Hyde Park Art Center, the renowned non-profit hub for contemporary art located on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, will host its latest Center Sunday, an all-ages program filled with art-making activities, artist talks, exhibition walkthrough and international artist exchange, held on the first Sunday of each month, December 6, from 1-5 p.m. virtually, via Zoom. This month’s program will include four hour-long segments featuring artists Dorian Sylvain, Chris Pappan, Cecil McDonald, Jr., and international exchange between resident artists from Malaysia and Chicago. The event is free and open to the public virtually via Zoom link us02web.zoom.us/j/89732176655. No pre-registration required. For more information, visit www.hydeparkart.org.
Center Sundays are curated by Ciera McKissick, Hyde Park Art Center Public Programs Coordinator, as a means of introducing the community to the myriad ongoing offerings at the Hyde Park Art Center for all ages, interests and skill levels; the December Center Sunday programming includes:
Artmaking: Create Your Own Holiday Ornaments with Dorian Sylvain
1 p.m.
Join Hyde Park Art Center teaching artist, Dorian Sylvain for the Center Sundays Artmaking Activity. With the holidays right around the corner, participants will work with Sylvain to create their own DIY holiday ornaments for decorating this season.
Dorian Sylvain is a painter whose color and texture explore ornamentation, pattern, and design as identifiers of cultural and historical foundations. She is a studio painter and muralist, as well as an art educator, curator, and community planner. Much of her public work addresses issues of beautification inspired by color palettes and patterns found throughout the African diaspora, particularly architecture. Core to her practice is collaborating with children and communities to elevate neighborhood aesthetics and foster shared understanding. In addition to commissioned studio and mural work, Sylvain has led public art projects over the past four decades that empower community and expose children to art making. Partnering with such organizations as the South Side Community Art Center, Hyde Park Art Center, National Museum of Mexican Art, DuSable Museum, Chicago Park District, and the Chicago Public Arts Group, she has devoted her work to building the next generation of “cultural keepers.”
Artist Talk: Residency Dialogue with Chris Pappan and Megha Ralapati
2 p.m.
Join the Jackman Goldwasser Resident Artist, Chris Pappan, and Residency Manager, Megha Ralapati, for a conversation reflecting on Pappan’s current year-long residency at the Hyde Park Art Center. The dialogue will touch on the space of the residency, both physically and psychologically, and its impact on the artistic practice. They will also discuss what is next for Pappan post residency regarding new projects, new approaches, and expanded ideas for his work.
Chris Pappan is a Chicago based artist of Kaw, Osage, Cheyenne River Sioux heritage, and a self-described Native American Lowbrow artist. Currently his artwork is based on American Indian ledger drawings of the mid to late 19th Century while giving them a 21st Century twist. Pappan’ work is in the collections of the Field Museum in Chicago IL; National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C.; The James T. Bialac Native American art collection at the Fred Jones Jr. museum of Art in Norman Oklahoma; The North America Native Museum in Zurich Switzerland; The Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence Kansas, as well as other public and private collections around the world. In 2019, Pappan and his wife exhibited their work in the city of Bristol, UK, with support from Dr.Max Carocci of the British museum, and was also in Australia as one of the four artists chosen for the Landmarks Fellowship project with the world renowned Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque NM, which consisted of an arts and cultural exchange with the Yngul people of Northen Australia, and creating lithographs at the Tamarind Institute. He and his work were recognized in the July/August 2014 issue of Native Peoples. He was the winner of the prestigious Discovery Fellowship from the Southwestern Association of Indian Artists (SWAIA) in 2011 and the Heard Muesum’s Best of Class (Paintings, Drawings,) and Best of Division (drawing) at the 52nd Annual Indian Market 2010. Pappan has lived in Chicago for the past 20 years with his wife Debra Yepa-Pappan, and their daughter Ji Hae.
Artist Talk and Cuts and Beats Exhibition Walkthrough with Cecil McDonald, Jr.
3 p.m.
Join Chicago based artist, Cecil McDonald, Jr. for a virtual walkthrough and artist talk for his upcoming solo exhibition at Hyde Park Art Center, Cuts and Beats, in which the artist uses photography, video, and text to explore intersections of masculinity, ancestry, and the artistic and intellectual pursuits of Black Americans. Cuts and Beats refers to the title of McDonald, Jr.’s most recent body of work in which the artist subverts historical images, including publicity stills of Black artists in the Vaudeville and Minstrel era, by transforming them using techniques of photomontage, video, and performance combined with his own photographs.
Cecil McDonald, Jr. (b. Chicago, 1965) studied fashion, house music, and dance club culture before receiving an MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago, where he currently works as an adjunct professor. Most recently he was a teaching artist at Nicholas Senn High School through the School Partnership for Art and Civic Engagement (SPACE) program at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. McDonald’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with works in the permanent collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Chicago Bank of America LaSalle Collection, and the Harris Bank Collection. McDonald was awarded the Joyce Foundation Midwest Voices & Visions Award, the Artadia Award, The Swiss Benevolent Society Residency, and a 3Arts Teaching Artist Award. In 2016, the first edition of his monograph In The Company of Black was published and shortlisted by the Aperture Foundation for the 2017 First Photo Book Award. McDonald’s work was the subject of a major solo exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center in 2019.
Artist Exchange with International Resident Artists
4 p.m.
Join the Art Center’s resident artists from the international exchange program, now engaged virtually, from Malaysia and Chicago as they share their works and practice. Chicago artists Jacquelyn Carmen Guerrero, Nikki Patin, and Jenn (Po’Chop) Freeman, and Malaysian artists Veshalini Naidu, Dhinesha Karthigesu and Rupa Subramaniam will exchange archival performances and works shown during their virtual studio visits in the past two months. Learn more about these artists through their virtual discussion Anti-Racist Artmaking at Home and Abroad in October 2020 as part of their virtual residency. Generously supported by the Asian Cultural Council.
For more information on Hyde Park Art Center’s public programs such as Center Sundays, please visit www.hydeparkart.org.
About Center Sundays
Every first Sunday of the month and pre-COVID 19, Hyde Park Art Center was activated throughout the center for the public, neighbors, and families, with intergenerational art making activities, artist workshops, artist talks, open studios, curatorial tours of its exhibitions, community collaborations, music and small bites. Since the pandemic lockdown, Center Sundays have switched online, continuing with virtual interaction, engagement, and exchange with the public audience on the same day of each month. Center Sundays are free and open for all.
About the Hyde Park Art Center
Hyde Park Art Center, at 5020 South Cornell Avenue on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, is a hub for contemporary arts in Chicago, serving as a gathering and production space for artists and the broader community to cultivate ideas, impact social change, and connect with new networks. Since its inception in 1939, Hyde Park Art Center has grown from a small collective of quirky artists to establishing a strong legacy of innovative development and emerging as a unique Chicago arts institution with social impact. The Art Center functions as an amplifier for today and tomorrow’s creative voices, providing the space to cultivate and create new work and connections.
For more information, please visit www.hydeparkart.org.