New exhibit at Schingoethe Center Museum in Aurora explores portraits and the stories they tell

Edgar Maciel of Naperville is a junior at Aurora University majoring in marketing, but believes having an appreciation for art is something more people should acquire.

“This collection – finding pictures and what they are talking about with this exhibit – everything here is telling a story,” Maciel said Tuesday at Aurora University’s Schingoethe Center Museum during a reception to formally welcome the facility’s fall exhibition. “There are a couple of things here that are super nice. I think students will be drawn to this.”

The new exhibit is called “Eye to Eye” and features more than 40 artists. Museum officials said that it is “an exhibition exploring portraiture as a vehicle to share personal, historical and mythological stories about identity, cultural memory and contemporary life.”

The museum is located inside the Hill Welcome Center at 1315 Prairie St. on the campus of Aurora University.

The exhibit “showcases photographs, paintings, prints and sculptures by artists spanning over 180 years,” museum officials said, and was curated by Museum Director Natasha Ritsma.

“We have an exhibit each semester and this one will run through December,” Ritsma said Tuesday morning before the reception opened. “This exhibit actually has more artists than we’ve had in the past for our exhibitions. I curated this show, and it’s a portrait exhibition and I selected artists that were exceptional storytellers.”

Ritsma said the majority of the art on display consists of portraits and that artists included “everything from the local to the international.”

“We have local artists represented and have included an AU student and an AU art professor all the way to an international artist who is now located in Holland,” she said. “The Holland-based artist is a Syrian refugee who took photographs in the Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon – amazing portraits that are surreal, showing people more unusual representations of stories and refugees.”

One of the artists featured in the exhibition is Tim Lowly of Elk Grove Village, who painted a portrait of the artist Riva Lehrer.

“Her drawing is actually right next to mine. Hers is a self-portrait,” Lowly explained. “Riva is a longtime Chicago artist who also wrote a book. I decided to draw her because we are close friends and she is a phenomenal human being. She is amazing in many respects and is a very good friend.”

Ritsma said her curated show took two years to put together.

“I know a lot of people and I use my network and I also do portfolio reviews and found a few artists that way,” she said. “Each show, we get about 3,500 people per semester visiting here.”

She said the museum’s “mission – our goal – is to bring world-class art to the Fox Valley area and have it easily accessible to the people that live in Aurora and surrounding areas.”

Linda Seyler of Montgomery has come to the art museum before and continues to come back “because it’s free and small, but they also bring in artists I’ve never heard of before.”

“They have some really nice insights – especially with the Native American community. Sometimes, it’s absolutely beautiful and I don’t have to drive into Chicago to see some real art,” Seyler said Tuesday.

Andrea Munoz, 20, of Oswego, who is a sophomore at Aurora University, is currently a history major but wanted to come to the art show “since I’m minoring in museum studies.”

“My teacher told me to come in but I was going to come to the exhibit anyway,” Munoz said. “My favorite type of art is something that reflects my own Mexican culture and I like seeing how it’s changed over time and I love learning about the artists.”

The “Eye to Eye” exhibition runs through Dec. 11 and can be viewed from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesdays. The museum will also be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 5. Admission is free and open to the public.

For more information on the exhibition, call 630-844-6157 or go to aurora.edu/museum.

David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.