Andrew Krzak & David Hernandez at Blue Line
The Blue Line Studio’s April show is holding its closing bash tomorrow, the 26th. In addition to a lot of great art, David Hernandez, the “unofficial poet laureate of Chicago,” is performing with his backing band, Street Sounds. Their program for the night is called “Latin Rhythms and all that Jazz!” You can watch a video clip of the group here.
There will also be a spoken word performance by Andrew Krzak, who is exhibiting as a visual artist as well. As a writer, Andrew won second place in 2007’s Illinois Emerging Writers Competition with his short story “24 Frames.” A downloadable PDF is available about a third of the page down from the Illinois Center for the Book. He also has a children’s book, Pandora’s Lunchbox, out.
As for his visual art, this is a favorite of mine. It’s called A New World. You can see a better image of it at his site. I’m a big history dork so how can I resist this blending of myth and reality, past and present, nature and civilization? I’m also a big sucker for the pathos of “Atlas Shrugged’ ideas, where what’s being allowed to thrive threatens to crush the very thing that makes its success possible.
I’m not sure of the totality of the artist’s process to create this digital print, but the colors are amazing. There’s also a flatness to the quality of this image that I really enjoy.
Another distinguishing feature of Andrew’s work is the attention he pays to his frames. This one is fitted with a custom metal one. Some of his other works have frames that are art pieces all by themselves. A couple of elaborate ones were even larger than the images they held, but they are still well-matched, with good overall design.