Vertical Gallery is very proud to present its 13-Year Anniversary Show, an all-star group exhibition commemorating 13 years at the vanguard of street art, pop surrealism, graffiti and beyond.
Vertical’s 13-Year Anniversary Show, on view from March 13 through April 19, marks the gallery’s return to Chicago, where its story began. All work will be displayed inside Jackson Junge Gallery, located in the city’s bustling Wicker Park neighborhood.
Vertical’s 13-Year Anniversary artist roster brings together 13 longtime collector favorites and emerging talents from across the city, across the nation and across the globe, showcasing the consistency and diversity that have remained hallmarks of the gallery’s monthly programming efforts since its inception. The 13 artists are (in alphabetical order):
- Andria Beighton, whose atomic-age motifs, flattened perspectives and ultra-contemporary color palettes reinterpret midcentury design for a new millennium
- Blake Jones, whose menagerie of whimsical, wide-eyed characters continues to expand in galleries and public spaces the world over
- Grant William Thye, whose dazzlingly geometric, cubist-inspired paintings and collages reinterpret the shapes, structures and forms synonymous with everyday life
- Jerome Tiunayan, whose cathartic personal storytelling, comics-inspired illustration and gallows humor recast the Hero’s Journey for our postmodern age
- Laura Catherwood, whose mysterious, often mournful paintings and pencil illustrations capture the landscape of her inner world, where fauna, flora and the fantastic coalesce
- Liz Flores, whose sumptuously colored abstract figurative portraits survey the complexities and ambiguities of community, womanhood and Latinidad
- Martin Whatson, whose stencils and street art restore color to a drab world, juxtaposing grayscale compositions against prismatic eruptions of graffiti scribbles
- Mau Mau, whose wily and quick-witted fox character speaks truth to power on walls, surfboards and billboards across the globe
- OakOak, whose spray paint and stencils transform the symbols of urban decay into wonders of imagination and irreverence
- Pipsqueak was here!!!, whose alchemical artistry spins gold from the debris of capitalism and consumption
- Pollyanna, whose lush, serenely surreal celebrations of the child within spotlight her signature character Polly, a symbolic figure inspired by the hydrangea flower
- Scott Mills, whose pop surrealist portraits depict nature at its most unnatural
- Steve Seeley, whose paintings mine the breadth of popular culture to create a brand of slapstick surrealism uniquely and entirely his own
Each artist will display four original works sized at 12 x 12 in. (30 x 30 cm).
Vertical Gallery's 13-Year Anniversary Show
March 13 - April 19, 2026
Opening reception: Fri Mar 13, 5-9pm
This special exhibition will be at Jackson Junge Gallery
(1389 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago)
