1224 W Loyola Ave has three descending stairs to a recessed floor; regrettably, the interior of the exhibition space is not wheelchair accessible. The public washroom is a very confined space, up two stairs from the exhibition floor. If these factors or others present a barrier for your visit, please write to art@romansusan.org or leave a voicemail at (773) 270-1224 in advance for alternate arrangements. Roman Susan at 1224 W Loyola Ave is located 85 meters northwest of the Loyola CTA Station, with direct access for public transit via the Red Line train and the 147 bus line. A Divvy bike-share hub is located at the west exit of the CTA. There is on-street parking on W Loyola Ave, and a paid parking garage at 1210 W Arthur Ave immediately to the south. For all projects at 1224 W Loyola Ave, open hours are scheduled in advanced, and available at other times by appointment. All projects are visible from the sidewalk immediately outside the space 24/7.
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
January 18, 2025 - February 2, 2025
Open Hours Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays 4-7 PM
Closing Sunday, February 2 from 4-7 PM
You, of course is a show put together by Kevin Stuart to celebrate the work of five artists he has admired for years. Some of these are friends who helped him immeasurably through the years, all whose work has something to do with relations, love, circumstance, and an indefinable and constantly changing humanity and world. If nothing is left, then of course we are all that remain, and we are all eventually carried, and where we end up is of course, with you.
Elena Ailes (she/her) is concerned with the encounters, intimacies and discordances found between human (actions, bodies, histories) and nonhuman (thing, being, astral) worlds. She has presented her texts, videos, and installations widely, including at Apparatus Projects, the SculptureCenter, Randy Alexander Gallery, Sector2337, Ski Club, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and 4th Ward Project Space. She received her MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute. She is interested in that which makes her a better person and a worse person, especially in theory. In reality, she is an artist and writer living and working in Chicago, and currently teaches at SAIC. For more information, please visit elenaailes.com.
Sarah Bastress is a dyke and painter from West Virginia who lives and works in Chicago. She also lives in resolute silliness with her cat and her wife, and shows at RUSCHMAN. When Sarah first met Kevin over a decade ago, she thought wow, this is what a real artist looks like, this is the kind of artist I want to be like, and that has turned out to be beyond true. She loves Kevin very much. For more information, please visit sarahbastress.com.
Sarah Crow was born in Santa Cruz, California in 1984. She earned her BFA in Painting with a minor in Creative Writing from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2013, and her MFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016, where she has also taught as a lecturer in the Painting and Drawing department. She has exhibited in numerous national juried exhibitions and has done commissioned work for private institutions and clients throughout the United States. She currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois, where she is Artist-in-Residence at St. Gregory’s Hall and Adjunct Faculty in the Art & Design Department at Saint Xavier University. For more information, please visit sarahcrowart.com.
Nathanael Jones is an Afro-Caribbean Canadian writer and artist currently based in Montreal. He holds degrees in fine art and writing from NSCAD University (BFA 2014) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA 2017). He has exhibited and performed his work in Canada, the US, and the UK, and has been published online and in print with DREGINALD, Ghost Proposal, Aurochs, Heavy Feather Review, and TIMBER, among others. His debut poetry collection, Aqueous, is out now through The Porcupine's Quill. For more information, please visit theporcupinesquill.com/nathanael-jones.
Sabeen Omar (b. 1987) is a Colombo-based artist who contemplates what can infuse everyday, discardable objects, like cardboard boxes and garment fragments, with the value of a precious family heirloom. She juxtaposes geometric motifs from Islamic architecture against a soft, ever-shifting sky to allude to the duality of meaningless yet preciousness in her work. She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BSc in Mathematics with Economics from University College London. Sabeen's first solo exhibition, Tiger Balm & Other Boxes, was at Cornell University in 2022. For more information, please visit sabeenomar.com.
Kevin Stuart is a painter who lives and works in Chicago. He also runs a carl. For more information, please visit kevin-stuart.com.
Eveningnessless
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
December 27, 2024 - January 5, 2025
For two days in August, I watched the light move across the walls inside Roman Susan. From sunrise to sunset, and then again. This work is an attempt to remember that light.
–– Ruby Que
Ruby Que is an interdisciplinary artist focusing on site-specific intervention and expanded cinema performance. In their work they open portals and create hauntings. Many projects grapple with absence; through video, sculpture and installation, they attempt to give shape to what lies within and beyond the perceived void. Drawing on their lived experience as a queer, itinerant immigrant, they meditate on yearning and find home in transit. They believe in the power of collective myth-making, often engaging collaborators and viewers as co-conspirators towards liberation. For more information, visit rubyque.net.
This project shared a performance on January 4 by Que, Ro Lundberg, Sam Scranton, and Sharon Udoh at sunset, 4:33 PM.
SOUND BLEEDS
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
December 9 - December 21, 2024
An insistent weight encroached the shadows of my uterus, forcing me through medical thresholds and normative expectations. With 16mm film, digital video, and sound, I suture the threads of control over what feels beyond reach: the sovereignty of the body and a digital form of self. Marking one year since my surgery, SOUND BLEEDS stitches together light and shadow, pulse and silence, conjuring a body unbound by flesh alone. Through the manipulation of medical film and optical sound, this work explores the complex dialogues of self—a merging of the physical and digital, reclaiming agency and embracing multiplicity.
–– Peixuan Ouyang
Peixuan Ouyang is interested in how images infiltrate and mediate everyday life, and how we negotiate the world and connect with one another through these images. Peixuan’s work primarily lives through light and readily shapeshifts into films, videos, prints, books, installations, or a combination thereof. Many projects investigate the intersection of monumentality and the absurdity of living, exploring the complexities of globalization, migration, and the human body within and beyond digital and material landscapes. Peixuan juxtaposes the lasting impact of creations with the fleeting nature of life, celebrating the tension between our desires and the realities of human limitations. For more information, visit peixuanouyang.com.
SOUND BLEEDS concluded on the Winter Solstice with a sound performance by Haruhi Kobayashi. For more information, visit haruhikobayashi.com.
Dissonant Body: A Review of Peixuan Ouyang’s “Sound Bleeds” at Roman Susan | Newcity - December 16, 2024
SOUND BLEEDS | Bad at Sports - December 19, 2024
Death Cleaning
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
November 24, 2024 - December 1, 2024
Ruthless and regretful in a cloud of haunted dust, utterly owned by your belongings, you persist with death cleaning. It’s a ritual. It’s a chore. And no one rushes forward to help except the psychotherapist and the spiritualist. Your relics and hoardings want to slip free of meanings. They’re absurd, sad, embarrassing. But they’re hopeful survivors.
Go ahead, kill your darlings—they’re immortal anyway.
Carole McCurdy: installation, video, sound, full text score, performance
Paul Escriva: voiceover, Spiritualist research, brainstorms
Judith Harding: voiceover, performance
Noa Fields: spirit piano
Carole McCurdy is a Chicago-based artist whose movement-based work addresses grief and anxiety, duty and resistance, and the absurd mysteries of embodiment. She has performed at spaces including the Chicago Cultural Center, Epiphany Dance, Links Hall, Hamlin Park, High Concept Laboratories, Defibrillator Gallery, and Movement Research (NY). She received a 2016 Lab Artist award from the Chicago Dancemakers Forum and was a Fall 2016 Sponsored Artist at High Concept Laboratories, Chicago. She created and directed an ensemble piece, WAVER, with support from CDF, HCL, and 3Arts Chicago, and most recently created Just Passing Through (2021–22), a video, installation, and performance shown at Roman Susan gallery. For more information, please visit carolemccurdy.com.
Paul Escriva began exploring performance art with Frank Moore in Berkeley in the 1980s. He is inspired by Annie Sprinkle, Chilli Pepper, and Linda Montano. Escriva has been privileged to serve as midwife to the dying, having lost forty friends to HIV/AIDS, and his work investigates the queer body’s health within the community. His performance work has been shown extensively over thirty years, receiving a grant from the Alphawood Foundation.
Judith Harding has been kicking around the vicinity of performance as a writer/performer and all-around bottom-feeder. Hobbies include watching clothes dry. A teaching artist, Harding is an ensemble member of Tellin' Tales Theatre.
Noa Fields is a trans poet with hearing aids. She is the author of the chapbook With, and her work has been published in Tripwire, Anomaly, Zoeglossia, Elderly, Tyger Quarterly, and Sixty Inches From Center, among others.
‘Kill your darlings’: Exploring Death and Life in Performance Art Piece ‘Death Cleaning’ | Loyola Phoenix - December 11, 2024