ART ROCKS Party

Kasia Koniar and Michael Brucks ,
Photo by Billy Rood of Fig Media

Over 300 art enthusiasts attended the Factio Magazine-hosted, official After Art Party for Art Chicago at Lumen, located in Chicago’s meatpacking district. The stellar host committee read like the who's who of the fashion and art worlds with names like fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, editor-in-chief Melissa Maynard, socialite Candace Jordan and Elite's Kasia Koniar, along with artist Michael Brucks and Christine Sanderson. This year’s theme ART ROCKS went in a different direction than last year’s Bowler Hat Art Party, with the event featuring digital art as the main focus. Still painter Michael Brucks teamed up with Liviu Pasare of Stoptime341 Productions, which gave his painting a cool 3-D effect. Sin-R8 showcased digital painting, where guests could even take part in creating their own work. The Illinois Institute of Art showcased their media show that their top-tier students created in digital arts and animation. Corzo Tequila provided complimentary signature cocktails -The Corzo Violette Fizz, Corzo White Grape and Elderflower, and Corzo Modern Margarita. Fig Media dj’s Alvin Black and Tim Musho played a mix of beats in line with the ART ROCKS theme, while Factio staffers handed out complimentary Shutter Shades in hues like lime green, bright yellow and glow-in-the-dark white. The event further celebrated art in Chicago with the release of Factio Magazine’s latest spring art edition. The mag featured fabulous local artists, fashion designers, and the hottest art/fashion events. Guests left with gift bags that included complimentary passes to Art Chicago and full size tubes of cheek/lip stain.
-Jackie Medler

We would like to thank our amazing sponsors for contributing to the success of our event ART ROCKS including Art Chicago, Factio Magazine, Islands of the World Fashion Week, The Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago, Corzo Tequila, Fig Media, Lumen, Image Factory and Chicago Printing Center.

Meet the artists...

Kevin Ford, Sin-R8 VJ/Visualist, www.sin-r8.com
Imagine you're a painter who wants something more from your canvas and acrylics. Your final pieces capture the subject with haunting beauty, profound depth, and sharp emotion, but you wish that your art was more dynamic and it had the freedom to be independant of gallery lighting. Digital Painting is an interactive installation that uses tablets, computers, video effects to create a painting process where paints glow and pulse, canvases spin and dance in 3 dimensions, and the process of painting emerges as it's own visual artform. Digital Painting has been developed by Chicago based VJ/Visualist, Sin-R8 (Kevin Ford).

Liviu Pasare, Stoptime341 Productions, www.stoptime341.com
Liviu is a multimedia artist who looks at art as a historical event. His work sprawls from a traditional aesthetic in conjunction with new media and technology including hacked video technology, wireless devices, and interactive installations. The resulting contraptions are intended as sociocultural statements with post-human overtones

Michael Brucks, still painter
Michael Brucks explores the dynamics of social engineering through his paintings, drawings and sculptures. Utilizing the propaganda tactics of big business, Brucks manipulates the viewer via spectacle, elitist exclusionism and the repetition of form and color. A visual blend of corporate branding, pop art, religion and archeology, Brucks constructs an inter-related series of pieces where the context of his forms changes constantly. The resulting complexity and, often, confusion is used as a diversion to render the viewer's analytical mind completely defunct. Much like a Japanese Koan, the viewer is left only with intuition to process the experience.

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