A wine and cheese reception will take place for the opening of a new art installation from 2 — 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9, in the Narrow Gallery at the Oak Park Arms, 408 S. Oak Park Ave. The work of artists Nancy Grayson and Marcia Palazzolo will be featured in a collection titled “Works on Paper: Landscapes.”
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Grayson received undergraduate and graduate degrees in fine arts from Wayne State University. She has studied at the Villa Schifanoia Graduate School of Fine Arts in Dan Domenico, Italy, and held a residency at the Palazzo Rinaldi in Noepoli, Basilicata, Italy.
Since 1999 she has lived in Oak Park and currently has a studio in the West Loop. Her work has been shown in one-person, two-person, invitational and juried exhibitions throughout the United States, and is held in both private and public collections in the U.S. and Europe.
Her interest lies in memory and time; how it’s recorded and how memories can change over time to become something new. Her paintings represent this concept through layering and manipulation until a sort of reverse archaeology occurs. The ambiguity of space and how that relates to memory and time prompts her pieces to become artifacts or snapshots that tell layered stories.
Palazzolo has a Mathematics Degree from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana and a Master’s Degree in photography from the Institute of Technology in Chicago. She began exploring watercolor in the early 1990s after taking an English Watercolor Technique class, and in 2006 she held a painting residency at the OxBow Summer School of Art. She has also taken numerous elective classes at The Art Institute of Chicago.
From 1980 to 1997 Palazzolo taught photography classes at Elmhurst College and Dominican University. In addition, she has been a freelance photographer for the Historical Society, Landmarks Commission, the Morton Salt Co., and the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio, among others.
She is a resident of Oak Park where she has been the president of the Oak Park Art League and served on the board of directors for the historical society of Oak Park and River Forest.
Grayson and Palazzolo are co-directors of the Life Long Learning Center located within the Oak Park Arms.
The gallery can be viewed daily from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. through Friday, March 28th.
Oak Park Arms Senior Living is a rental retirement community which provides senior housing in the form of independent living. Furnished apartments are also available for a short-term stay – a weekend, a week, a month or longer.
The reception is free and open to the public. The works will be on display until Friday, March 28. For more information call 708-386-4040.
