Katie Luo is an oil painter focusing on nature and landscapes to celebrate the light, openness, and energy found in the natural world. Transitioning from a background in mechanical engineering, Luo moved to full-time artistry, a shift stemming from the realization of engineering cultivated her respect for structure, while fine art unlocked a deep emotional connection.

Luo began studying Painting and Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2016 and dedicating herself to her art studio practice in early 2023. Grounded in her signature style, Living Impressionism, she combines structural discipline with heavy texture and dynamic palette knife work to create tactile, luminous landscapes.

Katie Luo keeps an active presence in the Midwest art community and participates in numerous group, juried, and competition exhibitions. Her work has earned significant recognition, including Best of Show, Honorable Mention, Judge’s Award of Excellence, and Theme of Show awards. Held in both private and corporate collections, her painting invites viewers to pause, reconnect, and experience nature as a living, joyful world. 

__Opening Reception: Friday, Oct. 30, 2026 from 7-9 pm__


Elmhurst Artists' Guild: Katie Luo - Breathing in Color: Landscape Impressions

*I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.*
    —Martin Luther King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam,” 1967

In the May 1967 issue of Ramparts Magazine, Martin Luther King, Jr. published a condensed version of his searing “Beyond Vietnam” speech under the title "Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam." In it he named militarism, materialism, and racism as the “giant triplets” threatening American democracy and called for a “revolution of values.” 

Just days later, Dr. King led a march to the United Nations during which, for the first time, a group of Vietnam veterans marched under a banner declaring Vietnam Veterans Against the War. This public act of defiance marked the birth of one of the most radical anti-war organizations in US history, demonstrating that those trained for war could become some of its fiercest opponents. 

*A Revolution of Values* traces this lineage of resistance through the work of veteran artists who have turned away from militarism and toward solidarity. The exhibition includes ceramics, sculpture, papermaking, printmaking, photography, poetry and other forms that show the range of ways veteran artists examine their military experiences and critique militarism across generations.

__Featured artists include: Drew Cameron, Brittney Chantele Aston, Rodney Ewing, Eric J. Garcia, GOODW.Y.N., Gina Herrera (Costa Rican and Tesuque Pueblo), Nathan Lewis, Eric Perez, Gerald Euhon Sheffield II, Ehren Tool, Yiran Zhang, and archival materials from Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Iraq Veterans Against the War.__

*A Revolution of Values* claims and centers this lineage of resistance to celebrate the way veteran artists turn from militarism towards solidarity, exemplifying the “revolution of values” Dr. King called for.  The exhibition highlights the vast array of creative processes veteran artists use across generations to express this radical turn.

*A Revolution of Values* is one of the four featured exhibitions of the 2026 Veteran Art Triennial, RESISTING THE LONG WAR curated by Aaron Hughes, Mohamed Mehdi, and Amber Zora. The Triennial highlights artists’ creative defiance to war and militarism. The featured artworks lift up overlapping legacies of war resistance, presenting alternative visions of peace, healing, and justice generated by diverse communities impacted by war. 

Additional featured exhibitions will be at the Chicago Cultural Center, Hyde Park Art Center, and Walls Turned Sideway. Exhibition receptions will take place during the Veteran Art Summit November 5-8, 2026.

This exhibition is supported in part by the DEMIL Art Fund and 
![RTLW lock up](//images.ctfassets.net/df2y673eghyz/5po9AmbBJeF1h5T6IERbzl/5695fecdd884de94402035b39281fbfd/RTLW_funders.png)

Veterans and active military members always receive free admission to EAM.

Join us each Wednesday at 1:30pm for a docent-led tour of the show! 

__ABOUT THE ARTISTS__

__Brittney Chantele Aston__ [US Army veteran] (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist working across film, painting, ceramics, music, and performance. A disabled US Army veteran, their work draws from lived experience to examine endurance, repetition, and what the body carries long after leaving institutional systems. Through material transformation and embodied practice, Aston challenges ideas of strength, control, and productivity, exploring what the body is asked to carry, and what it refuses. Aston earned their MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where their practice expanded across performance, moving image, and material-based work.

__Drew Cameron__ [US Army veteran] (he/him) renders military uniforms into paper. Through workshops and events, he brings the public together to make their own sheets of paper, often creating works from within the ranks of those actively and formerly in the US military. A former soldier and Iraq war veteran (US Army 2003), Cameron presents and facilitates his papermaking studio and technique in creative spaces from coast to coast. He has been teaching and working as Combat Paper® throughout the years of the most recent American wars. Cameron’s work has been presented regularly in workshop events and exhibitions in the US and internationally. His books and print editions are in public collections and libraries throughout the country including the Library of Congress. He maintains his paper studio and resides in Iowa City, Iowa.
Rodney Ewing [US Army veteran] (he/him) is a visual artist, whose drawings, installations, and mixed media works focus on his need to intersect body and place, memory and fact, and to re- examine human histories, and cultural conditions.  His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, The Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, Jack Shainman Gallery: The School, The Drawing Center in NY, The Brooklyn Museum, and Rena Bransten Gallery. Ewing is a grantee of the Pollock Krasner award (2022-2023) San Francisco Art Commission Individual Artist Grant (2016 and 2020) and his work has been included in the collection of Tufts University Art Gallery and SFMOMA.

__Eric J. Garcia__ [US Air Force veteran] (he/him) uses history and a graphic style to create political art that confronts our understanding of the present. Using printmaking, drawings, and installations combined with meaningful materials to the project, he aims to educate and challenge. He received his BFA with a minor in Chicano studies from the University of New Mexico, and earned his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Garcia is an Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico, a core member of the printmaking collective, Instituto Gráfico de Chicago and one of the newest members of the Justseeds Print Cooperative. Garcia has exhibited nationally and can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Library of Congress.

__Nicole Goodwin aka GOODW.Y.N.__ [US Army veteran] (they/them) was longlisted for The Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for 2023, the 2023 RWW Creative Nonfiction Fellow, as well as the 2018 Ragdale Alice Judson Hayes Fellowship Recipient, while advancing to the 2nd Round of the 2018 Creative Capital Awards. They published the articles “Talking with My Daughter…” and “Why is this Happening in Your Life…” in the New York Times’ parentblog Motherlode. Additionally, their work “Ain’t I a Woman (?/!): Poems,” was longlisted for The Black Spring Press Group’s The Christopher Smart-Joan Alice Prize for 2020.

__Gina Herrera__ [US Army veteran] (she/her) was raised in Chicago and resides in California. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In the course of her studies, she was deployed overseas in support of several war contingencies with the United States Army. Once her final tour was complete, she obtained her Master of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her art practice has centered on creating assemblages from found materials, metal, and ceramics which reflect her veteran identity and Tesuque Pueblo and Costa Rican heritage. Notable achievements include a California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship and numerous residencies. Herrera served in the military for almost 25 years, and recently retired from 22 years of teaching art at the high school and college level. She looks forward to devoting more concentrated energy on art in the next phase of her career.

__Nathan Lewis__ [US Army veteran] (he/him) is an arborist and U.S Army veteran who served in Iraq in 2003.  An accomplished papermaker and bookmaker, Lewis’s artwork is held in university and museum collections around the country, as well as the Library of Congress.  He has appeared in the films The Green Zone (2010) and This is Not A War Story (2021).  The author of three books of poetry about his war experience, he continues to collaborate with other veterans, activists and artists.   

__Eric Perez__ [US Marine Corps veteran] (he/him) is a Chicago-based artist and educator whose work explores memory, identity, and lived experience through photography. A Marine Corps veteran, his practice often reflects on his two deployments during the Global War on Terror, using the camera as a tool for processing and storytelling. As Project Manager for Floating Museum, Perez applies his skills in photography and videography to document the collective’s large-scale, community-driven projects. He also leads a team responsible for the production and citywide presentation of Floating Museum’s Floating Monuments series. Perez earned his Associate of Arts degree from Triton College (2016) and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2019). Upon graduation, he participated in the Chicago Artists Coalition’s Launch Residency (2019) and was later named a National Endowment for the Humanities Veteran Fellow (2022) with the emerging Veterans Art Movement (eVAM). In 2023, he received the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation Award and Residency at Hyde Park Art Center. His work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 400, Hyde Park Art Center, Dock 6, UIC’s BFA Thesis Exhibition (2019), and Triton College Art Gallery.

__Gerald Euhon Sheffield II__ [US Army veteran] (he/him) is an artist and educator living and working in the Hudson Valley, New York. His studio practice centers on critical, site-specific research, painting, and sculpture. Sheffield served eight years in the U.S. Army as a Visual Communications and Military Intelligence Public Affairs specialist, with postings in Paraguay, Guatemala, Brazil, and Kuwait, and a deployment to Baghdad (2007–2008) collaborating with Iraqi civilians and community leaders during reconstruction. He earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University. His awards include the United States Armed Forces Meritorious Service Medal, the Alice Kimball English Traveling Fellowship, the JUNCTURE Human Rights Research and Travel Fellowship, and a US Fulbright to Uzbekistan (2019). He was a 2022–2023 National Endowment for the Humanities Veteran Fellow and is currently a visiting lecturer at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He continues exhibiting regionally and internationally. 

__Ehren Tool__ [US Marine Corps veteran] (he/him) has made and given away more than 27,000 cups since 2001. He is a Marine Corps Veteran of the 1991 Gulf War. Tool received his BFA from USC in 2000 and his MFA from UC Berkeley in 2005, where he has worked as a Senior Mechanician since graduation.

__Yiran Zhang__  [Singapore Armed Forces veteran] (he/him) is a Singaporean artist based in London, UK, whose research-driven practice interrogates militaristic systems and the hidden logics embedded within them. Drawing on his experience of compulsory military service in Singapore, Zhang examines the contradictions between protection and threat, repurposing military imagery and historical relics to reveal how this tension sustains control while normalizing and desensitizing exposure to conflict. His practice is grounded in archival research and often responds to the layered histories of the sites in which it is shown, taking form across installation, sculpture, printmaking, and projection. He holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London.


RESISTING THE LONG WAR: A Revolution of Values

__Abbott Pattison: The Figure Forward__

Abbott Pattison (1916-1999) was a prominent mid-century modern sculptor in Chicago, where he was born and spent most of his career. He was active in Chicago from about 1949 to about 1983 then moved to Maine where he continued to work.

The ten works in this exhibition, drawn from the 15 works in the Museum’s permanent collection, exemplify the broad range and creative diversity of Pattison’s practice, which spans both representational and abstract styles, with an emphasis on the human form. 

The intimate exhibition, installed in the historic McCormick House includes works in cast and carved bronze, carved stone and drawing. Together, these pieces showcase the breadth of Pattison's expression, from classical figuration to bold, textured abstraction, with works dating from 1960 to 1980.

Pattison saw himself as a direct descendent of all sculptors, and he attributed the fluidity of his style to this inheritance. He often worked in many styles and mediums simultaneously and his practice resists being traced as a linear development or progression over time. In these works, his signature organic geometries and cubist influences are evident, and his work seamlessly bridges traditional form and avant-garde midcentury expression.

A Pattison work can be visually confounding. Some works appear representational when viewed from one angle, and dissolve into abstraction when viewed from even a slightly different approach. Pattison delighted in the use of multiple planes that capture and reflect light at various angles. On some works, wire-like lines protrude from and return to the piece - seeming to reference unseen energetic forces whirling around the structure.

Overall, the Elmhurst Art Museum collection contains 15 works by Abbott Pattison, including sculptures, drawings, and wall works fashioned from wood.  

Pattison produced many large-scale public and private commissions throughout Chicago and the suburbs. More than 30 pieces are located across the region, including at DePaul University, Chicago State University, and The Nathan Manilow Sculpture Garden.

Abbott Pattison: The Figure Forward includes works in the McCormick House, the Hostelter Gallery, and outside the Museum’s east wall in the Moy Pavillion.

Liz Chilsen, curator

Abbott Pattison BIO

Abbott Pattison (1916-1999) was a prominent mid-century modern sculptor in Chicago, where he was born and spent most of his career. He was active in Chicago from about 1949 to about 1983, then moved to Maine where he continued to work until his death in 1999.

Pattison was the second of 7 children. His father was a well-known real estate developer in Chicago. He and several of his siblings attended the renowned Frances Parker School in Chicago’s Wicker Park, and two of his siblings pursued similar creative paths. His sister Priscilla Pattison was a sculptor after studying at the Chicago Art Institute and Yale. Another sister, Harriett Pattison studied at Yale and went on to become a prominent landscape architect, working with Louis Kahn and establishing a successful private practice.

Abbott Pattison studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and then at Yale University, He earned a BA degree in 1937 from Yale College, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1939 from Yale School of Fine Arts, among a class of 52 students. A 6-month travel scholarship following graduation - a first prize awarded by Yale -  took him to Northern China and Japan in 1939. He returned to the US in 1940 and entered Officer’s training school. From 1942-1945 he was captain of a Pacific Command sub-chaser, and rose to full commander. 

After the war Pattison returned to Chicago where he set up his studio. He joined the faculty of The Art Institute of Chicago as an instructor of sculpture where he taught from 1946-1952. He is the recipient of the Logan Prize (1942) the Eisendrath Prize (1946) and twice received the Pauline Palmer Prize (1950 & 1953), all awarded by the Art Institute of Chicago.

In addition to the Elmhurst Art Museum, his work is held in the collections of universities, corporations and museums worldwide, including the Whitney Museum in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Museum in Washington, D.C., the San Francisco Museum and the Museum of the Israeli State in Jerusalem. Five of his pieces are owned by the United States State Department and are located in embassies overseas. One of Abbott Pattison's sculptures is in Buckingham Palace, London.

Pattison was represented in Chicago by the Fairweather-Hardin Gallery. He held eight one-man exhibits in New York City at The Downtown Gallery and Edith Halpern Gallery. He was also represented in Los Angeles by The Feingarten Gallery, and in London by The Alwin Gallery. Pattison’s son Harry Pattison maintains this website with a full listing of awards, collections, commissions, and exhibitions up to 1978.

For over 40 years, Pattison had an ongoing professional relationship with the Marinelli Foundry in Florence Italy, where all his cast works were produced. Pattison spent many summers working at the foundry, eventually being awarded a studio of his own. In his later years, the city of Florence presented him with the key to the city. 

The Elmhurst Art Museum holds 15 works by Pattison. Twelve were a gift from the collection of Lee and Brena Freeman, acquired in 2007. One piece was acquired in 1983 with funds from The Frank W. England Fund, and in 1984, the Museum received a gift from Frank W. England, Clarence & Pat Graves, Iona D. & Albert GlosFdn.,and Alben F. & Clara G. Bates.

More than 30 of Pattison’s commissioned works can be found throughout the city of Chicago and the region including at the University of Chicago, DePaul University, Chicago State University and the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Garden.


Abbott Pattison: The Figure Forward

The American Dream: 250 years of Defining and Refining What it Means to be an American

Featured Artists: Members with Veteran status

Show Dates: September 12th - October 23rd, 2026

__Opening Reception: Friday, September 25th, 7-9pm__

Elmhurst Artists' Guild: Fall Member Show

The Elmhurst Artists' Guild (EAG) invites the public to experience "Light As Language," a solo exhibition by Chicagoland fine art photographer, Louie Jones. This show is on view July 26 through August 23, 2026, at the EAG Gallery inside the Elmhurst Art Museum. The exhibition showcases Louie’s captivating light painting and long-exposure photography, exploring themes of introspection, transformation, memory, faith, and the human experience through the expressive power of light.

Come join us at the free Opening Reception on Friday, July 31, from 7 to 9 PM, where you can meet the artist, enjoy refreshments and experience the exhibition firsthand.

Louie, an Elmhurst Artists' Guild member, developed the Light As Language philosophy through years of dedicated studio practice, using light not simply to illuminate a subject but as a visual language capable of conveying emotion and meaning. This exhibition marks his first major solo show and features a cohesive collection of works created entirely in-camera using long-exposure techniques.

The Elmhurst Artists' Guild Gallery is located inside the Elmhurst Art Museum, 150 S. Cottage Hill Ave., Elmhurst. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information about the artist, visit www.louiejones.com.

*Above Image: The Damascus Road Experience, by Louie Jones*

Elmhurst Artists' Guild Gallery: Louie Jones - "Light As Language"

Meet ceramic artist and Gulf War veteran while he makes hundreds of cups in the museum for the fall exhibition Resisting the Long War: A Revolution of Values. Visitors can meet Ehren while he works  during the museum’s normal open hours. 

Ehren received his MFA from UC Berkeley in 2005, and has made and given away more than 27,000 ceramic cups. His work is heavily influenced by his time in the Marine Corps and the ways that military and civilian cultures collude and collide. 

Don’t miss a special 1-day workshop with Ehren on July 22! [Tickets available now!](https://shop.elmhurstartmuseum.org/collections/classes/products/hand-to-hand-a-workshop-with-ceramicist-ehren-tool-july-22-2026)

Ehren Tool at Work

The [Elmhurst Artists' Guild](https://www.elmhurstartistsguild.org/) presents their Summer Members' Show, with featured artist, Rebecca Russow, from June 28th through July 24th 2026.

__The Opening Reception will take place on Friday, July 17__

Rebecca Russow works in collage, encaustic, and clay.  Her deep connection to nature is reflected in the organic shapes, patterns, and textures that emerge in her work.  She's drawn to the challenge of combining diverse elements and finding harmony within complexity.

Rebecca explains, "While I often begin with a general idea, I rarely rely on sketches.  Instead, I let the process unfold intuitively; observing how materials interact and responding to what the piece needs.  I allow the work to guide me, letting it speak as it evolves.  Some of my pieces are explorations of form and material, while others carry more personal meaning.  My hope is to create work that invites viewers to linger, giving them space to connect, interpret, and discover something for themselves."

Participating artists:  Anthony Abboreno, Joe Abboreno, Dalia Alshurafa, Lauren Anhalt, Bernard Bahr, Sandy Bechtolsheim, Margherita Bernardi-Trahan, Peter Bialecki, Paul Callahan, Benjamin Calvert III, Jay Chuang, Susan Crady, David Cyl, Caroline Dorion, Judy Druschitz, John Duffy, Jane Erlandson, Brett Evangelista, Mijeong Field, Emily F Friel, Mohammad Gafoor, Teresa Gierwielaniec Rozanacki, Cherylyn Gnadt, Fletcher Hayes, Joan Heitmanek, Nancy Hlavacek, Randi Holt, Maya Lantsova, Kim Laurel, Karen Lecker, Charlene Lee-Freislinger, Lynn Mackenzie, Julie Mars, Jeane McGrail, Susan Nester, Dave Pryor, Janet Roller-Schmidt, Jennifer Starchvill, Nancy Staszak, Ted Strandt, Karen Sugay, Cassandra Swierenga, Maureen Swiertz, Anna Toberman, Alicia Urbanski, Debra Vaccaro, Ana Vitek, Marlene Vitek, Jennifer Wambach, Rosalie White, Shannon Yeh

Above image:  Holding What Remains by Rebecca Russow


Elmhurst Artists' Guild Gallery: Summer Members' Show

The exhibition *Undercurrent* highlights a decade of artwork by intuitive artist Pooja Pittie (b.1977 Mumbai) in her first major museum exhibition. The selection of works will survey Pittie’s creative energy in progress, while she adjusts her practice in search of balance, living with a progressive muscular disability. *Undercurrent* features 40-50 paintings, drawings, and fiber works by the Chicago-based artist that emphasize the artist’s determination to articulate the bodymind experience through material exploration. 

Praised for her large seductive abstract paintings since 2015, Pittie has had to shift her mark-making gestures to accommodate her changing body. The result is a masterful exploration of hand-crocheted objects informed by painting. Through experiencing Pittie’s work, the viewer is invited to enter a tactile, meditative space to reflect on our relationship with the body in the built environment. This exhibition, public program, and related catalog is dedicated to the relevance and context of Pittie’s work in a society that renders disability invisible.

![Pooja new](//images.ctfassets.net/df2y673eghyz/k6uYoboGxmx3cgIGymxp9/a31b2cd994a249b2eeed97bf1a7640eb/Pooja_Pittie_Ricardo_E_Adame_2026.jpeg)

[Pooja Pittie](https://www.poojapittie.com/ "pooja website") is a painter and fiber artist born in Mumbai, India, and based in Chicago, Illinois. Her work explores the "bodymind," a concept from disability studies that understands body and mind as a single system shaped by lived experience. Living with a progressive form of muscular dystrophy, Pittie builds abstract paintings from color as felt sensation alongside fiber works: crocheted and knitted biomorphic forms and works on paper layered and threaded with yarn and linen that reward sustained, close attention and labor. Across both, she treats constraint as the condition from which her practice emerges rather than an obstacle to it. Pittie's work is held in public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; and University of Chicago, as well as private collections internationally.


Pooja Pittie: Undercurrent

Matthew Girson’s paintings invite us to see in diminishing light. At 4:00am colors dissolve into grey and our eyes struggle to discern detail and form. As in previous work, Matthew relies on restrained color and the physicality of the paint to reflect on loss, absence, and things we may be lacking as we look at brush marks on his painted surfaces. The marks and the surfaces are just as important to him as the subjects he paints, but the things he paints are not as important as the things he chooses not to include.

These still life paintings depict empty domestic vessels and floral prints. Absent are the flowers themselves, their color, and their intimations of caring and beauty. Instead, the caring is in the attention to touch, nuance of brushwork, and subtle shifts in color. That color is present although slow to reveal itself. The paintings are generous, albeit slow to give. Their beauty is gleaned in the duration of time taken with them, as they patiently make themselves present.

__Matthew Girson Bio__

Matthew Girson makes paintings that explore the depth and range of the discipline as a physical medium, historical subject, and poetic opportunity. Specific themes in his paintings over the past 30 years include the relationship between abstraction and representation and how they operate within modern democracies. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, and will be an Artist In Residence at the Lost and Found Lab in Connecticut in March 2027. His work is held in numerous public and private collections including the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. He is a Professor in the Art School at DePaul University where he teaches painting, drawing, and seminars on contemporary art.


Exhibitions