My painting won the Babes with Blades competition!!!!!

My painting "Erinyes" won the visual part of the competition and now some playwrights will compete by writing a play based on my painting!

INSPIRING SWORD & PEN Babes With Blades' International Art Competition

Our Joining Sword & Pen playwriting competition offers writers from around the globe the opportunity to take inspiration from a work of visual art, using it as a basis for a brand new work for theatre that features strong roles for women, and explores violence as a storytelling tool.

Background on the competition: Joining Sword & Pen, Babes With Blades' international playwriting competition, was launched in 2005 to increase the number of quality scripts featuring fighting roles for women. (View FAQ) The inaugural theme was proposed by Fight Master David Woolley, inspired by the print of Emile Bayard's "An Affair of Honor" that hung on his living room wall. Each entry to the contest was required to incorporate the moment depicted in the print: a duel between two women on a secluded country road. The competition netted the Babes over 40 entries, from locales ranging from their native Chicago to South Africa and New Zealand. Submissions were of such quality that Babes With Blades plans to publish the winning plays and the best of the runners-up in an anthology. The two winning one-acts, Chicagoan Byron Hatfield's Mrs. Dire's House of Crumpets and Solutions and New Zealander Tony Wolf's Satisfaction, were staged at the Viaduct Theater, April 7 - May 14, 2006, under the title An Affair of Honor. Each playwright received the Ballantyne Award, later renamed the Margaret Martin Award, which carried with it a $500 stipend. Click here: To find out more about BABES WITH BLADES

Upcoming Show!

..."Artists Showing Artists" @portage ARTspace :: Tom Burtonwood, Miguel Cortez, Holly Holmes, Paul Hopkin, Johannah Silva, Victoria Szilagyi, and Philip von Zweck

	September 4 at 4:00pm - October 2

Portage ARTspace is a year-long curatorial/experimental art project started by Johannah Silva. For this second show at the space, she invited artists who show other artists through their alternative spaces or curatorial projects, to show at her space. Silva’s goal and intention for the project as a whole is to incite and inspire dialogue and community. What better way than bringing a bunch of artists engaged in a similar endeavor to participate in the spirit of mutual support and inquiry. Come as your awesome selves and contribute to the conversation! for more info http://corneliaartsbuilding.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/portage-artspace-experiment-in-curating-and-making-art/

Seeing in Tongues

Come out and see my new show for CHICAGO ARTISTS MONTH

Seeing in Tongues

April Jouse, Sari Maxfield, Duffy O'Connor, Victoria Szilagyi and Anna Liljas

Opening Friday, October 9, 2009

6pm-9pm

The Charnel House

3421 W. Fullerton Ave.

Chicago, IL 60647

(773)871-9046 http://www.thecharnelhousechicago.com/

Despite the reign of technology in art, simplistic approaches toward figuration have endured. Idiosyncratic elements, such as a brushstroke, an imperfect or erroneous reproduction, or invented reality, elicit responses in the viewer that contribute to the artist's visual language. "Seeing in Tongues" explores these languages expressed in the artist's magical, surreal or hysterical realities.

Upcoming show!

I'm very proud to be part of this exhibit......be sure to come out and see it!

Women Imaging Women: A study of Female Portraiture

Opening: Thursday, July 9, 2009

5pm-8pm

Show Runs: July 9th-September 13, 2009

The State Street Gallery

401 S. State Street

Chicago, IL

Portraits play a profound role in the development of art history. From ancient lintels depicting Lady Xok at the Maya site of Yaxchilan to Cindy Sherman’s constructions of identity, portraits of women reflect culture, history, and character formation processes. Throughout the development of Western art history, images of women fashioned by men relate narratives of femininity.

Portraits by John Singleton Copley of Boston’s elite or José de Alcíbar’s paintings of nuns in commemoration of the affirmation of their vows in Colonial Mexico demonstrate how male artists created histories for specific women through the visual arts. At the dawn of the twentieth century, women artists became increasingly recognized and in particular, women who depicted fellow women received enhanced attention, notably the painter Mary Cassatt and the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.

With art historical tradition in mind, “Women Imaging Women: A Study of Female Portraiture “examines how contemporary artists depict either themselves or other women.

This exhibition asks: how do women present images of other women? By presenting a diverse group of artists working in myriad media, Women Imaging Women offers a complex study of how women artists portray womanhood. The included works provide varied representations as some are abstract and mystical, while others are naturalistic and earnest.

While the show offers a survey of female portraiture and therefore presents contrasting images, many of the works share similarities and invoke pride, confidence, and emanate with both bold meaning and style.

Works by Mary Ellen Croteau, Judithe Hernández, Joyce Owens, and Patricia Peña reference the historical past. Paintings by Pritika Choudhry offer an intimate and haunting depiction of the artist herself. Photographs by Peggy Gentleman portray women in relatable moments of everyday existence, while photographs by Susan Tennenbaum suggest the fragility, strength, and resilience of teenagers.

Artists who have their work in this exhibition: ATYL, Sarah Baranski, Nicoletta Braccioni, Cat Del Buono, Pritika Chowdhry, Judy Cooperman, Mary Ellen Croteau, Peggy Gentleman, Andrea Ginsburg, Juarez Hawkins, Judithe Hernández, Allison Hill, Shelly Jyoti, Mary King, Lily Mayfield, Sheila Oettinger, Joyce Owens, Patricia Peña, Joyce Polance, Michelle-Renee Perkins, Gay Riseborough, Victoria Szilagyi, and Susan Tennenbaum.