Lillstreet Gallery

09/09/2026

✨ We are delighted to share our September Artist of the Month, Laura Marmash!

Laura, a Chicago based artist explores the fundamental interconnected relationship between human beings and nature, with the goal to underscore that vital interdependence. Laura finds beauty in decomposition and decay, the change of seasons, evolution and the circle of life.

Shop Laura’s work online.

09/08/2026

September is full of art at Lillstreet! Join us this Thursday 9.10, 5-8pm for the opening reception for:
⭐️The Further we Roll in collaboration with Make Art with Purpose. Celebrating the anniversary of women’s suffrage and civil rights leaders who fought for the right to vote with a rooftop flag installation.
⭐️The Matrix - work by the Lillstreet Printmaking and Book Arts Department faculty.
⭐️Up There! A solo exhibition of work by Scott Mossman displayed throughout the Lillstreet building
⭐️Henry Voellmecke, sigh, and yell oh! A solo exhibition of silkscreened prints.

08/27/2026

Lillstreet Gallery Presents

✨THE MATRIX

Works by the Lillstreet Printmaking & Book Arts Department Faculty & Monitors.

August 15- September 25, 2026.
Reception: September 10, 5-8 pm

Working in contemporary as well as traditional and vintage print processes, the Lillstreet Print department offers classes in etching, letterpress, relief, monotype, collagraph and screen printing as well as bookmaking techniques including accordion, pamphlet, Coptic, and stab-binding. The work in this exhibition is an exploration of all of these techniques and more; works range from artists books to block printing to lithography.

Molly Berkson, Sara Emerson, Matthew Ginsburg, Kasey Grealis, Katie Kiese Mint Liu, Hannah McMaster, K. Bellamy Mitchell, Alicja Pulit, Kim Raffield, Smith, Shannon Thompson, Paloma Valencia, Henry Voellmecke, & Anna Wagner

08/25/2026

✨Ryze Xu: Prototype. August 7- August 28, 2026. In the realization of his final theses, Walter Benjamin found the image of a “ang of history”: In the petrified landscape of time, the angel of history stares only the past, wings pinned back by a storm - a storm which we call progress which irresistibly propels the angel into the future, while the ruins of the pas piles at its feet. “In me,” the angel says, “all the blueprints of tomorrow are already in ruins.” Caught in this tempest, we are left to ask: will the glory of a promised tomorrow ever arrive?

The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: our time is beta-version deployed into a world without a master plan. A prototype isn’t
“hero” or a “finished product” - it is a survival machine in the void between dead past and an aborted future. It is a rough draft that is continua generated, tested, and discarded because of our lack of the ideologic coordinates towards finalization.

At its core, Prototype refuses the illusion of a “finished” self. It acknowledges that we are built from the ruins of the past, structurally incapable of reaching a finished, flawless product of the future, and therefore defined entirely by the ad-hoc, patched-together resilience of the now. Yet, this refusal of finality is not a surrender to despair; rather, it is a reclamation of wonder. To live as a prototype is not a mechanical failure, but a defining human condition. If the completed masterpiece belongs to the dead weight of history, the Prototype belongs exclusively to the present - an open vessel that holds the power to keep dreaming and making.

Join us this Friday for the closing reception and artists talk.

Lillstreet Art Center

07/28/2026

Semicentennial, our exhibition of work by intermediate and advanced students is now on view at Lillstreet! Featuring work from all our departments, this is an amazing display of the wide variety of techniques and styles here.
Exhibition runs through Aug 10, open seven days a week.

07/23/2026

Lillstreet Art Center with .repost
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Calling all ceramic artists!⁠
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Slip-Tastic is a juried exhibition celebrating the creativity and innovation of contemporary slip-cast ceramics. Open to artists across the United States, the exhibition welcomes both functional and sculptural work that incorporates slip casting as either a primary or partial process. Selected works will showcase the breadth and versatility of this dynamic ceramic technique, with submissions limited to 24 inches in any dimension.⁠
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Share your latest work, connect with a broader ceramics community, and be part of an exhibition highlighting the many possibilities of slip casting in contemporary practice.⁠
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Submissions are open through September 25 at 12:00 AM. Link in Lillstreet Art Center bio.⁠
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Exhibition on view October 30–November 22.

07/06/2026

06/22/2026

INSIDE LOOKING OUT

✨last week!

presents new paintings by Patrick Miceli and Darren Oberto, bringing together two distinct approaches to contemporary painting that draw inspiration from the macro and microcosmos. Through layered surfaces, shifting scales, and expansive color fields, both artists use the language of painting to explore celestial space as a way of considering perception beyond the boundaries of everyday experience. Their work moves between observation and abstraction, using paint to investigate atmosphere, distance, and the interconnectedness of visible and invisible worlds.

May 30- June 30, 2026.

06/08/2026

✨Our June Artist of the month is Leanne Mcclurg. Absolutely in love with the surfaces and the details on the bottom of the pots. All work available online or stop in our shop today!

05/29/2026

New batch of pots from .by.be going quick! Catch them before they are gone in our shop or online!