The Riverside Arts Center opened Ruminations on Home on April 6, showcasing art by Jennifer Mannebach, Jeffly Gabriela Molina and Brad Stumpf and their personal reflections of home.
Curated by Karen Azarnia, the exhibition features a diverse collection of handmade paper objects, oil on panel works, plaster and acrylic pieces, graphite on vellum, a containment sketchbook, homemade sculpture and oil on linen.
The exhibition is on view through May 10. An artist talk and closing reception are scheduled for May 10.
The Riverside Arts Center has been at its current location at 32 E. Quincy St. for 31 years. Before that, the building was apartments. The idea for the exhibit comes from that previous usage.
Said Azarnia: “I was struck by how each artist approached the theme [of home] from a distinct perspective. I think each vantage point really gives us a different facet to consider and allows us to bring our ideas to the viewer – hopefully sparking their own notions of home and what that means to them.”
Mannebach is a Chicago-based artist and curator whose mixed-media work explores boundaries and material remnants. Molina is a Venezuelan-born artist in Chicago who creates emotionally resonant works and public sculptures reflecting personal and cultural narratives. Stumpf is a multidisciplinary artist whose detailed paintings resemble theatrical stage sets, capturing surreal or intimate moments from memory.
Molina reflected on how nostalgia shapes her view of the past, particularly memories of her hometown in Venezuela, which feel more precious and beautiful with distance. As she builds a new life and home in the U.S., she said her art honors both the fragility and sweetness of home, whether through transformed memories or intimate objects she calls “homemade sculptures.”
“There is a sense that nostalgia has the ability to transform the way we look at something. When that something is no longer accessible – like, in this case, Venezuela, my hometown, my family –the memories of the past become more precious and there’s a kind of shine to them that may even transform them,” Molina said.
Mannebach’s sculptures transform childhood objects, like a slide and toy, blurring the lines between memory and new perception. Her work highlights the home as a space for risk-taking, where memories remain fluid and ever-changing.
Reflecting on a personal memory from when her children were young, Mannebach recalled an orange and blue plastic slide she could not wait to get rid of, only to later seek it out again for her work. The slide is now composed of fragmented pieces, reassembled and altered from its original form.
“My kids are now in their 20s and this memory is from a long time ago. There’s something about looking back at something, especially when using an autobiographical source, that gives you some distance from it. At the time, I might have responded to it differently than I do now – with a bit of distance and a broader perspective on what it might mean beyond what it meant in the moment,” Mannebach said.
When asked how these sets represent both real and imagined moments of home in Stumpf’s life, he responded that his approach to this show represents imagined futures and hopeful realities.
“At least in this show, everything exclusively works with the future with my work. So, I make these little objects, and then I build my stage set on what used to be my bedside table, creating a reality that’s kind of like a wish,” Stumpf said.