CANTO Opens This Saturday

By Julia Weeman in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 15, 2013 8:00PM

Sphere 2 / White Heaven (Mercury) / Hetch Hetchy Reservoir / Archival Pigment Print / 24”x24” / 2013 / Ed. 1/9 / by Stephanie Burke. Image courtesy of the artist.

CANTO, a solo exhibition of work by Chicago-based artist Stephanie Burke, opens this Saturday. The show is presented by Brave New Art World in co-production with Johalla Projects and in collaboration with Rational Park.

Burke works within the American West and explores the complex history of the region. She examines human exploitation, change, and attempts at conservation through the lens of Dante Alighieri. She personalizes the landscape and its inhabitants by inscribing the history her Western Inferno, her Western Purgatory and her Western Paradise onto the Divine Comedy. "Positioned as an allegory for an allegory the work explores themes of poetic justice, power, loneliness, mortality, morality, and religion in relation to the individual with a sense of paradox, honest reflection, irony, and ultimate simplicity," as described in a press release.

The opening reception will be Saturday, Sept. 21 from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. at Rational Park, located at 2557 W. North Avenue. Goose & Fox will provide appetizers. The exhibition will run through October 5 and will be open during regular business hours or can be viewed by appointment.