About the Artist

Shelley Gilchrist began her career in California in 1990 and continued creating art after her move to the Chicago area in 1995. For several years she was a representational painter, linking her figurative pieces thematically to the feminist narrative. In 2006, her work turned toward abstraction when she began to shape her painting surfaces and explore line and color in her designs. While continuing her abstract work, she has received awards for her paintings and sculptures in Midwest and East Coast exhibits, including top honors at the Rockford Midwest Biennial and the South Shore Arts Center Salon Show. With her studio close to her home in Evanston, when she is trying to solve painting problems, she can often find solutions by walking along the Lakeshore. She says, “With artmaking, I sometimes need to get out of my own way.”

Gilchrist has juried shows at Woman Made Gallery and ARC Gallery in Chicago. She is a member of Chicago Sculpture International and the founder of FUSEDChicago, a professional group for artists using encaustic. She had residencies at Ragdale and Vermont Studio Center and was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. Publications that include her work are Studio Visit and Encaustic Art in the Twenty-First Century, E. Ashley Rooney, ed.