“The folky character of Jes Seamans’s prints and watercolors invoke a calmer and more contemplative world of subdued forms and gestures, but the subject matter is still intensely surreal“-Chicago Weekly

“Danimal’s work combines a multisensory overload of linear optical geometrics with the vague, milky presence of individual figures“-Chicago Weekly

http://chicagoweekly.net/2010/02/11/2143/

“There is some really nice work here, and plenty of it“-Chicago Tribune

Seamans’s images “stand on their own as art to admire, long after the rock ‘n’ roll show is over“-Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/art/ct-ott-0226-galleries-review-20100226-4,0,904705.story

“The advent of shows at No Coast should help ensure that the genie of magical handicraft won’t be returning to the bottle any time soon“-Chicago Reader
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/Event?oid=1405580

Communication
Danimal
16 x 28
4 color screenprint
2009
edition of 60

Xmas Houses
Jes Seamans
18 x 24
3 color screenprint
2010
edition of 45

No Coast Exhibitions and Editions presents: Hexenhaus

No Coast Exhibitions and Editions, a new gallery series, will use the distribution of multiples as well as public showings to highlight emerging artists in Chicago, the Midwest, and around the country. The series continues with video, performance, and installation work by Chicago artist Tessa Siddle.

Hexenhaus

Performance and Objects by Tessa Siddle

On view March 12 - April 2, 2010

Opening Reception Friday, March 12^th, 6-9pm; Performance at 7:30pm

Closing Reception Friday, April 2^nd from 5-7pm

Closing Performance Friday, April 2^nd begins promptly at 6:00 pm

at No Coast Exhibitions and Editions

1500 West 17th Street Chicago, IL 60608

The private lives of humans, animals, and houseplants exist betwixt and between the magic and glamour of polarized human emotions in Hexenhaus. Fantastic environments created by Tessa Siddle build psychologically charged hybrid spaces and narratives. Domestic objects, natural elements and projections combine to embody multiple versions of self in evocative settings and situations. The breakdown of communication-attraction-domesticity-loneliness-jealousy-witchcraft becomes a meditation.

As a Transgender film/video, installation and performance artist, Siddle’s work uses costumes, cosmetics, projections, blue-screen and minimally worked materials such as cardboard, yarn, tin foil, untreated wood, leaves, paper, fabric and fur to critique binary social constructions—Nature/Culture, Animal/Human, Autobiography/Fiction, Physical/Mental, Intellectual/Emotional. Fragmenting the boundaries between these categories forms new connections and relationships that extend beyond the confines of mainstream social dualities.

Alongside the exhibition, Siddle is also releasing limited edition objects from the installation.

They Tried

Curated by Gretchen Holmes

Friday, April 2 from 7-9pm

In conjunction with the Hexenhaus closing performance, No Coast Exhibitions & Editions presents They Tried, an evening of performances that complicate the theme of failure.

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No Coast is a multi-use space, art studio, and consignment store in the Pilsen neighborhood on Chicago’s south side. We believe that the products and processes of creative practice should be accessible to whomever is interested in them. We strive to be generous with our time, our tools, and our talents in order to create a nurturing, open, & collaborative community. Our studio’s focus lies in printmaking, but our practice is inclusive of creating, showing, and discussing many different media.

No Coast is easily accessible from the 18th Street Pink Line station and the #9, #18, and #60 buses. We can be reached via email at everyone@no-coast.org, and by phone during store hours at 312/850.2338.

No Coast Exhibitions and Editions: a new gallery series premiering February 13th, 2010

No Coast Exhibitions and Editions will use the distribution of multiples as well as public showings to highlight emerging artists in Chicago, the Midwest, and around the country. We are kicking of this new series of public programs with an exhibit by two artists from Minneapolis:

LOOK INTO THE LIGHT

New Work by Danimal and Jes Seamans

On view Feb 13th - March 7th, 2010

Opening Reception Saturday Feb. 13th, 6-9pm

at No Coast Exhibitions and Editions

1500 West 17th Street Chicago, IL 60608

It would be too easy to attribute Danimal’s vertigo-inducing prints to the psychedelic nostalgia that so permeates contemporary art and music. But this is no Fillmore East revival, this is the underground disco of our gay-ass techno-pagan mutant future. Patent-leather lips, x-ray eyes, stiletto boots and clawed fingers swirl in a disembodied haze, and are then pulled together by a joyfully sinister vortex of patterns and shapes, making complex sigils which summon an eternal Halloween. Similar in spirit, in Jes Seaman’s world there are no love-ins as we remember them — here woodsy spirits strip to their knee socks and shake their beards all night to Prince. With hair like smoke and scales like water, people, animals, and forces of nature are woven into a palimpsest stirred to life by Seamans’s intricately patterned linework. Heavily involved in the creative scene in Minneapolis, Seamans and Danimal’s work also reflects the influence of their musical interests and abilities, a multi-disciplinary approach to making that we value at No Coast. Both are also a part of collaborative efforts ranging from designing band posters to hosting queer dance parties. Their work is representative of a community and an attitude that prizes the truly strange, and the urban Midwestern belief that everything is possible.

Danimal: http://danimaldanimal.blogspot.com/

Jes Seamans: http://landland.net

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No Coast is a multi-use space, art studio, and consignment store in the Pilsen neighborhood on Chicago’s south side. We believe that the products and processes of creative practice should be accessible to whomever is interested in them. We strive to be generous with our time, our tools, and our talents in order to create a nurturing, open, & collaborative community. Our studio’s focus lies in printmaking, but our practice is inclusive of creating, showing, and discussing many different media.

No Coast is easily accessible from the 18th Street Pink Line station and the #9, #18, and #60 buses. We can be reached via email at everyone@no-coast.org, and by phone during store hours at 312/850.2338

Tuesday, January 19th at 6pm at the MCA

NO COAST presents: HEAVEN IS REAL, a collection of performances, presentations and activities themed around our abnormal/paranormal/celebratory/transcendent relationship with death and dying, as part of the Cabinet of Curiosities series. The MCA describes the event as “A grab bag of ‘un-lectures’ about a myriad of topics that create a variety show-like evening of artist presentations curated by different groups from around Chicago.” We like to think of it as a morbidly fantastic show-n-tell.

Featuring Performances by:

Acephalous
Andre Callot
Aaron Dicks & Colin Self
Andrea Fritsch
Rebecca Gordon
Brandon Joyce
Ted Marino
Hosted By Lil Elote
special activities by No Coast

Admission to the MCA is also FREE all day on Tuesday!

Happy New Year everyone! This year will bring a lot of new and great things here at No-Coast, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, swing by and grab a copy of one of the beautiful new books from the good folks over at Green Lantern Press.

The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle

The New North Georgia Gazette is an annotated transcription of the 1821
newspaper, The North Georgia Gazette. The newspaper was written aboard
an English ship trapped in the Arctic. The ship s captain had the
sailors produce the newspaper in order to ward off scurvy. Caroline
Picard, Director of the Green Lantern, describes The Gazette as an
incredible existential metaphor, where, a group of people, stranded in
the dark, are forced to make their own meaning in order to survive the
harsh conditions. The Gazette comes at a time of enormous environmental
change, and it seeks to point out the importance of the relationships
between humans and their surrounding environment. In addition to the
entire 1821 newspaper, the book includes excerpts from the Captain s
journal, original annotations by transcriber/poet Lily Robert-Foley, an
introduction by St. John s (MD) Professor Dr. Michael Comenetz, an
essay about optimism and humilty by contemporary Arctic expeditionist
John Huston and contemporary artwork by artists Deb Sokolow, Daniel
Anhorn, Jason Dunda, and Nick Butcher.

Printed in an edition of 500 with silkscreen covers by Nick Butcher of Sonnenzimmer
$35
Fascia, Ashley Donielle Murray

n. pl. fas·ci·ae 1. Anatomy A sheet
or band of fibrous connective tissue enveloping, separating, or binding
together muscles, organs, and other soft structures of the body. 2. The
debut collection of short fiction by Ashley Donielle Murray.

Like
the tissues binding the heart to its arteries, the stories in Murray’s
collection describe the threads, sometimes thin, sometimes strong, that
connect daughter to father, husband to wife, and ourselves to our own
histories. Each story is its own quiet revelation and has the ability
to bind the reader to the book long after the covers have been closed.

Printed in an edition of 500 with silkscreen covers by Nadine Nakanishi of Sonnenzimmer.
$20

So Much Better, Terri Griffith

Liz is an employee at The Unified Telecommunications
Credit Union, a job she has not missed a day of for three years. In
between her daydreams of moving someplace warm, she peers at the bank
account of her former lover, runs background checks on herself,
attempts to dodge the young girl she has started an affair with, and
hopes to reconnect with her missing sister. At first glance, it may
seem as though very little happens over the course of the novel, but
before long the minor events which seem so unimportant build upon one
another until they collapse completely, as Liz forces herself to
explore the depths a person will go to be alone.

Printed in an edition of 500 with silkscreen covers by Nick Butcher of Sonnenzimmer. Featuring a color plate by LA artist Zoe Crosher.
$20

Love is a Certain Kind of Flower, Stephanie Brooks

Love Is a Certain Kind of Flower is an extensive index of love metaphors culled from poems ranging from
the classics to sentimental greeting card verse. Continuing in Brooks’
deconstruction of Romance, Love Is… provides an amusing and sometimes poignant reference for emotive description.

Love Is a Certain Kind of Flower is number two in the Pocket Lantern Series.
Printed in an edition of 250.
$10.00

No coast will help you get your project done this Saturday, Dec. 19th between 1pm and 6pm.
$25 suggested donation for experienced printers.
$45 for beginners (arrive at Noon)
email everyone@no-coast.org to reserve your spot.
We recommend bringing a prepared design or a screen so you can finish your project at home if you run out of time.
Happy Holidays!

New this week…
Magas Violent Arp plus restock of Live Bottle Tape

Sacred Bones Releases


Javelin Andean Ocean Tape

Mississippi Records releases

plus Gatekeeper EP back in stock

No Coast will be holding classes every month this winter. Topics will vary and more complete schedule is forthcoming. Here’s what we got so far.

Saturday, November 28th 12-4pm: Multi level screen-printing with Aay and Dan.
Sunday, November 29th 1-5pm: Screen-printing part 2

Saturday, December 19th 1-5pm: Holiday print session with Andrea. Learn print skills, make last minute presents!

January: Bookbinding with Reba

Sign up for our mailing list to learn more. We’ll be sending out more detailed info soon.