The Angelica Kauffman Gallery, in cooperation with the Oak Park Art League is calling for art by currently or formerly incarcerated folks, on the theme, "Messages to the Outside."

Those who are unaffected by the carceral system tend to not think about it. Art can draw attention to the system and the people in the system. What do you want people on the outside to know? About life on the inside? Your access (or lack of access) to education, art supplies and ? What about issues of work and payment?

What do you wish folks on the outside knew? What should they care about? What change do you wish they were advocating for?

Judge: Gretchen Jankowski

“The world is beautiful but not sayable. That is why we need art”
Charles Simic (US Poet Laureate and Oak Parker)

What memory of a feeling from a daydreaming, circles inside our mind and can only be freed through the portal of abstract art? In this open-call exhibition, artists demonstrate their understanding of the visual language of shape, form, color, texture and line, evoking emotional response, the beauty of the unsayable without the dependence of representational reference.

Judge: Gene Skala

A place is what you make it, when you stop to look and absorb the scene you create a place, what you see is a landscape and as artists, we take the next step and create and record the feeling in art, and by doing so make sacred space. Landscapes, interiors, architectural scenery and still life works, reveal both artist’s interpretation of, and intimacy with – place. This is an open-call exhibition for art that evokes the sacred space of creation and creativity in new ways, escape landscape, real and imagined magical spaces.

In Partnership with Gerber/Hart Library Archive

Throughout history signs, flyers, and handouts employing powerful images and text all serve to communicate ideas in impactful ways as tools of protest and of community building. This open-call exhibit, which runs at the same time that the Democratic National Convention is in Chicago, will strive to uplift the artistry of image combined with text in these designs as OPAL partners with the Gerber Hart Archives to take a look at both the historical significance and the human perspective offered through the storytelling power of the sign.

Piercing purity from young artists and poets, postcard size art and/or poems by young artists showcased. Open call to all area schools, D97 and D200 + to area youth invited to create an artwork for submission.

Cartooning and animation are powerful modes for speaking truth to power, when protest is captioned in a word bubble and dry humor delivers the punch. This juried national exhibition comes at a fraught time, an election year, and invites artists working in all forms of cartooning and animation to submit works that speak to this moment in human history.

Annual Fall Artist Member Exhibition, small works version. This exhibit is open to all current Artist Members. All media welcome. Size is limited to 8” in its largest dimension. Up to 6 submissions per artist