Elephant Room | Magda Smolenska | Chicago

Signs of Sustainability
Magda Smolenska & Claudia Smalley
November 23rd - January 8th
contact [email protected] or 312-361-0281 with any inquiries

Signs of Sustainability is an exhibition resulting from Claudia and Magda’s artistic partnership, HOBOartlab. Through this collaboration, the artists focus on developing unique oil, watercolor and mixed media paintings on canvas. HOBOartlab donates a percentage of sales to select charities, with the goal being to exhibit art that can positively influence a community and possibly make an impact.
Signs of Sustainability is an exhibition of new paintings and mixed media works by Claudia and Magda. Claudia’s work frequently explores the familiarity of color and composition of historical works by freely reinterpreting them from her own contemporary perspective. For this exhibition, Claudia also introduces a new body of work that harkens back to her industrial design roots and features figurative shapes while playing with composition and color schemes. Magda’s work is a series of paintings that experiment with different media and techniques. Her vast pallet and evidence of tools reveal paintings that are a manifesto of feelings, colors and assemblies. Signs of Sustainability is a visual marriage of strokes, colors, and shapes between two contemporary artists who are interested in positively contributing to the community through the display of their work.
HOBOartlab reached out to their fans through Facebook and Twitter and asked what organizations they were most passionate about. Chicago-based not-for-profit, Vital Bridges was chosen as the organization to donate a portion of the sales to from this exhibition. Vital Bridges’ mission is to help people through metropolitan Chicago impacted by HIV and AIDS to improve their health and build self-sufficiency by providing food, nutrition, housing, case management and prevention services.