On the occasion of EXPO CHICAGO 2024, For Freedoms was thrilled to launch four commissioned signed and numbered and hand-embellished limited edition prints by moniquemeloche artists Candida Alvarez, Antonius-Tín Bui, Shinique Smith, and Jake Troyli. All four prints were be on display in the EXPO /Dialogues lounge. Proceeds from sales benefit the artists and For Freedoms.
Please email Sarah Haimes at <a href="sh@forfreedoms.org" data-mce-href="sh@forfreedoms.org">sh@forfreedoms.org</a> with any questions.

EXPO CHICAGO

On the occasion of EXPO CHICAGO 2024, For Freedoms was thrilled to launch four commissioned signed and numbered and hand-embellished limited edition prints by moniquemeloche artists Candida Alvarez, Antonius-Tín Bui, Shinique Smith, and Jake Troyli. All four prints were be on display in the EXPO /Dialogues lounge. Proceeds from sales benefit the artists and For Freedoms. Please email Sarah Haimes at sh@forfreedoms.org with any questions.

CANDIDA ALVAREZ Mira, 2024 22.75 x 17.5 inches 11 color Silkscreen print on 290gm Coventry Rag paper Limited edition of 5 Hand-Embellished Prints Limited edition of 20 Signed and numbered prints with 5 APs All prints signed and numbered by the artist
Mira! Look here. Where do your eyes take you? Do you notice the colors? Do your eyes beg not to leave? Do you think of someone? Or do you smell a scent? Can we face a picture without memories? Are you startled, does it make you laugh, does it provoke a smile on your face? Ideas. evolve, like drawings. This work has a rather long trajectory, collapsing cities, continents, and oceans in its flatness, reviving memories buried deep within its layers. Color, as its passionate companion, keeps pace and lingers on the paper surface now living as a silkscreen. Note: five prints in the series have been hand-embellished with diamond dust leftover and collected from Andy Warhol’s factory, making each print unique. 
Candida Alvarez (b.1955, Brooklyn, NY) is an artist whose primary materials are painting and drawing. Alvarez composes her abstractions from a personal narrative beginning with a collage-like exchange creating a pictorial space that eventually results in several layers overlapping. Color becomes the pictorial architect between shape and line, and abstraction becomes a sense of wonder that tracks the formal invention and lives within Alvarez’s compositions. 
Alvarez received her MFA from Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (1997) and taught painting at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago for 25 years where she is now Professor Emeriti. Her work has been exhibited at ICA Boston, Kemper Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, The High Museum of Art, Chicago Cultural Center, Hyde Park Art Center, New Britain Museum of American Art, The Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles,  moniquemeloche, Gavlak, and Galerie Lelong, among others. 
Her work has been collected and also exhibited by the Whitney Museum of American Art; The Art Institute of Chicago; Peréz Art Museum Miami; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; El Museo de Barrio; The Studio Museum in Harlem; Seattle Art Museum; and DePaul Art Museum. Recent awards and fellowships include the 2022 Ford Mellon Foundation Latinx Artist Fellowship, 2022 Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Art, the Helen Frankenthaler Award for painting in 2021, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters &amp; Sculptors Grant in 2019. In 2023, Alvarez was artist in residence at Studio of the South/ LUMA Foundation Arles, France and at Skowhegan School of Painting &amp; Sculpture, ME.
This print is part of a suite of limited edition prints by a group of moniquemeloche artists commissioned on the occasion of EXPO Chicago 2024 in order to amplify the necessity and power of creativity in shaping inclusive civic discourse. Proceeds will benefit the artists and For Freedoms’ upcoming initiatives. 
 PLEASE NOTE: 
<ul>
<li aria-level="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;">Unframed prints ship within 1-3 weeks and framed prints ship within 4-6 weeks.</li>
<li aria-level="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;">International customers are responsible for all duties, taxes, and VAT fees</li>
</ul>
<ul></ul>

Framing

Type

Mira, 2024

ANTONIUS-TIN BUI Time is now inside me, transfer and possession, never holding anything back, indifferent to my illegitimacy, disinterested in my grief, pierced with all of my joy. Inside me, a second, better person, furnished with perfect recall- my convict, my warden, my guest, my host, 2024 24 x 18 inches Cyanotype print on Shiramine paper Limited edition of 5 Hand-Embellished Prints Limited edition of 20 Signed and numbered prints with 5 APs All prints signed and numbered by the artist 
Antonius-Tín Bui (Bronx, 1992) is a polydisciplinary artist and shapeshifter invested in the transformative potential of improvisation, portraiture, craft, and ritual. Bui explores themes of eroticism, honoring ancestors and traditions, finding joy and potential in breaking, glitching, and illegibility and rebuilding from a fractured tongue/culture. They explore the porousness of skin, and how patterns, vessels, and other beings fuse into the flesh to acknowledge our interconnections in their work.
This print is a cyanotype of an existing hand-cut paper piece of the same title, ﻿Bui enjoys experimenting with the cyanotype process for many reasons including engaging with the history of photography and playing upon the color scheme of blue and white porcelain to emphasize the relationship between that pottery and a history of orientalism. This particular piece builds upon their previous works in which they hybridize the human form with Vietnamese vessels found in permanent museum collections around the world. The intentional shattering of these forms is a metaphorical way to free ourselves from systemic forces. Bui will embellish 5 prints in the edition with hand-cut elements, different paint washes, and gold leaf, making each unique. 
Bui’s intensive paper-cutting process is exceptionally meditative; each sheet of paper represents an archive of memories and oral histories, mirroring the intergenerational trauma that so many refugee communities are faced with. Through their rigorous and reductive process, they deconstruct the white canvas, metaphorically carving out space for the narratives that are so often omitted from recognized histories.  
They are the child of Paul and Van Bui, two Vietnamese refugees who sacrificed everything to provide a future for their four kids and extended family. Born and raised in Bronx, NY, Antonius eventually moved to Houston before pursuing a BFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MIC/A). 
This print is part of a suite of limited edition prints by a group of moniquemeloche artists commissioned on the occasion of EXPO Chicago 2024 in order to amplify the necessity and power of creativity in shaping inclusive civic discourse. Proceeds will benefit the artists and For Freedoms’ upcoming initiatives. 
PLEASE NOTE: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Unframed prints ship within 1-3 weeks and framed prints ship within 4-6 weeks.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">International customers are responsible for all duties, taxes, and VAT fees.</li>
</ul>

Time is now inside me..., 2024

SHINIQUE SMITH By the Light, 2024 23 x 17.75 inches Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Satin paper Limited edition of 5 Hand-Embellished Prints Limited edition of 20 Signed and numbered prints with 5 APs All prints signed and numbered by the Artist 
Shinique Smith (b. 1971, Baltimore, MD) is known for her monumental sculptures and abstract paintings of calligraphy and collage. Inspired by her unique and magical childhood experiences, Smith has gleaned visual poetry from clothing and explored concepts of ritual using breath, bunding and calligraphy as tools toward abstraction. Her layered works range from palm-sized bundled microcosms to monolithic bales to massive energetic paintings that contain vibrant and carefully collected mementos from her life such as in By the Light. Smith has embellished five prints in the edition with swatches of fabric throughout the composition, making each unique.
Smith works at the convergence of consumption and spiritual sanctuary, balancing forces and revealing connections across space and time, race, gender, and place to suggest the possibility of new worlds. She intertwines personal histories and belongings with thoughts of the vast nature of ‘things’ that we consume, cherish, gift and discard and how these objects resonate on intimate and social scales.
Smith attended the famed Baltimore School for the Arts for high school, Maryland Institute College of Art, obtaining a BFA in 1992 and MFA in 2003. She also received her Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University and the Museum School in 2000. Notable solo exhibitions include The Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL, (2023); Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME, (2023); Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS (2022); USB Art Collection, NY (2019); California African American Museum (2018); The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA (2015); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (2013); SCAD Museum, Atlanta, GA (2011); Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Fl (2010); and the Studio Museum in Harlem, Harlem, NY (2009).
 
Her work has gained attention through her participation in celebrated biennials and group exhibitions including the 13th Biennial de Cuenca and 8th Busan Biennale; the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Rubell Family Collection, the New Museum and Hauser + Wirth LA; Smart Museum of Art; and Museum of the African Diaspora; and the Newark Museum. She has also created several landmark public works for NY Metro Arts, Chicago Transit Authority, Wabash Arts Corridor and USCF Medical Center among others, and has recently launched her monumental new mosaic mural to the public at MLK Jr Crenshaw station as part of the Los Angeles Metro’s New K Line.
 
Smith’s work has also been collected and exhibited by other prestigious institutions such as the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Baltimore Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum of Art; California African American Museum, Denver Art Museum, Guggenheim Museum; Frist Art Museum; Minneapolis Art Institute; MOMA PS1; Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal; National Portrait Gallery, DC; the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art; the Newark Museum; and the Whitney Museum. She is the recipient of several awards and prizes including the American Academy of Arts &amp; Letters Purchase Prize, (2022); Anonymous Was a Woman Artist Award (2016); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2013); MICA Alumni Medal of Honor (2012); Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship (2008); and the Aljira Center for Contemporary Arts Fellowship(2005). Smith currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
This print is part of a suite of limited edition prints by a group of moniquemeloche artists commissioned on the occasion of EXPO Chicago 2024 to amplify the necessity and power of creativity in shaping inclusive civic discourse. Proceeds will benefit the artists and For Freedoms’ upcoming initiatives. 
PLEASE NOTE: 
<ul data-mce-fragment="1">
<li aria-level="1" data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;">Unframed prints ship within 1-3 weeks and framed prints ship within 4-6 weeks.</li>
<li aria-level="1" data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;">International customers are responsible for all duties, taxes, and VAT fees</li>
</ul>
 
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By the Light, 2024

JAKE TROYLI Self-portrait as a country club legend, 2024 24.5 x 20 inches Archival pigment print on Epson Hot Press Bright paper Limited edition of 20 with 5 APs All prints signed and numbered by the artist 
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Jake Troyli (Boston, 1990) investigates otherness and the commodification of the Black/Brown body, confronting and exploring spectacle and sweat equity as a demonstration of value in his work. He explores performance, power, and the construction of identity through energetic paintings, often featuring a self-portrait or avatar of himself embedded in engaging scenes, with a markedly classicist approach. His works act as a trojan horse, with an attractive surface belying more complicated content underneath. 
Troyli expands the functionality and influence of his figures, imbuing them with new agency and establishing absurd narratives to consider the timeless conversations surrounding the preconceived notions of identity and value structures. Self-portrait as country club legend features his signature self-portrait while referencing Troyli’s own experience with sports. Notably, the artist played D1 basketball in college, which led to him developing a critical and complicated view of the dynamic between audience and athlete or performer, and what it means to be on display. This work depicts a tennis player, widely considered more of an upper-class sport, and Troyli has removed his tattoos and is playing dress up, exploring what it means to be a token, conflating race and class expectations through a single moment, arms raised holding his racquet. 
Troyli was deeply influenced by MAD magazine, political cartoons, and comic books as an accessible vehicle to help him build a visual language as he didn’t have access to contemporary art growing up. By appropriating motifs from both the classical and the comic, his work exists in a space that he hopes defies and subverts immediate assumption by utilizing self-conscious self-imagery and familiar language to navigate tense conversations between artist and viewer. His approach with techniques formalized during the High Renaissance, underpainting and toning are central to the conception of each work as a contrast to his interest in the use of satire and “low-brow” image-making, as well as a humorous delivery of information, to engage an audience in a way that feels accessible.
Troyli received his BA from Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN (2013), his MFA from the University of South Florida, Tampa (2019), and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ME (2019).  He has exhibited at moniquemeloche gallery, Chicago, IL, (2020, 2022); The Milwaukee Museum, Milwaukee, WI, (2023); The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS (2023); Kavi Gupta, Chicago, IL, (2022); The Ringling Museum, Sarasota, FL (2021); Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL (2019). His work is in the permanent collection of The Tampa Art Museum, Tampa, FL; The Ringling Museum, Sarasota, FL; The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; and Pierce and Hill Harper Arts Foundation, Detroit, MI. Raised in Florida, Jake is now based in Newark. 
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This print is part of a suite of limited edition prints by a group of moniquemeloche artists commissioned on the occasion of EXPO Chicago 2024 in order to amplify the necessity and power of creativity in shaping inclusive civic discourse. Proceeds will benefit the artists and For Freedoms’ upcoming initiatives. 
PLEASE NOTE: 
<ul>
<li aria-level="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;">Unframed prints ship within 1-3 weeks and framed prints ship within 4-6 weeks.</li>
<li aria-level="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;">International customers are responsible for all duties, taxes, and VAT fees</li>
</ul>
<ul></ul>