement and retreat: we’ve felt it all. We've tweeted, Facebooked, nstagrammed, and even trolled a little. We’ve marched, called and emailed.

But, barring a miracle, still our fight has just begun.

How to we sustain ourselves? How do we learn to rest and not to quit? How do we relate to the new selves we have to be to resist? More importantly, how do we build -- and build the patience to build?

A new series of events at Heaven Gallery aims to get us out, get us talking and get us moving forward -- together. Regularly! We will use our space tomake time for ourselves to be somewhere decidedly non-virtual and decidedly not post-fact. It's about being and doing while thinking.

Our opening salvo, this March 5th at 1:00 pm, is to be a roundtable of artists, writers and curators who have a passion for thinking about the issues of social justice. We’ll talk about catalyzing (or ineffectual) art, critical positions that soar (or bomb) for us, how we sleep at night after putting more objects into this unhinged world, and how it is essential that we do. There will be questions and dialogue afterwards, and all are invited to participate, because there’s nothing we want more!

The roundtable members is headed by but not limited to:

Elliot J. Reichert

Independent writer, critic and curator. He has written art criticism for Chicago Artist Writers and is a frequent contributor to Newcity. In 2006, he co-founded and edited the Northwestern Art Review, a journal of art criticism and scholarship. From 2013-2015, Elliot Reichert was the Curator of Special Projects at the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University. Previously, he has served in curatorial roles at I Am Logan Square gallery in Chicago and Artpace in San Antonio, Texas. He received his B.A.with honors in Art History from Northwestern University. In the fall of 2015, he will begin graduate studies in Modern and Contemporary Art History and Arts Administration and Policy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Tempestt Hazel

Independent curator, writer, arts advocate and co-founder of Sixty Inches From Center. She is currently the Professional Development Manager at the Chicago Artists Coalition where she works to develop programming that is relevant to local artists and will help them build successful careers by connecting them with industry and business experts. Prior to joining the CAC, she worked at the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events as the Marketing and Outreach Coordinator for Chicago Artists Resource, coordinator of the Creative Chicago Expo and on the team for Chicago Artists Month, the city-wide celebration of visual arts in Chicago that happens each October. She also serves on the curatorial committee for The SUB-MISSION, a project space of The Mission Projects, and is on the host committee for the Leadership Advisory Committee at the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent independent projects include The Future’s Past, a curatorial research project and series of public installations which is the product of a fellowship with the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, Locality, the Chicago Artists Coalition’s Hatch Residency exhibition, and The Tipping Point of Me and We, the Contemporary Arts Council‘s 2012 exhibition. Upcoming projects include exhibitions at Terrain Exhibitions, The Salon Series Projects and South Side Community Art Center.

Robert Burnier

Is an artist who lives and works in Chicago. He received his M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute in Painting and Drawing in 2016. He also holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania (1991). Exhibitions include Ghost Nature, curated by Caroline Picard, at Gallery 400, Chicago, IL and La Box, Bourges, France, The Chicago Effect: Redefining the Middle at the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL, Inland Delta at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Imaginary Landscapes, curated by Allison Glenn, at Chicago Urban Art Society and Jenny From the Color Block at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, curated by Eric Ruschman. His work has been exhibited at art fairs in Miami, New York, Chicago and Copenhagen, Denmark.

Jeff Albert / Helen Gillet / Aurora Nealand / James Singleton / Paul Thibodeaux"

The New Orleans contingent of the Instigation Orchestra brings together five of the finest improvisers working today - trombonist Jeff Albert and Aurora Nealand on saxophones, accordion and voice and a rhythm section of Helen Gillet on cello and voice, James Singleton on bass and drummer Paul Thibodeaux - for two sets of improvised performance. Though they have all worked together in various configuration over the years, their Heaven performance will mark the first ever performance of this quintet for what promises to be a thrilling evening of music.

$10 suggested donation