WHEN WORDS FAIL US
March 10-24
CAD West

WHEN WORDS FAIL US
Melissa Bradley + Caroline Liu
March 10-24th, 2017
Chicago Art Department (West), 1932 South Halsted #101
Opening Reception Friday March 10th, 6-10pm
Closing Reception Friday March 24th, 7-10pm

“When Words Fails Us”, a two-person exhibition that features new works by Melissa Bradley and Caroline Liu, explores the relationship between the physical and the emotional sublime. It is often so difficult to take a complex emotional state, memory, or experience and to then verbally express the immenseness of the mind into words or sentences. Through vibrant color palettes and expressive line work, both artists visually create mental landscapes that accurately describe what words cannot.

Melissa Bradley is a Chicago-based painter who creates colorful abstractions of her current emotional states that depicts the range in her personality, mood, and feelings. Her work touches on ideas of nostalgia and memory through her usage of unique florals and fields of color.

Caroline Liu is an artist who creates paintings that visually navigate the inner workings of her concussed mind. Four years ago, a solid wood door fell several feet onto her head and her short-term memory never fully recovered. Her work became a therapeutic practice and vehicle for self-exploration and documentation of her everyday struggles as a person with irreparable memory loss. Through repetitive patterns, mark making, and textural floral elements, her paintings depict personal narratives that focus on feelings of identity, vulnerability, and loss. Her work is a pilgrimage in finding herself and discourse.