Exhibits
Bachman Gallery
1040 Ridge Road, Munster, IN
My America - South Shore Arts 83rd Annual Salon Show
June 19 - August 15, 2025
Evening of Artist Micro Talks: Thursday July 16, 7-8pm
Awards Presentation: Sunday, August 2, 1-3pm
With My America, South Shore Arts inaugurates its first themed Salon Show by inviting artists to articulate what, after 250 years of experimentation, successes, tragedies, and upheaval, America means to them.
The possessive in the exhibition's title is significant. It acknowledges that identity is situated, that belonging can be fraught, and that citizenship is as much felt as it is codified. To define My America one must reveal something of oneself: one's inheritances, allegiances, disappointments, and hopes. In this sense, the exhibition becomes less a survey of national sentiment than a portrait of plural selves.
This juried exhibition brings together more than sixty works spanning a wide range of media, reflecting the diversity of artistic voices that make up our contemporary cultural landscape. Selected by jurors Elsa Munoz and William Blake, the exhibition embraces the salon tradition of multiplicity and dialogue, presenting artworks that engage its theme from vastly different perspectives. Some artists offer sweeping political statements that confront the nation's past, present, and future, while others turn inward, creating intimate vignettes of family, community, memory, and everyday life. Together, these works reveal that there is no singular vision of America, only a constellation of experiences, a democratic sprawl. The exhibition suggests that a nation, like a work of art, is never singular in meaning; it is assembled and reassembled by those who claim it.
In gathering these varied responses under one roof, South Shore Arts offers the community a space where commemoration gives way to conversation, where differing visions coexist in productive tension, and where the question of America remains, deliberately and meaningfully, unanswered.
Atrium GallerY
1040 Ridge Road, Munster, IN
Mark Vander Vinne, “Out There Somewhere,” oil on panel, 9 in. by 12 in.
A Brush with Nature: a group exhibition of paintings created en plein air
July 5 - August 30, 2026
Artist Reception: Thursday, July 16, 6–8PM
“I love nature, I love the landscape, because it is so sincere. It never cheats me. It never jests. It is cheerfully, musically earnest.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Journal, November 16, 1850
There is a particular kind of attention that only the landscape demands. It asks for patience before spectacle, observation before interpretation. Unlike nearly all other subjects in art, it is in constant movement fully indifferent to the artist observing. The landscape neither performs nor explains itself. It simply exists.
A Brush With Nature - celebrates the enduring dialogue between artist and landscape through more than twenty plein air paintings by Andrea Williams, Carleen O'Connor Rivera, Don Yang, and Mark Vander Vinne. Created directly from observation in the outdoors, these works capture fleeting light, changing weather, and the unique character of places encountered across seasons and settings.
In an age of constant distraction, these paintings invite us to slow down and look closely. More than depictions of scenery, they are reflections on presence, perception, and the timeless beauty of the natural wold.
South Shore Arts Exhibits and related events are always free and open to the public.
Sponsored by
In Memory of Ugo Arrighi
Major & DenisE Dillard
ARE YOU AN ARTIST?
More than 15 exhibitions fill four South Shore Arts galleries each year, showcasing regional, national and international artists and cultures. If you are an artist interested in exhibiting with South Shore Arts, submit your exhibit proposal here or contact Brandon Johnson, Gallery Coordinator, at Brandon@southshoreartsonline.org
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• logo and credit line on signage at exhibit
• logo and/or credit line in publicity and promotion
• opportunities for corporate entertaining throughout the exhibit
Contact Sandie Phalen, Director of Marketing and Development
219/836.1839, ext.101
© All images are copyrighted by the respective artists.