With the city's annual Pride Month underway, Tyler Deal wants Chicagoans to have an emblem of their LGBT pride that they can hang on their walls.
Deal, a printmaking artist who goes by Idiot Pull in the arts world, is organizing a Pride-themed poster show at a Pilsen gallery this month to raise money for Equality Illinois. He's gotten about two dozen artists to contribute to the show, he said, most hailing from around the Midwest. Deal said there will be about 20 different types of posters available for sale, as well as three or four one-of-a-kind, fine arts pieces, including one by Matthew Hoffman, the Chicago artist behind the "You Are Beautiful" project.
"[The poster show] ranges from letter press to silkscreen to laser cut," Deal said, who hand-draws and silkscreens original art and music posters out of his studio at the Chicago Art Department, a Pilsen art-collective. "This has been a way for the printmaking community to gather up and actually build a community."
Deal said the idea for the art show - the first charity show he has organized - was born of a poster he began designing in January that featured equality and LGBT rights as central themes.
"It's something I'm really passionate about and somebody said, well, Pride Month is in June, so I decided to do a whole show," Deal said. "It's really easy to get artists to rally around a cause, especially one having to do with equality."
The art show will run at the Chicago Art Department's West Gallery on June 13 from 6 to 10 p.m., to take advantage of Pilsen's monthly "Art Walk" that features various galleries on the second Friday of the month. The posters will also be available for purchase online for a month after the show.
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