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Show features three artists, three colors BY ELIZABETH OWENS-SCHIELE Contributor July 19, 2011 Trio Art Show Black & White & Red All Over Work by Greg Johannes, LuEllen Joy Miller- Giera & Deborah Stocklosa Oak Park Art League, 720 W. Chicago Ave., Oak Park, IL.

There’s something black, white and red all over in Oak Park this month and it’s not a new newspaper. It’s the Trio Art Show featuring artists Greg Johannes, LuEllen Joy Miller-Giera, Deborah Stocklosa in a themed exhibit “Black & White & Red All Over,” Oak Park Art League, 720 W. Chicago Ave., Oak Park, IL.

The signature illustration promoting the event was penned by Greg Johannes, a 25-year commercial artist better known for his Geico Gecko which graced the advertising pages of Time Magazine and billboards around the country. But it’s his illustration of former Illinois Gov. Rob Blagojevich saying his prayers that is something Johannes enjoys sharing and has focused more on in recent years.“I do animals and portraits but caricatures are where my strength is, like Jack Lemmon,” said Johannes, who lives in Chicago with his wife and model, Sophie, and dog, Riley.“I’ve been doing watercolors for commission works for people’s homes — 40-50 homes from here to Detroit. I also have a few renderings of Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio and Ernest Hemingway outside his birth home to coincide with the Oak Park Gallery.”Johannes’ pencil drawings, many colored on black paper including a series of the Beatles, range from $400-$600. “Most of my work is black and white and this fit in perfectly with what I do,” said Johannes. “I’d say 75 percent of my work is black and white, with some red.”

Those theme colors for the exhibit were actually chosen by LuEllen Joy Miller-Giera, 52, of LaGrange Park, who didn’t formally start her art career until she graduated from the School of the Art Institute in 2005 with a certificate in drawing. Since then, she co-founded the Midwest Collage Society, and founded the international PlanetCollage.com, with 30 members around the world who do monthly exchanges of postcard collages and host online shows.

“I primarily do collages, but I also work in pastels in acrylics,” Miller-Giera said. “I have eclectic taste so there is no pattern or set theme. Some artists might do a still life but I just create whatever I’m in the mood for.” When she decided to enter the Annual International Collage Exchange in New Zealand and created 13 black and white collages for submission, she decided to make another 13 for herself because she liked them so much. These will be on display, featuring what she calls, “a happy accident.”

“I did a black and white, added red with a Sharpie marker and it smudged, that’s why I put red paint in to hide where the marker ran. It made the work look better.” For her second batch of collages, she used strips of red paper from magazines and other found papers. Collage, which is the French word to assemble or paste onto something else, is made from a variety of materials, including found papers and printed materials. “When I’m walking down the street and find an old newspaper blowing in the wind, an old ticket, or I might find something in the parking lot, if it’s paper and I like it, I use it in a collage. I also use my photographs, pen and ink drawings; I’ll cut it up and use it in a collage.” She copied many of the photographs and other found papers on a black and white copy machine, then added old journals she discovered at the Kane County Fair and a map her father drew when he was a cartographer in the U.S. Army.

She no longer uses photos of her children, Lauren, 28, who lives in Spain teaching English, and Brian, 26, who’s getting his doctorate in chemical engineering in Santa Barbara, CA. “My son and daughter said I can’t use their pictures in my artwork anymore unless they get a cut,” Miller-Giera jokes. Her collages run $110, and she will also be selling some black, white and red beaded jewelry at the show.

The third artist, Deborah Stocklosa, describes herself as a bargain hunter and revels in the fact that art creates things that are greater than the sum of their parts. “In a fundamental way, art is green,” she states in her promotional flyer. “Her “Papa” Peacock always said, “‘Waste not, Want not.’ Art is a tool to mine ‘What if’ from ‘What is.’” Her collages assemble discarded bits and pieces and resurrect them into a different function.

 

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