Annual Fall Artist Member Exhibition, small works version. This exhibit is open to all current Artist Members. All media welcome. Size is limited to 8” in its largest dimension. Up to 6 submissions per artist
Cartooning and animation are powerful modes for speaking truth to power, when protest is captioned in a word bubble and dry humor delivers the punch. This juried national exhibition comes at a fraught time, an election year, and invites artists working in all forms of cartooning and animation to submit works that speak to this moment in human history.
ASMA KAZI Sept 19 - Oct 30, 2024
This is a whimsical reimagining of how our familiar organic ecosystems reflect cosmic phenomena, drawing parallels between micro and macro environments. These works are a cosmic soup of elements from the natural world and fiction, integrating seemingly disparate components into cohesive clusters where vibrant life flourishes in unexpected ways, reflecting on the interconnectedness of life across scales in the macrocosm.
Piercing purity from young artists and poets, postcard size art and/or poems by young artists showcased. Open call to all area schools, D97 and D200 + to area youth invited to create an artwork for submission.
ELAINE LUTHER Aug 12 - Sept 30, 2024
Working tiny is a great way to experiment - with these artworks, I explored the theme of trees, using my own photographs and public domain photographs. The techniques used include cyanotype, direct printing of photographs on archival tissue paper and collage. The photos and cyanotypes are mounted on painted wood panel.
In Partnership with Gerber/Hart Library Archive
Throughout history signs, flyers, and handouts employing powerful images and text all serve to communicate ideas in impactful ways as tools of protest and of community building. This open-call exhibit, which runs at the same time that the Democratic National Convention is in Chicago, will strive to uplift the artistry of image combined with text in these designs as OPAL partners with the Gerber Hart Archives to take a look at both the historical significance and the human perspective offered through the storytelling power of the sign.
Judge: Gene Skala
A place is what you make it, when you stop to look and absorb the scene you create a place, what you see is a landscape and as artists, we take the next step and create and record the feeling in art, and by doing so make sacred space. Landscapes, interiors, architectural scenery and still life works, reveal both artist’s interpretation of, and intimacy with – place. This is an open-call exhibition for art that evokes the sacred space of creation and creativity in new ways, escape landscape, real and imagined magical spaces.
ALEX BRIGHTBILL-VELAZQUEZ June 5 - July 31
is a Mexican artist who immigrated to Chicago at the age of ten. She earned a BFA from the Northeastern Illinois University and has shown at numerous galleries and curated art shows and cultural events. Her artwork embodies the hybridity of growing up with two cultural experiences, her love of animals and nature.
Jurors: Pia Cruzalegui & Mia Garcia-Hills
During Pride Month in this critical election year, the Oak Park Art League will highlight underrepresented artist’s voices from diverse populations including disabled, BIPOC, incarcerated, queer, and transgender artists and reflect their experiences at this particular time when diversity, equity and inclusion are suppressed more than ever before.
Judge: Gretchen Jankowski
“The world is beautiful but not sayable. That is why we need art”
Charles Simic (US Poet Laureate and Oak Parker)
What memory of a feeling from a daydreaming, circles inside our mind and can only be freed through the portal of abstract art? In this open-call exhibition, artists demonstrate their understanding of the visual language of shape, form, color, texture and line, evoking emotional response, the beauty of the unsayable without the dependence of representational reference.
Celebrating 100+ years of venerable history and five generations of Oak Park Art League Artist Members, this biannual exhibition presents a curated showcase of work by OPAL’s current membership.
Artist Members are invited to exhibit works that best represent their studio practice.
The exhibit includes an online component that will serve to record and archive Artist Member involvement at OPAL in 2024.
The inaugural exhibition in the new niche mini gallery is of mini quilts made with upcycled materials by Amanda Nadig, Elaine Luther, Sylvia Alexander, Katie Turner and Tess Gobeil
In this rendition of the Oak Park Art League’s annual figure and portrait open-call exhibition, contemporary viewpoints are sought that portray the figure and face, paying homage to this tradition of figure study and life drawing that OPAL has encouraged and sustained for its long history.
We welcome the new year with an open-call exhibition for artists to show their most recent work from. All work must have been completed within 2023 and not exhibited at OPAL before.
November / December - Artist Member Winter Exhibition
No theme. No judges. Open Call. Must have been created in the past 4 years and be no more than 42” in any direction. Must be an Artist Member for this exhibition but you can register to become one ($100 annually) when you deliver your work. This will be the finale to the exhibition schedule for 2023, so don't miss this chance to show what you want!!!
SEMI ANNUAL JURIED EXHIBITION
Submission is now closed.
We invite artists to submit their best works in any medium, including painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, fiber arts, ceramics, etc. (with the exception of video and projection-based work). This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase your talent, reach a new audience, and connect with fellow artists.
To be eligible for the exhibition, all artworks must be original, completed within the past three years, and not previously exhibited at OPAL and ready to hang.
*SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED*
OPAL is looking for artwork that depicts the artist's interpretation, relationship, or experience with the landscape theme. All mediums will be accepted. (drawing, painting, mixed media, digital/new media, printmaking, photography, ceramics, fiber, glass, sculpture, etc).
The OPAL Social Awareness Exhibition strives to harness the transformative power of art to promote awareness, provoke dialogue, and inspire action. As a community resource art center, ALL artists are invited to represent themselves, their communities and their culture. OPAL hopes that social justice can be accomplished in coming together through art, in understanding and acceptance.
● This is an Open Call for everyone.
The Small Works Exhibition is an Open Call,
featuring small-scale artwork.
With each piece being under 12” by 12”, it allows the Gallery to showcase artwork from as many artists as possible in a single show, and it’s a chance for artists to create art at a scale they might not typically use. Limitations can create new forms of expression.
This exhibition opens Thursday May 18 (1-6pm) with a wide variety of local and regional artists presenting their best works, including painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, fiber arts, and ceramics.
This exhibition is generously sponsored by the:
GOOD HEART * WORK SMART FOUNDATION
Making our communities a better place - one child at a time!
This is an Open Call exhibition for artwork that best represents the artist's understanding and practice of the visual language of shape, form, color, texture and line.
Abstract art, “also called nonobjective art or nonrepresentational art, … in which the portrayal [recognizably specific] of things [objects, life forms] from the visible world plays little or no part.”
This is the first Art Member exhibition of the 2023 season. Art Members are encouraged to enter one or two works of art that best represent their studio practice.
This is an OPAL Art Member only show.
For all artists who utilize the human figure and/or the human face, as the dominant content of your artwork, this is an Open Call exhibition for you.
This is the never-ending narrative of figures and faces.
Show yourself and your subject in this exhibition and add your voice.
No theme. No judges. Must have been created in the past 3 years and be no more than 36" in any direction. Let's see what you've got! OPAL Artist Member FALL Exhibition 2022. Must be an Artist Member for this exhibition but you can register to become one ($100 annually) when you deliver your work. This will be the finale to the exhibition schedule for 2022, so don't miss this chance to show what you want!!!
This Open Call is looking for artworks that reflect on what “HOME” means through the experiences and emotions that define our understanding of who we are, collectively and individually.
There are physical and emotional realities to where we stay, and where we stay may or may not be “HOME.”
This Exhibit is proudly sponsored by BYLINE BANK
Celebrating its 101st year, the Oak Park Art League (OPAL) proudly announces a regional call for art work with Art 101: A Regional Juried Exhibition. OPAL is looking for work that best demonstrates the artist's use of materials and mastery of skill in their chosen medium.
Often considered to be art in its most direct and fundamental form, drawing has expanded beyond marks made with charcoal on paper. In its most traditional sense, the act of drawing depicts the observation and continued practice of mark making by the artist. The artist creates a narrative with their choice of drawing materials and ways that line, proportion, scale, subject and positive & negative space are depicted. The physical process or act of drawing con-temporarily includes additions of other mediums, while staying true to the act of creating a line on a surface to create an image.
Bigger is not always better. The rejection of working on a large scale can be prompted by available materials or space to work, or simply the artist's interpretation of macro to micro. Artistic creation on a grand scale once depicted importance, power or influence of subject and artist. Today, work created on a much smaller scale is no less important, influential or powerful. Rather, its creation offers a more intimate relationship between artist and subject and its completion offers that to subject and viewer. This exhibition celebrates the innovation of artists that work on a small scale - whether by necessity or intended message.
Whether depicting scenery as illustration or storytelling, background setting or main subject, artists have a strong relationship with the landscape that surrounds them. From Renaissance painters to contemporary practitioners such as Diebenkorn, Hockney and Gornik, the depiction of landscape is not simply a matter of copying nature or the artist's view. A creative distillation of color, scale, shape, space, atmosphere and composition become the driver of the artistic inquiry. Through the reorganization and simplification of this visual information the artist becomes a translator. The Midwest landscape, rural to urban, offers ample opportunity for creative expression and query.
Abandoned spaces can evoke feelings from fear to idyllic nostalgia. These places can be artifacts of history, contain traces of earlier life, offer chances to reflect and give shelter or new opportunities for development and use.
Celebrating the start of its second century, the Oak Park Art League is inviting all Artist Members to participate in this traditional spring exhibition.
Throughout time and across most cultures, artists have created abstract art. It unfolds and reveals itself in time and layers, needing space to develop and grow. And artists have distinct views on the outer world that goes beyond the literal, and through non-objective art expression, the viewer obtains a glimpse into those innermost perceptions.
Beat the winter blaahs! The Oak Park Art League is transforming its Carriage House Gallery into an artistic winter “hot house” as a retreat from the cold & grey of the deep winter months. This exhibit will celebrate the vibrant floral colors that spring and early summer bring upon arrival.
Figures & Faces, is an open call group exhibition that celebrates the practice and study of foundational & representational skills needed in drawing, painting and sculpting the human form with competency.
OPAL’s Art & Ornament Market is an opportunity to exhibit and purchase original handmade works of art and decorations for yourself or holiday gift giving.
As OPAL wraps up its Centennial year, we are asking our Artist Members to select one work of art that best exemplifies their current or practice. Because the pandemic has affected artists' creativity in different ways, we are open to accepting work that was created within the last 5 years.
Powerful art reflects the issues of the time it was created, commenting on injustices, inequality, subversive forces or subconscious collective behaviors that are called out and called on to create or advocate for change.
Celebrating its centennial year, the Oak Park Art League (OPAL) proudly announces a national call for art work with Beyond 100: A National Juried Exhibition. OPAL is looking for work that best demonstrates the artist's use of materials and mastery of skill in their chosen medium.
Art and music have a deep and resonating relationship. And the creative process of either can be affected by the other.
This is a judged exhibition.
This judged exhibition celebrates the innovation of artists who create work on a small scale and in a broad range of media and styles. We encourage artists to test their artistic abilities and explore the many different realms of art created on a small scale. OPAL is asking artists to transport us into a visual world that brings attention to the tiny details and invites us to take a closer look.
This exhibition provides an ideal opportunity for artists to celebrate their love of the Midwest landscape, including rural and urban imagery. Artists are invited to submit two pieces that exemplify their interpretation of the ‘American bread basket’. All mediums will be accepted. (drawing, painting, mixed media, digital / new media, printmaking, photography, ceramics, fiber, glass, sculpture). Artists submitting film or video, please inquire about our available projection system.
Link to virtual tour here!
From illuminated manuscripts to digital technology, artists have learned to harness the power of words to create art. The Treachery of Images or “Ceci nest pas one pipe” (“This is not a pipe.”) by Magritte gives viewers a chance to understand his work, and that of others, in a whole new way.
Link to Virtual Tour here!
As part of OPAL’s Centennial, we are asking our Artist Members to select one work of art that best exemplifies their current or past practice.
Link to virtual tour here!
“There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.” - Pablo Picasso
Link to virtual tour here!
“Art helps us identify with one another and expands our notion of ‘we’ - from the local to the global.” -Olafur Eliasson
How do our recent experiences of isolation inform the way artists think and work?
It has become all too common to see redacted faces and obscured mouths & noses, by our new reality - the facemask. In this rendition of OPAL’s annual figure & portrait exhibit, artists are encouraged to present their new understanding of the human face, form and figure beneath a mask of their interpretation.
As one of several countdown events to the Oak Park Art League’s 2021 Centennial, Holiday 100 is both an art sale and fundraiser, designed to benefit community artists, art patrons and OPAL.
During the 100 days leading up to OPAL’s Centennial Year, Artist members are invited to submit one piece of work that best exemplifies their current body of work.
To speak abstractly about the meaning of dissent, social change or even art seems a hollow discussion without addressing current events that are happening in America today. On May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by a policeman kneeling on his neck. Despite pleadings from Mr Floyd that he couldn't breathe and onlookers that the officer should stop, despite being filmed, the attack went on for over eight minutes. Sadly, this was not new or isolated. In fact the pleas of not being able to breathe eerily echoed those of Eric Garner's last words. But this act has resonated across America and the world in no small part because it occurred in full knowledge of being filmed, illustrating for all that in America, in 2020, Black people could be killed with the same impunity illustrated in the photographed lynchings from the last century.
In our hyper-connected, contemporary society the term “under the influence” is often associated with notions of illicit drug use or the effects of excessive alcohol consumption. But every one of us is under the influence of something - our past, our family, the political climate, social media, peer groups, other artists and more. Whether good or bad, by choice or unconsciously drawn, influences and influencers change our behavior, beliefs, thinking, values and culture. Artists are the mirrors of culture, so what influences you?
Tremendously Diminutive is an open call exhibition that celebrates the innovation and ingenuity of artists who create bold artwork on a small scale, in a broad range of media and styles. The Oak Park Art League invites artists of all disciplines to submit work in any medium that celebrates artistic creativity on a petite scale.
Celebrating ninety-nine years of creative endeavors, this biannual exhibition features self selected work from OPAL Artist Members that best exemplifies their current practice.
Entanglements is an open call exhibition that explores and celebrates the abstract nature of artistic inquiry. Opening reception: Friday, March 13th, 7pm - 9pm.
Domestic Moments is an exhibition that explores the artist’s relation to the domestic scenery of our everyday lives as the denizens of suburbia.
Holiday One Hundred is both an art sale and fundraiser, designed to benefit community artists, art patrons and OPAL.
Join us as our member artists display their latest and best work, an eclectic collection of sculpture, paintings, and more.
The Oak Park Art League presents an exhibition that celebrates the art of visual narratives.
Artwork that explored and expressed the artist’s personal experience or of others they know living in the United States of America during our present moment. We are going through an interesting period of time where there are so many individual viewpoints of who we are as a nation and what it means to be a citizen and what rights are included.
As we approach our 100th anniversary, We want to look at the history that has made The Oak Park Art League the place it is now. Along showing selected pieces from our permanent collection, We are holding an open call for art that explores our past and envisions our future.
Celebrating our 98th year as a vibrant part of Oak Park’s art community, this biannual tradition exhibits work by Oak Park Art League’s current membership.
The history of art is largely a history of apprenticeship. This exhibition asks our OPAL instructors past and present to tell the story of their own lineages. Where possible we have asked their mentors, or collectors of their mentors to loan original works to hang next to their own.
An open call exhibition of abstract art pieces of any mediums and themes.
The annual fall exhibition of recent works by the artist members of The Oak Park Art League.
International exhibition juried and curated by Douglas Stapleton.
The Oak Park Art League (OPAL) presents Out of the Box! This call challenged artists to investigate the outer corners of creativity and processes through the ubiquitous and utilitarian box (made of any material).
Structures is the last of a summer series of exhibitions exploring the idea of identity as a function of our interaction with nature, each other, and architecture. For the month of August we ask artists to explore their relationship to the spaces we create: the structures we inhabit, work and play in.
Part of a summer series of exhibitions exploring the idea of identity as a function of our interaction with nature, each other, and architecture. This Exhibit focused on identity as a function of each other.
Where We Are: Gardens & Prairies is the first of a summer series of exhibitions exploring the idea of identity as a function of our interaction with nature, each other, and architecture.This June we ask artists to explore their relationship to the flora that surrounds us in urban, suburban or rural landscapes.
In the spirit of youth-led movements across the country, join Curie Metro High School students to send a message to elected officials about issues that impact you. Write your personal message on postcards designed by Curie students, which will be mailed to Senators and elected officials across Chicago.
The 97th annual spring exhibition of member artist’s recent wor
In conjunction with ARTifact: 33.3 National Exhibition of Record Cover Art, the Oak Park Art League presents a lecture about the artists and stories behind a number of well-known pop/rock album cover designs. Presenter Mike Goldstein is a former music TV programming and production executive and founder of the Album Cover Hall of Fame, a website that recognizes the contributions of those who have had significant impact in the ongoing development and advancement of rock and roll album cover-related design, illustration and photography.
An exhibition of artwork focused on the human figure.
The 96th annual fall exhibition of Member Artist’s recent works.
the October exhibition "We are Enough" is focused on body image, attitudes and identity, with exhibiting artists from as far away as China.
Whether text based, visual, or spoken, words have the power to confuse, define, hinder, empower, humiliate or heal. OPAL is looking for artists who use text or words as a central part of their work or creative practice. Written text passages must be part of an artist book, painting, photograph, drawing, print, collage, sculpture, or other visual art form.
Discovery is at the heart of “Drawn to Detail,” which will feature two- and three-dimensional works that focus on the minutiae of the subject rendered in the finest brushwork or in the tiniest of stitches.
The 96th annual spring exhibition of member artist’s recent works.
An exhibition of artwork of any medium that directly or indirectly incorporates digital technology as an integral part of it’s creation.
Figurative work & portraiture of any media, 2D & 3D, framed/unframed, Artists are encouraged to exhibit their understanding of new ways to portray the figure while paying homage to this traditional practice.
Fine art and bad sweaters...what more do you need for a great holiday party! Put on your favorite holiday sweater and join us on December 9th for the Preview Party of the Oak Park Art League's Holiday One Hundred exhibit, art sale and 50/50 benefit.
The annual fall artist member exhibition of members recent works.
ART FOR SOCIAL CHANGE: Behind the Wall calls on artists from across Chicagoland to submit artwork for a juried exhibition that raises awareness to journeys of conflict, pain, empowerment and peace. The working title Behind the Wall, references the isolation and suffering that victims of domestic violence experience in their private lives, as well as the healing gained in the recovery process that brings the work to the walls of the Oak Park Art League’s historic Carriage House Gallery.
An exhibition of artwork where text, readable or otherwise, is integral to the form, meaning or intent of the work.
An exhibition of works of any medium that depict travel destinations or vacation hot spots.
This exhibition called for work inspired by the life, travels and writing of hometown author and literary giant, Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway lived large and his experiences and novels provide vivid themes for artists to explore: World War I, Paris cafes, Cuban culture, Spanish bullfighting, African safaris, Key West fishing, horseracing, artists, authors and poets, food and good whiskey.
An exhibition of artwork with a focus on exploring the relationship of size in art.
An exhibition of artworks by Marcia Palazzolo, Greg Philips, and Marlene Russum Scott.
An exhibition of works by Carey Overstreet, Nancy Fong, and John Spiteri.
