There’s something I love about art living where life actually happens.
Right now, my work is on view at Gallery Cafe in Wicker Park—a space where conversations unfold, coffee cools slowly, and time stretches just enough to really see.
This installation brings together a selection of mixed-media works on wood—pieces layered with paint, collage, movement, and memory. Birchwood frames the stories. Blues and golds ripple across surfaces. Faces emerge, dissolve, return. The work holds both intimacy and motion, meant to be encountered again and again, not rushed.
I’m drawn to cafés as exhibition spaces because they invite a different kind of viewing. You might notice a detail while waiting for your drink. Catch a familiar feeling out of the corner of your eye. Sit with a piece long enough for it to start talking back. The art becomes part of your day—quiet, present, generous.
This show is about proximity.
Art at eye level.
Art near your hands.
Art sharing space with real life.
If you’re in Wicker Park, I hope you stop by. Sit. Sip. Look up. Let the work meet you where you are.
The exhibition will remain on view through March 2026, so there’s plenty of time to return—because the best relationships with art are built slowly.
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Martha A. Wade