Elmhurst Art Museum’s two new exhibitions feature a pair of artists with Midwestern roots whose outlooks and perceptions of the world lead in quite different directions.  Both of their creative paths are paved with output that prod our inquisitive instincts and ask our eyes to look a little closer.  One is unmatched in the way it provokes actual wonder. 

Jeannette Andrews was a young teenager from Wheaton and already enthralled with magic when she found herself in a contemporary art museum one day.  Her mind immediately saw parallels between what attracted her to the mystery and enchantment of magic and what was on the museum’s walls.   For her, the conceptual similarities between the two were so strong that she couldn’t fathom why no one was exploring their link.

The budding conjurer would go on to build a career that includes performative magic.  She also began seriously looking into the synergies and commonalities between contemporary visual art and the body of knowledge and practices that produce magic.  That interest and effort provide the foundation for Of Wonder, Mind and Magic, nine magic-focused installations that make up her first solo exhibition now running at the museum until late August.

All photos by Siegfried Mueller.

“Learning secret information that’s not easily found” is a powerful motivating force in Andrews’ life.  It’s led her to conduct exhaustive research into some of the most esoteric areas of magic.  A great deal of the work in her show also focuses on the physical sciences and deviations in how people believe they perceive the natural world and how they in fact do.  The magician/artist’s ruminations on a dense thicket of “what if” scenarios eventually culminate in either a performance piece or, in the case of Of Wonder, Mind and Magic, an art installation that focuses on what was once called the dark arts.

What is, remains is an example of how Andrews interweaves the properties of the physical world and that of magic.  An interactive or immersive piece that asks visitors to take specific actions while looking at a suspended sphere and its shadow, it’s a disappearing act that’s brought into an arts centric setting.  While following the instructions of a recorded voice, participating museum visitors will find the sphere disappears and reappears at will.

Awe inducing for its simplicity and the incredulity it triggers, Bottling the Impossible is, once you fully absorb its significance, a remarkable show of skill.  Riffing off the classic ship in a bottle conundrum, objects are displayed in a small Bulleit whiskey bottle with no obvious way for them to have gotten there.  A chess piece, a pocket mirror and a complete sealed deck of playing cards all sit benignly in their separate bottles; defying both logic and the natural order.  Andrews confessed it took more than two years of research and false steps before she was able to master this genuinely impressive challenge.    

Several of the other installations are more interactive with technology on hand to guide visitors on what to expect and do.   Andrews, who’s currently an artist in residence at Brown University, has enjoyed similar affiliations with other notable institutions including MIT and Harvard.  The breadth and penetrating quality of her work appeal to anyone who enjoys interacting with creatively unorthodox approaches to interesting and sometimes arcane concepts.

Near Eternity, the contributions of sculptor Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford, is inspired by the way time and the changes it brings to our lives impact how we view the past, present, future and ourselves.

Life can be viewed as a series of transitions and the ways we respond to them are endless.  Artists react through their work.  In Near Eternity, Hulsebos-Spofford’s low carbon sculptures are widespread.  They can be found gracing the interiors of the museum’s prestigious adjunct building, outdoors among the greenery of Wilder Park adjoining the museum and just inside the main entrance.  Notions of loss and mortality, contemplations on human vulnerability due to infirmity or age and the silent confusion and unanticipated emotions that accompany some of life’s more poignant passages are all represented in wood or polyester resin.

Several examples are found in McCormick House directly adjacent to the museum’s main building.  In it, Hulsebos-Spofford reimagines either familiar or iconic items and overlays empathetic sensibilities onto them.  In Hyperplexia: Splint, he takes an object used to brace injuries and produces a “meditation on support structures” that take in the emotional and architectural as well as the physical. 

In another room, Mies van der Rohe’s timeless Barcelona chair gets a similar treatment.  Elegant perfection gets a redo that emphasizes what it feels like to be susceptible or exposed to harm or injury.  All for the purpose of highlighting the “tension between preservation and decay”.

Temperamentally lighter and more playful works are in the park where an artistic homage to Mr. Coffee can be found along with a radically chill Shark Cat cast in bronze, fashioned after the social media craze of the same name.   

Like most of us, artists have many facets to their sensibilities.  Along with encouraging us to think deeper through art, Mr. Hulsebos-Spofford also derives a great deal of pleasure knowing artwork in public spaces can instigate instant and random joy.  A balance that makes a show of any kind a more complete and gratifying experience.

Of Wonder, Mind and Magic

Near Eternity

Through August 23, 2026

Elmhurst Art Museum

150 South Cottage Grove Ave.

Elmhurst, IL   60126

For more information on both exhibits:  https://elmhurstartmuseum.org