Beth LeFauve, Jane Michalski and Monica Rezman exhibit recent works at I Am Logan Square

Despite the Logan Square neighborhood’s most recent flurry of attention, it has historically been a creatively vibrant community. IALS’s June exhibition will feature works by a group of longtime residents, established artists living and working in the neighborhood for over a decade. “From the Studios of: Beth LeFauve, Jane Michalski and Monica Rezman” will open on Saturday, June 4, 2011 from 6 PM to 9 PM at the I Am Logan Square Gallery, located at 2648 N. Milwaukee Avenue. Craft beer by Revolution Brewing and Sangria by D’Noche will compliment delicious seasonal hors d’oeuvres by Café con Leche, Rewster’s Café and Paper Moon Pastry. Musical entertainment will be provided by Resident DJ, Nick Kusiak.

“Over the years, we [Michalski, LeFauve and Rezman] have each been committed to producing art that is accomplished in our prospective media. We represent a few of the many talented artists working out of studios in Logan Square,” declares Jane Michalski, the exhibition’s curator.  “Thanks to the existence of the I Am Logan Square Gallery and other emerging opportunities, we are now able to show our work and celebrate our achievements in our own backyard.”

Jane Michalski has lived and worked in Logan Square since 1986 and has been a Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival curator since its inception in 2009. Michalski, who received her graduate training from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and holds BFA from the University of Wisconsin, has worked in the encaustic medium since 2005. She is known for her abstract works, which incorporate geometric structures transformed by layers of wax. She counts exhibitions at the Koehnline Museum of Art at Oakton Community College, the Haydon Art Center of Lincoln, Nebraska, Katherine Butler Gallery in Sarasota, Florida and an Award of Excellence from the Tubac Arizona Center amongst her professional accomplishments. In addition to her thriving art career, Michalski maintains active in the community though her work with the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival and as a board member of the Logan Square Chamber of the Arts.

Beth LeFauve, an Interior Design graduate from Purdue University, has lived in Logan Square for the past twenty-five years, working with Chicago's architectural and arts communities. She has exhibited her work at the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival and two of her paintings are scheduled to appear in HBO's new fictional Hugh Hefner Playboy show this fall. Le Fauve's works include acrylic paintings and found object assemblages.

Monica Rezman is a painter, textile designer and most recently a photographer who currently splits her time between Chicago and India. Rezman, whose work recently appeared at NEXT Chicago, explores eroticism, transformation and a spectrum of mind states through the subject matter of female hair. Her photographs and renderings are inspired by childhood memories of her mother altering and augmenting her own hair and her three-year-old daughter, who experiments with female adornment the same way. Rezman studied fine art and textile design at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Instituto Allende in Mexico, subsequently pursuing a career in textile design in New York City. Wanting to explore new artistic territory she commenced an intensive study of classical drawing and painting in Italy and continued studying at the School of Representational Art in Chicago.

Each of IALS’s three June exhibiting artists will participate in the 2011 Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival, which will be presented from Friday, July 29 to Sunday, July 31 along Milwaukee Avenue between Kimball and California. “From the Studios of: Beth LeFauve, Jane Michalski and Monica Rezman” will run through the July 15th and all works will be available for purchase with proceeds going to the artist(s) and to support I Am Logan Square. IALS hosts monthly exhibitions of works by local artists and is currently accepting proposals for the fall. Participating artists must either live or work in Logan Square to exhibit their work and priority will be given to group or collaborative shows. The gallery is open to the public by appointment Tuesday through Saturday.