Gallery Night

Photographs by Jenny Urbanek

Opening Reception

April 18th 6-9pm

Jenny Urbanek lives in Riverwest and has been taking photographs since high-school. She has been in a number of local and Midwest gallery exhibitions and has recently won awards for her photographs. Her interest in occult photography led her to develop a stylistic technique which allows her figures to become illuminated.

Join us on Gallery Night to meet the artist, check out her latest collection, and enjoy some refreshments.

Artist's Statement

Fairy tales play a large role in our culture's collective consciousness. As a small child I was hypnotized by stories of Prince Charming, magical castles and beautiful princesses distressed and then rescued by their soulmates. Growing older, I began to realize the concept of "Happily Ever After" had always been a farce, and that fairy tales were severely traumatic events with intense pain and suffering. It is strange that our culture's definition of "living a fairy tale life" has warped to be associated with a perfect existence free from problems or difficulty. On a societal level, we have lost the original meanings and intentions of FairyTales. They have been mutated, watered down, and sugarcoated countless times to aid the process of socialization. My interest is discovering the deep-seeded roots of these disturbing tales involving such issues as incest, cannibalism, and intense cruelty and illustrating them in a photographic way. They are, after all the bricks in the basement and the skeletons in the closet of Western culture.