Three New Gallery Exhibitions on Display at South Suburban College

Visual artist, Micheal Coakes
Visual artist, Micheal Coakes

Warming temperatures is the perfect inspiration for art lovers who want to venture out to view gallery exhibits of their favorite artists.

The Art & Design Department of South Suburban College (SSC), 15800 South State Street, has three new exhibitions in the galleries of the college’s Main Campus in South Holland.

An exhibition of paintings by artist Laura Colby titled Recent Works is on display in the Lee Dulgar Gallery through the closing reception on Thursday, April 16th at 12 noon.


Laura Colby’s Microscopic Irregularities on display as part of her solo exhibit at South Suburban College through April 16.

Colby’s statement on her work provided on her website states, “Inspired by nightmares and waking up to unrecognizable shapes of light, my earlier work aimed to capture blurred compositions of light and form.  These paintings would come together as ambiguous abstractions that referenced specific locations, most often being cityscapes. I was able to use my handicap of poor vision and paint without my contacts to transform obvious realities into a representation of my own experience.  Through this process, I began to embrace perceived imperfections in an effort to capture the energy and vibrancy of these illusionistic and vaguely descriptive spaces.”

Also at SSC is artist Michael Robert Pollards’ Brave and Old Fashioned, an exhibition of “fine” art is on display in the Dorothea Thiel Gallery through the closing reception on Tuesday, April 21st at 12:30 p.m.


Robert Pollard, Wild Thing Drawing

Pollard's work can be described as an assault of blunt colors, forms and materials coupled with juxtaposed observations and reflections that document the ebbs and flows of the human condition and the abstractions that surround it.

Illusions of Psyche, an exhibition of photographs by artist Michael Coakes is on display in the Photo Four Gallery through the closing reception on Wednesday, April 22nd at 12:00 noon.

Coakes’ statement, “In all of our lives there’s good and bad, trials and celebrations. That’s the universal reality of humankind. Rather than editorialize some of those realities in my art, I prefer to create a diversion through images that embody a visual sensuality; a kind of beauty that’s reaching out to comfort us and pull us in, out of our realty for just a time; an escape we can slip into.”

The Lee Dulgar Gallery is located on the first floor near the college Atrium. The Dorothea Thiel and Photo Four Galleries are on the 4th floor in the Art & Design hallway. 

SSC Galleries are open at minimum Mondays through Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., and Fridays from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.  The galleries are closed on weekends and holidays.  The public is welcome to visit art exhibitions and receptions at no charge. 

For more information, please call (708) 596-2000, ext. 2445 or visit www.ssc.edu/art.  

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