{"article":{"id":6405,"title":"Jonathan Worcester: Painting with Creative Precision","excerpt":"","body":"

Jonathan Worcester



By BIANCA BOVA


CGN: Thanks for taking the time out to speak with me Jonathan. I realize I’m catching you in the middle of a busy year. 

Jonathan Worcester: Yes, absolutely. Recently I was in a group show at Old Friends called Ambulance Chase with Peter Fagundo and Michelle Grabner [n.b. curated by the interviewer, Bianca Bova], where I showed some paintings that were dealing in the genre that I’ve been working in for a few years now, but sort of thinking through them differently in terms of their contingency. Shortly I will be in a group show called Masterclass at Secrist | Beach that is a show of 25 years of painting alumni from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Then in April, I open a solo exhibition at 65Grand, Dead Reckoning.


CGN: The show at 65Grand, that is a new body of work that was conceived of for the exhibition?

JW: An entirely new body of work, yes. Everything is being made specifically for the walls of that space. I am measuring everything to the exact gallery specs. It will be a contiguous run of work with basically no space between the paintings, except where they meet the wall. It’s a horizon line of paintings. Everything is 48 inches high with different widths and different depths.




Jonathan Worcester, Untitled, 48 x 48 x 3.25”. Courtesy the artist.



CGN: Right now there is a resurgence among young artists for a number of reasons, ascribed to everything from the economic conditions of the day to this kind of a reverb off of the last 20 years of post-modern conceptualism, of a return to painting. Your work is often remarked on for being very process-oriented, which we see less of. I’m interested in what context you see yourself in given that assessment. 

JW: Well, okay, thinking about process painting, I feel like there was such a resurgence of process painting that has been categorized through zombie formalism. I reject categorizing myself that way at all because I find maybe the least interesting thing about my work is the process. A lot of it is really just me sort of obsessively, episodically dealing in dots. And I feel like looking through the lens of process at the work allows for sort of this idea of labor being the most important thing that happens there, which is really not what I’m interested in. It becomes a simple solution for getting an understanding of a work without actually having to deal with the physicality of the thing itself. I don’t know, one of the things that I feel is fundamental in the aesthetics of “process” work, is painting that deals with the removal of the hand. That’s one of the things that is notably common among some of my peers in Chicago. I do feel like I’m a little bit on an island, though.


CGN: Knowing that, I’m curious what has your attention right now? What are you looking at? 

JW: The work that I’m looking at and responding to is not really happening in Chicago right now. Except there was an exhibition in 1999 at Illinois State University that was called Post-Hypnotic. That was a seminal show that relates to the aesthetics that I’m interested in. It was curated by Barry Blinderman.


CGN: Oh, that’s a name I don’t hear often enough. 

JW: The exhibition was a look at these aesthetics 25 years later, from a show at MoMA from 1965 titled The Responsive Eye that was dealing with the same thing. I picked up a copy of the catalog, and I’d actually be interested to talk to him as we’re 25 years later from his own exhibition, and see what he thinks about this sort of thing in the zeitgeist. 


CGN: I’d love to know how that goes if you reach out to him. To pull back a little bit immediately from the work and go back to how you relate yourself to Chicago, you grew up here, didn’t you?

JW: I did. I was born in Milwaukee, but I moved here in first grade, and we moved to Hyde Park because my mom is a research professor at the University of Chicago. I left for New York for college and attended Sarah Lawrence, which is right outside the city, but I would do summers in Brooklyn. You know, served my Bushwick tour of duty.




Jonathan Worcester, Untitled, 48 x 58 x 1.75”. Courtesy the artist.




CGN: As one does.

JW: As one does, or at least did in the mid-2000s. I love New York. I just needed to come back to Chicago for various life-oriented reasons. And I was having so much trouble actually making work in New York. Once I was out of school, and I didn’t have institutional resources, it was…I was painting on my roof. That was the only place I could get space. So moving back here has been great, because I’ve been able to have a studio all along. I was in the basement of a building in Logan Square, where I didn’t know if the tenants even knew I was there. But there was sort of an arrangement where I could use the basement and paint. I was down there in this windowless space for eight years. The rent was dirt cheap. I moved out because my desire for windows was strong, and the person above me was a religious zealot. They started having, I don’t know—Bible parties? All the time. And they were rowdy. It was so loud. Reciting things and slamming things on the floor. Now I’m in the 3200 Carroll Building with a number of good friends, people who I went to school with, and various artists at various points in their careers. I share a space with my friend Trey Rozell.


CGN: When you moved back, you also enrolled in graduate school at SAIC?

JW: I did, yeah. I was working at the MCA as a preparator and realized if I worked at the Art Institute, I could go to school for free on tuition remission. So I got a job at the museum as an art technician in the Collections and Loans Department, and then moved over to be the specialist of the European Decorative Arts Department. That’s where I still am. And went through grad school.


CGN: You also made your first foray into teaching at SAIC.

JW: I did, yeah. I was given a fellowship once I graduated to begin to teach a class there. And I taught painting practices. My time at SAIC was really affected by Michelle Grabner, and talking about pedagogy and sort of considering the way in which education, specifically higher education should work. I needed to try my hand at that. She put that bug in my ear. Having a chance to reflect on the way in which my education works and things that I wanted, and reacting to how students are now was really impactful for me in terms of thinking about how I create considerations in my own research. I’m grateful to have been forced to reckon with the way in which this thing should be done.


CGN: I’m deeply interested in something that I happen to know about your studio practice, a very specific form of passive media consumption. And that is that you are a habitual listener—not watcher—of Dateline.

JW: I sort of thought you might ask me about this. So, okay, full context. I work a nine to five job. I paint with an obsessiveness that requires me to basically be in the studio from 6 p.m. to almost 2 a.m. most days. I don’t have a lot of time for anything else. So I do audio books and I listen to podcasts to be able to feed the intellectual questions that I have. But yes, one of the lighter things I very often engage with is Dateline—I’ve more or less listened to its archive by now. The format itself is obviously made for television. It’s so funny they offer it in podcast form because they constantly refer to images and people. I think there’s always been a fixation culturally with true crime. And I definitely participate in that to a certain extent, but the reason I love Dateline is the format in which they do it is classic. They’re like the first true crime show and they still have these sort of network television personalities that are associated with it. Despite the uptick in interest in true crime, they have not strayed from their formula in the decades they have been on. It’s not a dumb podcast that’s more about the podcasters’ friendship, which I could not care less about, than the content. They explicate the thing thoroughly. They go through the entire investigation and there’s no frivolous conversation. It’s fact-based. It’s well-edited. 



Jonathan Worcester, Untitled, 48 x 68.75 x 3.5”. Courtesy the artist.



CGN: This is what fascinates me—you’ve chosen a highly, highly, highly consistent and formulaic program to be the thing that you are passively consuming as you work. The relationship between that and the inherent obsessiveness of your paintings, both in practice and process, I would like to know more about that.

JW: Yeah, that’s a great connection. Actually that wasn’t obvious to me. So thank you. The way that I actually am making work is so scripted. I know how I’m going to do it, and from there it just deals with repetition, with patterning. The way I create difference is in semi-object-oriented things about the work, like changing the context, changing how they are contingent to the space around them. I can get so obsessive about color relationships. Just looking at a painting next to a painting that’s dealing in the same patterning and how much they affect each other—that’s what’s really been blowing my mind recently. But I am extremely formulaic. I think I’ve worked out a practice where I don’t have to stand back with my brush and feel this romantic trauma. I find that so obnoxious. I am not struggling. I’m having a great time listening to Dateline and I’ve baked in maybe ten decisions for each individual painting. Then I’m just working. And that is fun for me.


Dead Reckoning at 65Grand opens Friday, April 18, 6-9pm. On Friday, April 25, 6-9pm Frieze is hosting a private reception and exhibition viewing for EXPO Chicago VIPS. 

RSVP to info@65grand.com


More information about the artist at jonathanworcester.com


#

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'zombi':342B","thumbnail":"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1744304336/fchqv665kkk2nofbomic.jpg","editor_pick":false,"category_name":"Interviews"},"related":[{"id":13767,"title":"Anticipating a Season of Art: Five to Talk to – Nikko Washington","excerpt":"","body":"

Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke with five insiders about what excites them now and what they anticipate next.


The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition click here.





Nikko Washington – 

Artist


“I’m thrilled to further expand my artistic and design practice by introducing other mediums into the mix. I’m looking forward to watching the seasons change and devoting a lot of time in the studio as well. Fall/winter is my favorite time to create new works. 


I have an upcoming solo show with VSG Contemporary that I am excited about. The work will delve further into the topics of cultural mythology and how these tales and narratives have helped shape my worldview. 


Also, it wouldn’t be right if I left out my excitement for this upcoming season of Chicago sports.”


Nikko Washington


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Andi Crist, Extension Cords, Glazed stoneware, chrome, Sizes vary 2021-present. Photo: Mikey Mosher




This interview is part of CGN's Fall 2026 issue. Purchase a copy or subscribe.




Andi Crist



BY ALISON REILLY


Andi Crist’s warm, engaging demeanor is evident in the first few minutes of our conversation. Generous with her time and forthcoming in her observations, she cares deeply about building relationships through her art making. Crist grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, devoured art classes, wrote songs and played music in high school, and moved to Chicago to study visual art at Columbia College. In 2024, she received her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a woodworker, sculptor, ceramicist, and conceptual artist, and she teaches at Illinois Institute of Technology. We discussed her multidisciplinary practice, her experience working as an art handler, preparator, and fabricator, and how she thinks about labor, creativity, and value in the art world. 



CGN: You grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. How did that environment shape your point of view as an artist?


Andi Crist: That’s such a funny question. Nobody’s ever really asked.


CGN: Oh, really?


AC: Yeah, maybe because I never was super connected with the arts community down in Birmingham. I moved to Chicago in 2007, so it’s been 20 years since I lived in the South. I was definitely one of those art kids—one art credit was required in high school, and I graduated with like seven. I was surrounded by artists who had a big impact on me, because they were working artists. All my art teachers were trained in Alabama and then continued to teach and work in Alabama, which gave me this desire to try to expand my community outside of what I was familiar with.


CGN: Do you identify as a Chicagoan?


AC: My family still lives in Alabama, and I go back every year. I love being in Alabama. Maybe now being in Chicago for almost 20 years, I identify as a southerner living in the city. I carry on the social qualities of a friendly southern person [laughs]. 


CGN: You have a varied art practice—woodwork, ceramics, mold making. What drew you to those types of fabrication methods and that type of art making?


AC: My dad is a carpenter and a hobbyist woodworker, but his career was psychology, and my mom was a professor and an incredible craftswoman. I absorbed my mom’s model of creativity, which is to try a bunch of different things and not necessarily finish them but to try to learn as much as I can by just going for it. My practice over the years has become an exploration of conceptual elements of what makes art art and not just craft. Do you have to be a master craftsperson or a professional artist in order to make something that resonates with people?


I make a lot of work that references the mode of making and requires a variety of different media. I just finished teaching a ceramics production class where students learned how to produce molds, think about positives and negatives, and get into a level of production rather than just handicraft as a way to multiply their output.


I got into fabrication because I’ve always liked working with other artists. I have a background in theater and gallery work. I’m a voracious learner, and I like being able to share those skills with my community. Then I end up making work about that. It’s a self-feeding cycle.


Andi Crist, Artist’s Ladder, 2023. Photo: Jeff Perlman



CGN: Thinking about your background as an art handler and preparator—how did you get to the point where you were making work about that experience?


AC: In 2010, right before I graduated from Columbia, I was living in a storefront in West Logan Square with my partner at the time. We started a gallery called Autotelic in the space and had to build it out using the worst tools with very minimal resources. Then we started curating shows there and that meant helping other artists figure out how to install their work in our unusual space. Eventually, I gained the reputation for knowing how to do that type of work. I started getting invited to work in museums and galleries. 


The Holocaust Museum was the first museum I worked at, and as difficult as that subject matter is, that experience was really important to me because I was learning more about the larger world of gallery work. As an artist working as a preparator, you’re straddling both sides of that space. You’re really seeing how the sausage is made. You’re hearing all the conversations about artists, curators, the process of exhibition making. There is a lot of information you can gather about the economics of the art world by just being the person that has the know-how to touch and handle artwork. Eventually that started feeding into my art practice because I wanted to make work that was contributing to a conversation around art as a type of job. It fueled a methodology of seeing everything in the world as the result of a long line of processes that required effort and thoughtfulness by many hands.



Andi Crist, Fair Warning, 2025.



CGN: The title of your recent exhibition at the Cleve Carney Museum—Live, Laugh, Lo—sorry, not Live, Laugh, Love—Live, Laugh, Labor.


AC: [Laughs] That’s what everybody does.


CGN: I love the title—it’s perfect. You incorporate humor along with thoughtful critiques about labor and value in your work. What role does humor play? How does it help you connect with your audience?


AC: One of my biggest criticisms of art with a capital A is how easily it can be overly intellectualized. I think that’s why I end up making a lot of work that references things that already exist or have some kind of real purpose. It’s important to give people a foothold so there’s an obvious place to board that train of thought. As an artist—maybe this is me getting into a sweeping argument about what artists should be—but I personally believe in intellectual accessibility. Humor is a swift way to drop defenses and allow people to come in without feeling like they are not getting the joke or not understanding. I like to make work that can hold both of those things at the same time—it’s funny on the surface level, it’s kind of cheeky, but there’s also another way to look at it that is intellectually clever. There is a joy in the attempt to “get it”. Like the satisfaction of grasping how a crossword puzzle actually works.


It’s also so much a part of my personality. I take myself seriously as an artist, but my ego isn’t at the heart of it. It’s really something that I do because I love to make things, and I love to connect with other people. My parents raised me on puns, creating those language relationships between things and people and space. Understanding a joke is the same way that we understand art, and while neither of my parents would consider themselves artists, they taught me how to think about art.



Andi Crist, 69 Bananas




CGN: Your work, Artist’s Ladder, explores hierarchies, workplace cultures, and institutional values. What experiences shaped your reflections on these themes?

 

AC: The ladder piece distinctly represents the complicated relationship between front of house, back of house, and the hierarchy of labor. Who is the artist in those relationships? How much does another person’s knowledge and expertise contribute to the success of another artist?


There are enormous, industrialized art practices out there, warehouses full of people making things, and those people are also artists. When you make work that involves other people, it’s important to acknowledge their contributions. I’ve had complicated interactions with other artists who are like, ‘Hey, do you want to collaborate with me on this thing?’ but really they just want me to make their idea. I made Artist’s Ladder while I was in grad school at UIC, and it really represented my relationship with a lot of other artists, because I could be an actual support structure for them. Then it turned into this absurd physical thing. It’s extremely overbuilt with inlaid racing stripes made of exotic hardwood, and a butcher’s block-style plaid top. It’s not really like an FU as much as it is asking for acknowledgement of my skills and the essential support structures that exist.

 

CGN: I want to ask you about another piece, Five O’Clock Somewhere, a wool rug that resembles a children’s play mat. I work at a library, and it reminded me of rugs I see all the time. It’s a peaceful image of an office park with a large fountain surrounded by a parking lot. I’m curious why you chose a rug as the medium to depict that image.

 

AC: To me the heart of that joke was that it was a landscape. I wanted it to be physically traversable. And that was, I don’t want to say controversial, but it was something that I had to talk about a lot. The critique of that work was the fact that I didn’t want to hang it on the wall and turn it into a tapestry. I really wanted it to be a rug that people could walk on. When I showed that work at Chicago Artists Coalition for the New City Breakout Artists show. There was a lot of pushback about having it on the floor and allowing people to walk on it.

 

That, to me, was such an important conversation, because, in my mind, the fact that you could walk across it and traverse it was part of how I was thinking about the object. Rugs are utilitarian–they are floor coverings. When you make art that doesn’t do anything, you don’t get to participate in that part of the conversation.

 

I enjoy sparring around art like that. I am totally tickled by the pushback. The critique of display is exciting, and sorting through the politics of utilitarianism in art spaces is fun to me. And then—it was so crazy—we ended up showing it halfway on the wall and halfway on the ground. 


Andi Crist, Five O’Clock Somewhere, on display at Live, Laugh, Labor: Thoughts on Usefulness and Other Myths at The Cleve Carney Museum of Art, 2025.



CGN: Oh, wow.


AC: I was like, this is the epitome of compromise! I had to build a structure so that it could hang that way safely. 

 

CGN: I would say just put it on the ground if that’s what you want to do. It’s interesting that there are still very fixed ideas about the way that art should be displayed.

 

AC: That preparator part of it, that’s what I’m all about. I was having that conversation about what physically supports the work or what conceptually supports it in the way that it’s shown. 

 

CGN: Have you always been a writer? How do your art and writing practices work together? 


AC: I can’t say that I’m a writer, it’s probably the same way that it can feel weird to call yourself an artist. But I feel like I’ve always been relatively good at writing. The first time I ever did any kind of professional writing was contributing, a long time ago, to a website called eHow. The editors would send me a title, and then I would have to research how to do that thing. Then I would write out step-by-step instructions for how to do that. 


I think that’s how I had to make myself think through my conceptual practice—I had to do the research, coagulate that into some kind of document, and then I would have stream-of-consciousness conversations with myself. “Why are we interested in this? Why would we make it this way? What would I want to talk about if someone were to ask me about this?” It’s almost like I was pre-interviewing myself. 


I think the writing is just another way for me to process that idea before I put in all of the time and energy to actually accomplish it. 


CGN: What are you working on right now? What projects do you have coming up?


AC: The biggest project that I have right now is my house. My family and I suffered a major house fire on New Year’s Day. We’ve been displaced since then and are navigating rebuilding our house. It was a total loss. 



Andi Crist, Single-Use Fireplace, 2025. Photo: Mikey Mosher.


 

CGN: I’m so sorry to hear that. 


AC: Thank you. We’re all okay, but it’s been a really tumultuous year. I moved my studio into a storefront last summer, and so most of my, at least relatively recent, work is safe, and I still have all of my materials, but my home life is starting over. I just had my first full year at this space, and it’s got a little gallery built out in the front called Coming Soon. It’s beautiful with floor-to-ceiling windows on Division and Central Park. I’ve been inviting people into the space to try things out.

 

After teaching the ceramics class, I came into a bunch of nice slip casting molds, and I’m making some really playful, weird, ceramic stuff. I want to be open and not put too much pressure on myself. Having a big studio by myself is very expensive, so it’s easy to want to make it feel like it’s worth it. But if for now all I can do is make it a resource for other people, then that will be the thing I do. Be less selfish, but more selfish with my time. Saying I can’t do that, or I don’t want to do that. It’s not my nature to say no—I’m such a yes man. I’m learning how to be a yes man for myself. 


CGN: That makes sense after going through something so traumatic.

 

AC: I have an amazing support system. Our friends started a GoFundMe. It was incredible. I’m so humbled and floored by how held I felt by Chicago. I can’t help but throw a little shout out to my Chicago people. I can see how people’s lives get totally ruined by this kind of tragedy. I feel so lucky. Chicago definitely showed its love back. 


CGN: For your project Coming Soon, are you bringing in other artists?


AC: My philosophy is that I want to be involved as little as possible. I am thinking about it more as a hosted than curated space. I’m actively soliciting proposals or ideas for workshops, meetings, book clubs—I’m down for making it a resource, whatever that means. I don’t want to over-think it, I want it to be an intuitive and organic thing, which is why I call it Coming Soon—it can be a placeholder for anything. It’s exciting. Taking my hands off the reins is a good exercise for me.


andicrist.com



Andi Crist, Extension Cords, Glazed stoneware, chrome, Sizes vary 2021-present. Photo: Mikey Mosher



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Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke with five insiders about what excites them now and what they anticipate next.


The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition click here. 




Debra Kerr – 

CEO, Intuit Art Museum


“Intuit Art Museum’s renovated, expanded spaces give audiences the chance to connect with art through daily art-making, third Thursday Art After Work, group Slow Looks designed to provide a mindful experience with a single work and upcoming conversations with sculptor Bill Brady (Oct. 3) and Dr. Mary Trent (Oct. 15), who curated our current exhibition on the role of scrapbook-making in Henry Darger’s art. 


On view is the thought-provoking Monumental: The Sculpture of Dr. Charles Smith, which encourages guests to consider the lack of historical representation of African Americans and Black people in America. Dr. Smith’s memorials champion Black history and stories of everyday life he sees missing in mainstream narratives. 


This fall we’re opening an exhibition of paintings by Karla Wong, an artist who immigrated from Oaxaca and who explores themes of life and death, gender identity and self-discovery.”


Intuit Art Museum

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