Blue Moon Gallery opens with its new artist lineup
Blue Moon Gallery in Grayslake has announced its new lineup of Collective Artists for 2023: Kathleen Heitmann, Michael Litewski, Kendra Kett, Juli Janovicz, and John Kirkpatrick Jr.
They will be showing their artwork in the gallery this year. All are professional fine artists from northern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin with distinctive careers in the visual arts.
The gallery will continue to host monthly Artist Receptions from 6-9 p.m. on the fourth Saturdays of the month, where visitors can see the latest offering of contemporary art from these artists. The first reception of the year is Saturday, Feb. 25.
• Kathleen Heitmann of Buffalo Grove is new to the Blue Moon Collective this year. Her paintings are bold, colorful, and flowing, using line, shape, and edges to emphasize movement. She works primarily with acrylics and oils, often texturing her paintings with many layers using charcoal, oil pastels and acrylic markers.
• After a yearlong break to build a new studio, Michael Litewski of Zion returns to the Blue Moon. Litewski creates art that examines the impact of societal trends, cultural phenomena, media, and national and world events on the notion of "house and home." The traditional "house" shape, along with strong color and design, figure prominently in Litewski's 2D and 3D compositions. His work is organized into four areas of visual expression: graphite/drawings, paintings, three-dimensional constructions (or assemblages) and sculptures.
• Also new this year as a Collective Artist is Kendra Kett, the gallery's director and owner. Kett, who resides in Gurnee, creates vibrant, color-saturated, highly detailed watercolor pencil and colored pencil drawings focusing on healing and recovery after loss and grief. Kett will also be the gallery's first featured artist of the year, showing over 25 drawings on paper and mixed media works on canvas.
• Returning Collective Artist Juli Janovicz of Kenosha, Wisconsin, arrived at painting from other art forms. She immersed herself in cottage gardening for more than 25 years, studying garden design, color theory, antique flowers, and historic gardens. She specializes in floral watercolors.
• John Kirkpatrick Jr., of Libertyville is an award-winning painter specializing in figurative expressionism. Influenced by Peter Max, Leroy Neimann and Ed Paschke, Kirkpatrick is drawn to a strong use of color, thick and dramatic brush strokes and texture to create visual and emotional stories in the human face and body. His preferred medium is acrylic paint applied to large canvases.
The gallery also recently sold its 500th piece of fine art - "Humanity" by Michael Bellefeuille - in just over 3½ years of operations and a new lineup of Affiliate Artists, whose diverse art is available on the gallery's website, has been finalized.
The gallery's affiliate artists are: Tony Armendariz, Kristin Ashley, Michael Bellefeuille, Joan Bredendick, Matt Darst, Frank Fitzgerald, Jeanne Garrett, Samira Gdisis, Christine Graf, Mary Neely, Bob Nonnemacher, Laura O'Connor, Paul Pinzarrone, Jaynanne Ridder, Russ Riendeau, Les Scott, Rebecca Stahr, Colleen Steenhagen and Sally Wille.
The public is invited to the first Artist Reception of the year from 6-9 p.m. Feb. 25 at Blue Moon Gallery, 18620 Belvidere Road in Grayslake.
Regular gallery hours, 1-4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, will commence Sunday, Feb. 26. For more information, visit www.thebluemoongallery.com or call (224) 388-7948.
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