Longstanding artist, educator, and designer Robert Earl Paige believes beauty should be accessible all around us for everyone to experience. This exhibition presents a survey of textiles, drawings, tiles, prints, and other works that spans over half a century of Paige’s prolific creative practice and aims to encourage us to make art every day. The solo show is the largest presentation of the Chicago native’s work to date, featuring Paige’s popular fabric work while debuting recent clay, wall/floor paintings, and collage work made during his Radicle Residency at Hyde Park Art Center in 2022–23.
Parapluie, a companion exhibition in an adjacent gallery, features the works of local artists Paige identifies as being in his peer-to-peer creative network. The parapluie, or umbrella in French, is how Paige describes the circles of artists that mutually support each other and regularly exchange ideas, skills, solutions, and materials.