Chicago, IL, Saturday, April 2, 2011- COUNTRY CLUB | CHICAGO at ANDREW RAFACZ is pleased to present Abstract Location, featuring works by Steven Bankhead, Katarina Burin, Fritz Chesnut, Jacob Dyrenforth, Freeman & Lowe, and Ryan McGinness. The exhibit continues through May 14, 2011.

The artists featured in Abstract Location use abstraction and re-presentation as a way of examining the physical world, offering everyday experiences and images but in skewed and difficult to define spaces. The idea that our senses can provide ways to view and construct as well as deceive our logical thoughts drives this creative process. Whether it is a hallucinatory experience as in Ryan McGinness’ Black Holes, or Freeman & Lowe’s examination of aesthetic constructs, Abstract Location looks externally for inspiration from abstracted forms and concepts.

STEVEN BANKHEAD presents oil paintings that are inspired by an early painting by the musical and cultural pioneer/impresario, Malcolm McLaren. Bankhead’s new works for the exhibition take the idea of Abstract Location even further. A solo show of his work opens at Emma Gray HQ the same night as this exhibit at Country Club | Chicago at Andrew Rafacz – bridging the gap between gallery spaces and concepts of location. Bankhead has shown at Andreas Binder Gallery in Munich, Circus Gallery and Emma Gray HQ in Los Angeles. Bankhead lives and works in Los Angeles.

KATARINA BURIN utilizes an intense stencil and painting technique, in this case, to contextualize images from matchbook covers focusing on an international selection of odd Modernist structures and designs. Burin has exhibited at Andreas Grimm, NY/ Munich; Galerie Lucile Corty, Paris; China Art Objects, LA; Participant Inc., NY; Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin; and White Columns, NY. Burin lives and works in Berlin though is currently a Visting Lecturer on Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University.

FRITZ CHESNUT is known for his photorealist paintings of crowd scenes and performers that deal with fandom and idol worship. Chesnut’s recent move to abstract painting, though formally opposed to his previous work, similarly mines ideas of the transcendent and the sublime. Chesnut has exhibited at Bellwether, NYC; Country Club in Los Angeles and Cincinnati; White Columns, NY; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, ARENA Gallery, the Dumbo Arts Center, and Marella Arte Contemporanea, Milan. Chesnut lives and works in Los Angeles.

JACOB DYRENFORTH produces labor intensive drawings that depict celebrity obsessed stalkers and self-destructive rock stars, exploring the dark side of fame and the morbid curiosity brought on by tragedy. The works in this exhibition offer up a slanted perspective on the constructed identities and harsh realities of the music world. Dyrenforth’s solo exhibitions include presentations at Renwick, NY; Sandroni Rey, Los Angeles; Wallspace, NY; and 31 Grand Gallery, NY. Dyrenforth lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

JONAH FREEMAN and JUSTIN LOWE have gained international renown for making hyper realistic and immersive hallucinogenic installations. Their shifting forms and distorted aesthetic jar the viewer’s concept of space and reality. They often employ narrative to their projects, transcending the viewer’s expectations of an everyday world. Recent major installations include Bright White Underground at Country Club, LA; Black Acid Co-op, Deitch Projects, NYC; Hello Meth Lab In The Sun, Ballroom Marfa; and Hello Meth Lab With A View, The Station, Miami. Freeman & Lowe live and work in Los Angeles.

RYAN MCGINNESS’ Black Holes employ overlapping colorful arabesque forms serving as symbolic representations of portals to an infinite world. The shaped canvases comprise layers of screen-printed concentric and symmetrical “”event horizons,”” which McGinness defines as the “” point in space-time before which everything disappears into the black hole””. Works from the series have been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States, Spain, Italy, Belgium, France, and Canada. McGinness lives and works in New York.