David Leonardis

Tucked away, just off Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park, sits the David Leonardis Gallery. The gallery is small on space, but takes advantage of every bit of wall space by hanging work from floor to ceiling. Upon first walking in, visual overload takes hold which is only furthered by trying to figure out which work is what from the gallery listing. After deciphering the gallery list, it becomes clear there is some method to the madness. The chaos helps support a lot of the work in the gallery, which mainly draws from popular culture icons. The visual bombardment mimics what we experience in everyday life. Amongst the hodgepodge, three artists stand out for very different reasons: Sue Zola, Chris Peldo, and Laura Collins.
Sue Zola's work is small in scale and executed using glitter. Her choice in material, colors and subject matter make the work seem childish, in the best way possible. Three of her works feature cupcakes at the center with 60's inspired patterns in the background. The background colors are either orange and gold or green and blue, and clash with the cupcakes. All her choices are nostalgic, naive, and indulgent to the point of sugary. This holds true with Lucky Charms and Kiss as well. Zola's work straddles the line between kitsch and too much, in a way that feels as much like idolatry as it does a social critique.
Chris Peldo, has the most work in the gallery. His works range from small scale screen prints of layered pop imagery to frames filled with everyday things. His smaller works are much stronger than his larger ones. The sheer amount of images piled into a small space, addresses the issue of pop culture much more readily. In his larger works, Peldo fills the frames with garbage and Heineken bottle caps. The frame fillers seem very contrived. In Garbage Head and Garbage Cross the 'garbage' doesn't feel candid, its clear Peldo combed through his trash and selected things to try and create an image for himself. The Heineken caps give the same sort of vibe, although hats off if he drank all those on his own. His work also has a reoccurring theme of heads with mapped out brains, but the labels change from head to head. For two heads placed next to each other its interesting to compare the differences, but when almost all of his larger scale work is this its redundant and becomes boring really quick.
Laura Collins work stands out, because its not pop or kitsch, but rather rooted in real life. Collins has a washy style of painting, that shows off her great brushwork. Her work includes two paintings Sunburn and Untitled, and a series titled Fight. All are reminders of the body and flesh, and their part in life and death. Sunburn is an image of a woman's torso that has been burned in a yellow bikini bottom, and set against a stark white background. Untitled is a black and white painting of two skeletons huddled together, and is executed in a very graphic style. Her series Fight features several vignettes of women fighting with one another in public places. The works become a type of competition to see which was the juiciest fight, while at the same time bringing up the issue of how women relate to one another. Collins's work strikes an equal balance between content and appearance.