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This workshop series is in conjunction with our exhibition, The United Colors of Robert Earl Paige, the largest exhibition of Robert Paige’s work to date, which surveys the iconic textile designs and painted fabric of one of the most generative artists/designers from the South Side of Chicago. The exhibition, corresponding public programs and upcoming catalog is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities. 

Robert Paige approaches art and craft as a joyful choreography between practical invention and material research. The fluid lines, intense colors, repeating circles and simple balance found in modernist paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, Sonia Delaunay, and Lazlo Maholy Nagy for example, are equally as influential to Paige’s style as the tight basket weaving techniques and symbology of West African cultures, the textured ripples on tree bark, and the unfettered improvisations of the Chicago jazz powerhouse the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).  Raised in the Woodlawn neighborhood, where he still resides, Paige makes artworks in response to the patterns, colors, and materials of everyday Black life. Paige playfully challenges the juxtaposition of art and craft in his hand-dyed textiles, cardboard collages, and ceramic tiles to encourage mental and physical liberation for all.

Image: Installation view. The United Colors or Robert Earl Paige, Hyde Park Art Center, 2024. Photo by Tom Van Eynde