THE MEMBERS' SHOW - The Arts Club of Chicago

Tanya Gill, to gather (detail), 2025, found vase and thread

The 92nd Exhibition of Visual Artist Members
January 27–March 7, 2026

Last weekend, I was invited to visit The Arts Club of Chicago to experience the annual members’ show. The exhibition is intentionally eclectic, celebrating and showcasing the creative work of the club’s artist members. The works presented offer a wide range of media, styles, genres and forms, all produced within the past two years.

As I wandered through the expansive exhibition, which features more than eighty works of art, I found myself reacquainted with recent pieces by artists I have either worked with in the past or whose careers I’ve followed over the years.

Throughout the show, I became aware of the recurring theme of stitching and threadwork. The exhibition offers a number of fiber-based works, reflecting what seems to be a broader trend in the contemporary art world. For decades, fiber and textile arts were marginalized as craft. Today, that distinction continues to blur, as exhibitions increasingly highlight fiber as a conceptual and critical medium—recognizing the artistic relevance rather than dismissing it as merely decorative.

In a world saturated with digital imagery, curators seem drawn to artists whose handmade fiber-based processes highlight environmental issues—sustainability, consumerism, and their long-term impact on the planet. 

Tanya Gill, to gather, 2025, found vase and thread

One intriguing piece, to gather by Tanya Gill, brought to mind Kintsugi—a Japanese practice of repairing broken ceramics with lacquer mixed with powdered precious metal, intentionally highlighting the fracture. Rather than attempting to restore the object to its original state, kintsugi accepts the break as a part of the object’s life. It is believed that the object becomes more meaningful—highlighting modesty and impermanence—in its new state.

But Gill offers a new twist on this idea. Using a found vessel and thread, Gill reconstructs a shattered vase by meticulously reassembling its broken segments with a web of carefully intertwined fibers. On her website, Gill explains the conceptual origin of the work. A stroke survivor, she describes the firsthand experience of her brain repairing itself—highlighting that her traumatic experience is not unique, but part of the collective story. She says, “We all experience traumatic events that change our course, demanding that we remake ourselves.”

Vanessa Filley, The Sunlight Dragged Me Here (detail), 2025, watercolor and colored pencil on paper with thread.

Another highlight of the exhibition is the geometrically precise The Sunlight Dragged Me Here, by Vanessa Filley. A watercolor and colored pencil work on paper, adorned with meticulous pinholes and stitched lines of thread, the piece exudes quiet refinement that invites the viewer into a meditative world of precision.

The 92nd Exhibition of Visual Artist Members features an impressive range of work. While attending the show, be sure to seek out pieces by Susan Aurinko, William Conger, Lisa Goesling, Katherine Lampert, Maggie Meiners, Sandro Miller, Eric Steele, and Serene Wise. 

The exhibition continues through March 7th. The Arts Club is located at 201 East Ontario Street, Chicago, IL 60611. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday 11-6 and Saturday 11-3. The Arts Club is closed on Sunday and Monday. Learn more at www.artsclubchicago.org.

Vanessa Filley, The Sunlight Dragged Me Here (detail), 2025, watercolor and colored pencil on paper with thread.

TANYA HASTING GILL is a multimedia artist and educator whose work explores collapsing environments, adaptation, and restoration through object making, painting, drawing, video and fiber. Material investigation is central to her practice; she is invested in material properties, limitations and context. Gill constructively plays with material limits and combinations, drawing out new meanings. Her work shifts between the political, social and personal realms, endeavoring to visually articulate and reverberate feelings that we all share. Gill has been a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, as well as in residence at McDowell, Haystack Mountain School of Craft and The Ragdale Foundation. She received a BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and earned a MFA in painting at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Gill calls Northern California, Northern India, and Chicago home. Currently she is nestled in Chicago, IL where she is a Community Artist in Residence at Hyde Park Art Center.

VANESSA FILLEY is a mixed media artist who lives and works in Evanston, IL. She is interested in the energetic threads that orient and connect us, ground us in place and time yet tether us to our ancestral past and future, the lines that bring us home. Her work ranges from large scale sculptural installations to tiny embroidery pieces to poems, photographs, and drawings in watercolor, pinprick and thread. Filley was voted one of Photolucida’s Top 50 in 2018 and has shown work nationally and internationally including the Sonoma County Museum of Art, Berlin Photography Week, the Lishui International Photography Festival, FOCUS PhotoLA, Stricoff Gallery, Galerie Joseph Turene, Western Michigan University, Vivid Art Gallery, Arbor3Arts, The Affordable Art Fair,The Nashville Public Library, the Harold Washington Library in Chicago, the US Consulate General in Saudi Arabia and the inaugural Cosmic Geometries show at Secrist Beach in 2024.

Since 1916, THE ARTS CLUB OF CHICAGO has been a preeminent exhibitor of international art, a forum for established and emerging artists, and a celebrated venue for performers from around the world. For over 100 years, The Arts Club has opened its membership to artists and patrons of the arts, and its exhibitions to the public. At its inaugural meeting, the mission of the Club was defined as: “to encourage higher standards of art, maintain galleries for that purpose, and to promote the mutual acquaintance of art lovers and art workers.” The mission of the Club has since grown and expanded, and is now:

To encourage, foster, promote, and sponsor activities and presentations which would aim to increase public interest in the arts and related activities;To expand the artistic horizons of a public interested in the arts and related activities, which will include lectures, lecture/demonstrations, symposia, gallery talks, films, music, and dance presentations, and related educational programs designed to further these purposes; To maintain a facility for the presentation of these activities and exhibitions; To acquire by gift or purchase, and maintain a permanent collection of fine art, and to present temporary exhibitions of the fine arts in a gallery open to the public.

The Arts Club continues to uphold this mission, offering between three and four public exhibitions per year, a permanent collection including work by many modern and contemporary masters, and a diverse calendar of programming offered to its membership and guests.

Susan Aurinko - Hofheimer Gallery

Susan Aurinko, Two and One, Paris, digital photography

A few months ago, I was asked to curate an exhibition of recent photographs produced by Susan Aurinko. Aurinko is known for her photographic self-portraits—the hazy reflection of self, amidst artifacts found in storefront windows throughout the world. The reflections—at times—quietly allude to an unknowing passerby, while other images only explore the abstract reflections glistening in the glass. 

In preparation for the exhibition, I reviewed more than three-hundred of Aurinko’s never-been-seen before images. The process was an ideal opportunity to delve into the artist’s evolving creative vision. What I found was an expanded concept of “reflection” referencing private moments of contemplation, introspection and meditation. But there was more.

Many of these images explore the geometry of life as visual vocabulary for these serene moments. Aurinko embraces line, shape, pattern and texture—the repetitive texture of foliage, the sparkling spray of water droplets, the unique patterns of dappled sunlight… all brilliantly presented in what becomes a significant flash in time. 

Susan Aurinko, Idyllique, Paris, digital photography

Aurinko captures these moments, causing us to stop and take notice—a reflecting pond distorting the ornate formality of a park setting; a sea of decorative statues randomly huddled together in a flea market; an aerial perspective of a sun-filled atrium producing shadows of unique shapes and patterns. These compositions force a glimpse into an actual reality which is typically missed. They remind us of the surrounding beauty—often neglected—in a hectic world.

Susan Aurinko, Café Society, Berlin, digital photography

The title of Susan Aurinko’s upcoming Hofheimer Gallery exhibition is europa europa—referencing the continent on which the work was created. The show will open this Friday, May 3—with a reception for the artist—and continue through May 30, 2019. The reception runs from 5 to 8pm. 

The Hofheimer Gallery is located at 4823 North Damen—on the north side of Chicago in the Ravenswood area. The gallery is dedicated to introducing contemporary fine art in painting, drawing and sculpture from established and emerging artists. Through the year, the Hofheimer Gallery will feature provocative, engaging, solo and group exhibitions.

Susan Aurinko, Selbst, Vienna, digital photography

I will be joining Susan Aurinko at Hofheimer Gallery for an artist talk on Saturday, May 18 from 2-4pm. Please join us for a relaxed discussion about the artist and this wonderful collection of imagery.


SUSAN AURINKO, a photographer and curator, has shown her work in solo exhibitions in France, Italy, and India, as well as in the US. Her exhibition about India, entitled STILL POINT INDIA, opened at Kriti Gallery in Varanasi, India in February 2013, is touring India’s largest cities, and is now available as a book, STILL POINT INDIA, the cover image for which won both a Jury Award and a Public Choice award from Px3 in Paris. Aurinko’s work appears on several book covers, including The Stranger Among Us, Ariel, Scar Tissue, and Slut Lullabies, in the US and UK, and four of her photographs are included in the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s permanent collection. Her photographs hang in private collections in France, Italy, India, Monaco, the UK, and the US. Aurinko is on the Advisory Committees of the International Photography Awards (Lucie Awards) and has been an IPA and Px3 Juror for several years and is on the Advisory Board for Filter Photo Festival.

Aurinko’s preview exhibition for her series SEARCHING FOR JEHANNE –The Joan of Arc Project, at Takohl Gallery in Chicago, was named among THE FIVE BEST PHOTOGRAPHY SHOWS OF 2014, by New City Magazine.

As a curator, Aurinko has created over 250 exhibitions, both at FLATFILEgalleries, the gallery she founded and directed for 9 years, and in a variety of other gallery and museum venues, including IIT and CAC, and exhibitions for both the Japanese and Danish governments. She has led workshops for photographers and artists in the US, Canada, and India. Aurinko is on the Boards of Directors of Universe of Poetry, Chicago Artists Coalition, Apprentice Lab, and the Advisory Board for Chicago Photography Center, for whom she also curated the gallery’s 11 annual exhibitions from 2010 until 2013. Aurinko is also the founder of the f8collective. Aurinko is represented by HILTON/ASMUS FOTO in Chicago and Kriti Gallery in Varanasi, India.

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The Collectors Panel Discussion at TAC

"...Buy it because you love it madly, because it makes you happy, melancholy, or nostalgic, because it touches a nerve in you, because it makes you feel—not because it may, one day, be worth a lot of money. Mere speculation is not, in itself, a reason to own art. If you buy it, buy it because you have, in some way, been moved by it—because it speaks to you in a soft whisper that only you can hear..." explains Independent Curator and Photographer, Susan Aurinko, one of four speakers at the Collectors Panel Discussion, presented last night at The Art Center-Highland Park.

The event offered opinions and a variety of stories from the guest panelists who came from different segments of the arts industry. Aurinko, was the Founder and Director for FLATFILEgalleries. Still a Consultant, her insights were thoughtful and unique—pointing out in an essay on collecting fine art, that "...collecting out of passion is far more valid than collecting out of a desire for eventual financial reward." Frank Paluch, the Director of Perimeter Gallery located in Chicago's River North Gallery District, agreed. Paluch—with great eloquence—went on to tell the story of a client who asked if a particular work that he was considering for his collection, would increase in value. Almost re-living the experience, Paluch paused, smiled and said—very clearly—"...you really never know."

The quiet manner and unexpectedly-perfect comedic timing of Peter Bartlow added numerous moments of humor to the event. An authority on the works of Chagall, Miro and Picasso, his contribution to the discussion was priceless—with perceptions based on his experience with high-end collectors.

The final member of the panel was Joan Arenberg, Private Collector and President of "Art on the Move Tours". Arenberg began a wonderful discussion of her experience meeting artists in their studios. She—as well as Aurinko—frequent the numerous open studio events that occur throughout the community each month.

The evening offered insight into the panel's personal collections... their first acquisitions, who they collect most and why.With a majority of Artists in the room, the question and answer segment turned to representation and how to get noticed. These questions were addressed but the most important take away was for artists to get there work in front of the public. Perhaps that will be a topic for a future TAC event ...which will offer coffee [as well as wine] and perhaps use of a microphone for the attendees in the back of the room. My apologies.

Thank you to our panel of experts... The knowledge they shared was invaluable. Without their generosity, events like this would not be possible. And special thanks to Maggie Meiners for her connections!

Our Panel: Joan Arenberg, Peter Bartlow, Susan Aurinko, and Frank Paluch - Deanna Krueger Image

The Art Center-Highland Park is dedicated to promoting the appreciation of contemporary fine art through exhibitions by both established and emerging artists. We foster creativity through the experience and discussion of fine art and offer extensive educational opportunities through a broad range of classes, panel discussions, workshops and lectures. A nonprofit organization, The Art Center-Highland Park connects artists with the community at large—supporting creativity at every level. The Art Center-Highland Park is located at 1957 Sheridan Road, Highland Park, IL 60035

The Speakers:
Joan Arenberg, President of "Art on the Move Tours" and private collector has led and designed over 250 tours for Potpourri at The Art Institute of Chicago. Day tours exploring Chicago as well as national travel programs feature visits to artist studios, museums, special exhibitions, sculpture parks and give participants the opportunity and responsibility to learn about art, and to explore, and continue to explore the wide range of fine art possibilities.

Susan Aurinko, as a curator, has created more than 230 exhibitions, both at FLATFILEgalleries—the gallery she founded and directed for nine years—and in a variety of other venues, including IIT, and exhibitions for both the Japanese and Danish governments. Aurinko sits on the Boards of Directors of Chicago Artists Coalition and Apprentice Lab, as well as the Advisory Board of Filter Photo Festival and the International Photography Awards (Lucie Awards).

Peter Bartlow is an authority in the works of Chagall, Miro and Picasso whose involvement with art dealing began in 1972 when he opened his first art gallery. He and his wife, Audrey, met as graduate History of Art students and have two children. In addition to expertise in Modern Master graphics, he has discovered and placed hundreds of paintings by Willy Ramos, Anna Caser, Doug Hatch, Rudolf Svehla and others. He is currently consulting for high net worth collectors.

Frank Paluch has directed Perimeter Gallery in Chicago’s River North Gallery district for 30 years. In addition to curating numerous exhibitions, Paluch has also juried museum competitions including University of Illinois, Milwaukee Art Museum, University of Wisconsin, The Racine Art Museum, and The Renwick Craft Invitational at The Smithsonian American Art Museum. Paluch has a background as a professional photographer and his work is in a number of museum collections in the United States and Europe.

Tonight: A Collectors Panel Discussion

Please join me this evening when I will be hosting a Collectors Panel Discussion at The Art Center-Highland Park.  The event, beginning at 7pm, will be a discussion of what and why Collectors collect... from the point of view of the Dealer as well as the Collector. The panel will include: Joan Arenberg; Private Collector, Susan Aurinko; Founder of FLATFILEgalleries, Peter Bartlow; Director of Bartlow Gallery and Frank Paluch; Director of Perimeter Gallery. This is a free event. Doors will open to the public at 6:30pm. The event will conclude at 8:30pm.

The Art Center-Highland Park is located at 1957 Sheridan Road, Highland Park, IL 60035

About our Speakers:
Joan Arenberg, President of "Art on the Move Tours" and private collector has led and designed over 250 tours for Potpourri at The Art Institute of Chicago. Day tours exploring Chicago as well as national travel programs feature visits to artist studios, museums, special exhibitions, sculpture parks and give participants the opportunity and responsibility to learn about art, and to explore, and continue to explore the wide range of fine art possibilities.

Susan Aurinko, as a curator, has created more than 230 exhibitions, both at FLATFILEgalleries—the gallery she founded and directed for nine years—and in a variety of other venues, including IIT, and exhibitions for both the Japanese and Danish governments. Aurinko sits on the Boards of Directors of Chicago Artists Coalition and Apprentice Lab, as well as the Advisory Board of Filter Photo Festival and the International Photography Awards (Lucie Awards).

Peter Bartlow is an authority in the works of Chagall, Miro and Picasso whose involvement with art dealing began in 1972 when he opened his first art gallery. He and his wife, Audrey, met as graduate History of Art students and have two children. In addition to expertise in Modern Master graphics, he has discovered and placed hundreds of paintings by Willy Ramos, Anna Caser, Doug Hatch, Rudolf Svehla and others. He is currently consulting for high net worth collectors.

Frank Paluch has directed Perimeter Gallery in Chicago’s River North Gallery district for 30 years. In addition to curating numerous exhibitions, Paluch has also juried museum competitions including University of Illinois, Milwaukee Art Museum, University of Wisconsin, The Racine Art Museum, and The Renwick Craft Invitational at The Smithsonian American Art Museum. Paluch has a background as a professional photographer and his work is in a number of museum collections in the United States and Europe. 

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The Art Center-Highland Park is dedicated to promoting the appreciation of contemporary fine art through exhibitions by both established and emerging artists. We foster creativity through the experience and discussion of fine art and offer extensive educational opportunities through a broad range of classes, panel discussions, workshops and lectures. A nonprofit organization, The Art Center-Highland Park connects artists with the community at large—supporting creativity at every level.