{"id":"11","title":"or, The River, new works by Martyna Alexander and Andrew Hayes","starts_at":"2026-09-12 18:00:00","ends_at":"2026-11-14 17:00:00","body":"

old friends is an art gallery located in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, IL. The gallery presents practices with increased focus on material application, supporting critical conversation through archival and communal programming.


old friends was founded by Fawn Penn and Delia Pelli-Walbert in 2024. For inquiries, please email office@oldfriendsgallery.com


The entrance is two steps below street level, off of Halsted, north of the intersection of Briar and Halsted. The main doorway is 37-1/2 inches wide; an accessible entrance is available as needed. The gallery is located off the Belmont Red and Brown line train stops and the Halsted bus line. If you need physical assistance or a virtual viewing of any of our exhibitions, please contact us at the email above.


Image: Installation view of E. Saffronia Downing: Tracks and Other Signs at Old Friends

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old friends is pleased to present or, The River, new works by Martyna Alexander (b. 1989, Ann Arbor, MI) and Andrew Hayes (b. 1981, Tucson, Arizona).


Martyna Alexander’s dreamlike topography emerges through washes of acrylic, overlaid with marks suggestive of an unknowable order. Andrew Hayes’ formalistic sculpture pairs paper and steel, the two substances alchemized, mirroring one another in fluid motion. Both artists speak spatially, their works boundless, sensual, and sensory.


Alexander paints landscapes as if seen through a haze, in pigmented stains that seep and sink into the canvas weft. She allows space to remain perceptual and indistinct, intentionally obscuring any discernible landmark. Floating through the composition are hallucinatory gestures, in graphite or soft pastel, pulled from the artist's own lexicon of organization. Red Flag radiates with desert heat, each cell in the superimposed graphite grid blazed with a single red mark. There is no containing Alexander’s landscapes; their atmosphere seeps into the room. Like a mirage, they shimmer into and out of being.


Hayes marries disparate materials; beginning with old, mass-printed books, he bends, contorts, and slices the pages, then anchors these compositions between subtly carved metal structures. Steel glints, not coldly, but with a seductive, supple quality. Though the paper retains certain literary visual identifiers (marbled edges, tabs, the ghost of text), Hayes anonymizes all content - he responds solely to its material potential. Hayes’ sculptures are precisely choreographed; undulating metal giving way to splayed pages, frozen at the apex of movement.


Both artists allude to narrative, a suggestive presence of space or story, yet intentionally conceal definition. Their works speak to a symbolic dimension, a space where reference dissolves into abstraction. The sensory impression remains - a metallic taste, the scent of wet grass, an auric residue.


or, The River will be on view at old friends, 3149 N. Halsted St., Chicago, IL, from September 12th through November 14th. Gallery staff are available to guide viewers through the exhibition via Zoom upon request. Please email office@oldfriendsgallery.com with any questions or inquiries.


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Pictured: ANDREW HAYES


Aureate Inclusion, 2025

Fabricated steel and book paper

17 x 10 x 2-1/2 inches

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