Ruminations on Home: Jennifer Mannebach, Jeffly Gabriela Molina, Brad Stumpf | April 6 - May 10, 2025
Brad Stumpf | Altar of Hope, 2024, Oil on panel, 24 x 24 inches
Exhibition Dates: April 6 - May 10, 2025
Opening Reception: Sunday, April 6, 2025, 3:00 - 6:00 PM
Exhibition on view: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays 1:00 – 5:00 PM
Artist Talk: TBD
The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present Ruminations on Home, an exhibition of art by Jennifer Mannebach, Jeffly Gabriela Molina, and Brad Stumpf, guest curated by Karen Azarnia. Please join us for a reception for the artists on Sunday, April 6th at 3pm. The exhibition will be on view Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays 1-5pm through May 10, 2025.
Jeffly Gabriela Molina | Homemade Sculpture No. 11, 2023, Oil on linen, 9 x 11 x 1.5 inches
Delving into the rich history of the Riverside Arts Center, the unassuming row of connected buildings housing the Freeark Gallery, Flex Space, and art studios were once apartment buildings. People lived out their lives there. They went about daily activities of work, school, and caregiving – mundane routines of the everyday. They celebrated milestones and holidays and mourned the loss of loved ones. The buildings housed not just people but helped forge relationships – between friends, family, and neighbors. Considering all this begets the question, one that holds myriad meanings to different people: what constitutes a home?
Home is a site where the familiar forms and contours of objects evoke fragments of memory, as seen in the sculptural works of Jennifer Mannebach. According to the artist, Mannebach’s formal investigations into material and surface “break down boundaries between body and environment, natural and unnatural objects, past and present.” In her recent sculptures, Mannebach casts and recreates parts of childhood objects from the home, including a slide and a small toy. Based on a video of a child struggling to balance on a slide, her inventive use of material transforms the familiar into something new, altering our perception of the object. There is a tension between the object as we remember it, and the new unfamiliar thing it has become. Through process, Mannebach reminds us that the home can become a space for risk-taking and uncertainty, and that memories exist as fluid constructs.
We can also locate home as a site of longing, something with a fragile precarity to seek out and protect, as seen through the lens of Jeffly Gabriel Molina. As a woman, wife, mother- to-be, and immigrant from Venezuela, Molina pulls from deeply personal events that have shaped her life. Her paintings and works on paper seek to embody and express a range of emotions to the viewer, including anxiety or loneliness. Using objects found around her home, Molina’s recent series of still lives titled “Homemade Sculptures” seeks to honorand protect the notion of the home. In a moment when so many people around the globe are being displaced from not only their homes but their countries, the vulnerability of a stable home reflected in Molina’s work is both timely and bittersweet.
Or perhaps home is a place of dreams intertwined with hope, love, and loss, as we see in the whimsical yet tenderly vulnerable works of Brad Stumpf. In his own words, his paintings are “acknowledgements of real and imaginary moments in life that make him want to hold his breath.” As part of his creative process, Stumpf carefully constructs small sets much akin to miniature doll houses or theater stages. They take a great deal of time to craft, and serve as a means to think through and plan a given painting. Working from direct observation, Stumpf then uses these sets to make paintings. With a deft touch his surfaces demonstrate a range of texture and application, and a very human touch that further enhances the sensitivity and humanity of the work.
Looking at the work of each artist in this exhibition, there is a shared tension between the concept of home and the reality. It can provide stability, but can also be precariously unstable. It can be a site of anxiety or pain, but also hold joy and reverie, with the optimism of what may come to be in the future. While many of us have strong memories of home, these too evolve as our perception shifts with time and experience. Our personal narratives shape different attitudes around the idea of home, and the physical structures themselves can differ wildly. While this exhibition presents three distinct viewpoints, it will hopefully serve as a catalyst for viewers to delve deeper into how they personally define and experience the thing we all call home.
– Karen Azarnia, curator
Jennifer Mannebach | Digress, 2025, Hydrocal, wood, acrylic rod, glass, acrylic paint 7.5 x 5 x 5 inches
Jennifer Mannebach is a Chicago based artist, curator, and Gallery Director. Her work addresses boundaries, remnants and where things collect. She has exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center, Flatfile Gallery, Jack Olson Gallery and others, nationally and internationally. She has been a visiting artist at The American Academy in Rome, and more recently, an artist in residence at Playa Summer Lake in Oregon. Mannebach received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she subsequently taught for 6 years. She is an adjunct professor at Concordia University Chicago and North Central College, an Artist/Researcher with CAPE, and the Director for the O’Connor Gallery at Dominican University. Awards include the Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, CAAP grants, IAC grants, and the Governor’s International Arts Exchange Grant. Recent exhibitions include the two-person show Fissures, at Boundary in Chicago, and the group show Inform(al) in Batavia, IL.
www. jmannebach.com
Jeffly Gabriela Molina | Mother Our Castles Will Not Be Made of Sand, 2020, Watercolor on Arches 300 Lb, 23 x 23 inches Edition Size: 5 (3 available)
Jeffly Gabriela Molina is a Chicago-based artist from Táchira, Venezuela. Molina moved to the U.S. in 2007 and lived in Miami for four years before she transferred to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she graduated with a BFA in 2013 and an MFA in 2016. In addition to participating in multiple group and solo exhibitions, she has created two permanent public sculptures in Miami. Her most recent exhibitions include Con Todo el Corazon at Galeria Ambar Quijano in CDMX, Mexico and This House Is a Body / Esta Casa Es un Cuerpo at Artruss Chicago, Illinois. Molina has been awarded an Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Driehaus Museum, the AAF/Seebacher Prize for Fine Arts, and a John W. Kurtich scholarship..
www.jefflyart.com
Brad Stumpf | I Recall With Eyes Closed, 2022, Oil on panel, 24 x 24 inches
Brad Stumpf is a multidisciplinary artist living in Chicago. He graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in 2015. His paintings function like miniature stage-sets and are acknowledgements of real and imaginary moments in his life that make him want to hold his breath. He has two permanent public sculptures: Point of Entrance at Jeske Sculpture Park in Ferguson, Missouri, and A Dream Set in Stone at Governors State University. Recent solo exhibitions include Shadow Plays at Harkawik Gallery and Still Life at The Weather Station. His most recent exhibitions include Con Todo el Corazón at Galería Ámbar Quijano in Mexico City and This House Is a Body / Esta Casa Es un Cuerpo at Artruss in Chicago.
www.bradstumpf.com
Karen Azarnia is an artist, educator and independent curator. Born in Miami, FL she currently lives and works in Chicago. She has exhibited nationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions including the Yale Institute of Sacred Music (New Haven, CT,) Alma Gallery (Chicago, IL), Olivet Nazarene University, (Bourbonnais, IL), and Geneva Center for the Arts (Geneva, IL). Azarnia is a grant recipient from the Illinois Arts Council, Chicago DCASE, and the 3Arts Foundation. Her work and curatorial projects have been featured in publications including the Chicago Tribune, Art in America, Hyperallergic, Newcity, and the Huffington Post. She received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Azarnia currently teaches in the Department of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was recently awarded the Nick and Keven Wilder Award for excellence in teaching.
www.karenazarnia.com