CHRISTINA NAFZIGER

Sixty Inches From Center • 5th April 2023

Yae Jee Min's Gift of Wings

What are the gifts granted by wings? Wings take you to new heights, new territories and ways of being. They symbolize transformation, leveling up (if you are an angel), growing into a butterfly, becoming the being you were always meant to be. Wings...

Ruckus Journal • 29th March 2023

Fragments of Nostalgia, Tender & Sharp

Distance is a fickle thing. There is, of course, physical distance that one must travel when going from one place to another. But how is distance felt? Once we arrive at our destination, how does this new landscape disrupt our perception, our...

Chicago Reader • 15th December 2022

Finding power in pushing back

There is power to be found in pushing back, there is community to be made in forming resistance. In A Rebel’s Fantasy at FLXST Contemporary, curator Michael Rangel brings together seven artists from Chicago and beyond to remind us of the pure joy...

Chicago Reader • 13th December 2022

What does freedom look like?

“Can you see me?” at Weinberg/Newton Gallery intentionally gives a platform to individuals affected by incarceration and to communities that have been deeply cut by the prison industrial complex. What does it mean to listen to a person’s experience...

Newcity Art • 1st November 2022

Memory’s Keeper: A Review of "Remnants" at Heaven Gallery

A memory is a fickle thing. It transforms as time passes, reshaping and rebuilding itself within the memory’s keeper. We picture the details of a memory: the wallpaper in a room, the scraps of fabric on our grandmother’s work table, the aged books in...

Sixty Inches From Center • 25th July 2022

Review: Beautiful Snail at the Logan Center for the Arts

I can only assume that any mention of a snail is a reference to slowness—a beautiful slowness that is the process of making art. This is perhaps even more relevant during an MFA program.

Sixty Inches From Center • 30th June 2022

Review: I don't know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality

What does it mean to apply the concept of hospitality to the body? Hospitality is associated with hosting, with providing care and refuge. Does the body perform and enact hospitality, outwardly offering care, or is it the site of hospitality, hosting...

Create! Magazine • 30th June 2021

FIELD TRIP: Art in L.A.

The undeniably talented figurative painter Alannah Farrell currently has their first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at Anat Ebgi Gallery, on view from June 5, to July 10, 2021. In their show “History of Violence,” the artist gives us a glimpse through...

Sixty Inches From Center • 28th June 2021

Review: We forgot the moon while holding up the sun

If you are familiar with the work of Kelly Kristin Jones, then you know that her work is all about contested monuments. Through physical intervention by way of her body, printed photographs, and digital tools, she disrupts and alters our view,...

Newcity Art • 10th May 2021

Boundary Crossing: A Review of Christina Quarles at the MCA

The paintings of Christina Quarles are all about boundaries: the boundary as threshold, as surface, as canvas, as skin. Largely focused on the figure—or perhaps more accurately, the body—Quarles twists and contorts them as they reach out, wrapping...

Create! Magazine • 27th April 2021

FIELD TRIP: Art in Chicago

FIELD TRIP explores different cities around the world by looking at three art exhibitions that are currently on view. Focusing on galleries and smaller art spaces, these shows are not to be missed! And our first stop is…Chicago!

Newcity Art • 21st April 2021

Fading Moments: A Review of Context 2021 at Filter Photo

Many group exhibitions lately have depicted “pandemic life” or had themes that “reflect on our current state.” It is no easy task to round up a selection of works that accomplish this on their own, as well as together, without disrupting their meaning...

Create! Magazine • 13th April 2021

New Works by Martine Johanna at Hashimoto Contemporary

Martine Johanna’s subjects appear to be in alien landscapes, settings that are absent of identifying features or realistic elements to ground them. Instead, the viewers are given the space to absorb and take in the artist’s ethereal scenery that she...

Sixty Inches From Center • 9th April 2021

Review: 36° 15’ 43” N 29° 59’ 14” E at Goldfinch Gallery

Texture as memory, as language, as impression of thought and purpose; this is what is brought forth onto and within the imprints on the surface of objects made by SaraNoa Mark. Tactile and intricate, the artist’s mark making oftentimes reads like...

Sixty Inches From Center • 2nd December 2020

Fantasy of a Fantasy - A Review of Kajahl: "Royal Specter" at Monique Meloche

Monique Meloche’s exhibition Royal Specter, featuring work by the artist Kajahl, is in every aspect a museum-quality exhibition. I am not merely referencing the historically traditional and representational style of Kajahl’s paintings (that is to say,...

Sixty Inches From Center • 30th October 2020

Out of Time by Cass Davis at Aspect/Ratio Gallery

The exhibition Out of Time by Cass Davis is an investigation of personal history, collective history, and gendered violence. The work oscillates between soft/tactile, and ghostly/alarming. Rooted in imagery that is (for better or for worse) deeply...

Newcity Art • 26th October 2020

Continuously Becoming: A Review of Nine Lives at the Renaissance Society

I thought I knew what to expect when entering “Nine Lives” at The Renaissance Society, one exhibition of many that have opened around the country as part of the Feminist Art Coalition. I looked forward to seeing a collection of works that were by all...

Newcity Art • 17th February 2020

Ignoring the Male Gaze: A Review of Female Trouble at Western Exhibitions

Each artist in “Female Trouble” takes the once-tired subject of the female figure and gives it new life, as each piece strays from the traditional female nude in ways that are subtle at times, and other times louder than a bomb. Co-organized by Elijah...

Newcity Art • 22nd January 2020

Contending With the Object: A Review of Tracing Faults at Chicago Artists Coalition

Like many of the exhibitions at Chicago Artist Coalition, “Tracing Faults” requires time to be spent with each piece, and a bit more context. One thing you can always expect from CAC’s Hatch Residency exhibitions is for the artwork to include...

Newcity Art • 12th December 2019

A Tender and Strange Landscape: A Review of Elliot Ross at Filter Photo

The story in Elliot Ross’ solo exhibition at Filter Space: a selection of photographs from his tender and timely series “American Backyard,” is an unfolding narrative of gorgeous and softly surreal visuals of everyday life around the border between...