Victoria on her end agreed to curate a small format works on paper exhibit to exhibit in Chicago. Perez selected 8 artists and asked them to create original works for this exhibition. The theme was left open in order to allow each artist maximum freedom and to let the show be a fresh look at contemporary approaches to drawing Some reoccuring concerns among the artists are self protraiture, the body, and pornography. Technically speaking most of the artists chose to work with digital tools in the execution of their work.

All of the artists selected who took part in this show are artists who are living and working in Barcelona but of diverse origins and backgrounds. The artists participating in this exhibit have collaboborated with functionvariable on several projects. An important goal behind this exchange is to create a dialogue between artists and atists' groups working outside institutionalized art contexts

Polvo is an alternative space located in Chicago´s Pilsen neighborhood and it is operated by the Polvo Art Collective, originally formed in 1996. Polvo´s history consists of organizing artistic and cultural events in collaboration with Chicago/Pilsen-based community spaces. Polvo and functionvariable have initiated a collaboration with the purpose of generating an artistic dialogue between artists working and exhibiting with Polvo in Chicago and artists working and exhibiting with functionvariable in Barcelona.

functionvariable is a collaborative artists´ group which uses a variety of artistic processes in search of creating meaningful relationships with the structures that influence the production, distribution and consumption of art. As part of our process we engage in collaborative efforts with artists, audiences, institutions and communities. functionvariable has set out to investigate the junctures where these processes meet and as part of this proposition we explore the relationships that are formed between the work, the space in which the work is placed and the participants of each event. functionvariable is an artistic concept.

Jose Antonio Delgado	Amós Piñeros	Lourdes Ribas	Bichitos
Jose Barbosa		Victoria del Carmen Perez	Natalia Ángel

Artists : Kimberly Aubuchon, Maria Bouquet, CarianaCarianne, Elke Claus, Miguel Cortez, Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud, Gisela Insuaste, Hannelore Lott, Harold Mendez, Jaime Mendoza, Hugo Michel-Hernandez, Allison Rentz, Edra Soto

Kimberly Aubuchon was born in rural Illinois in 1967, grew up in Missouri, and currently resides in Chicago, IL. She earned a degree to paint pretty pictures from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2001. She likes to make digital images that are whimsical, childlike offerings of momentary thoughts that are generally created under the influence of classic rock, television, domestic beer, and everyday life. Sometimes these digital drawings are transformed into paintings and murals. Kimberly has recently shown in group exhibitions at Little Known Gallery, Charcoll, and will have a solo show at 3Arts Gallery in November 2004. Kimberly is also the director of Unit B (Gallery) and has curated shows in Chicago, San Antonio, and Detroit. http://www.realniceart.com

Maria E. Bouquet is an artist living in Brooklyn, NY. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Maria is a Master of Fine Arts candidate at Pratt Institute scheduled to graduate this fall. She has exhibited her work in New York, NY, Brooklyn, DC, Washington, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Maria is now working on a new series of abstract paintings called: "1+1=0", a new body of work for her Thesis solo show soon at Pratt Institute, New York. http://subaltern.org/mbouquet1.htm

CarianaCarianne create installations that deal with notions of self. Her approach specifically incorporates both of her selves, Cariana and Carianne, in such a way that both selves have a voice within each installation. Together their efforts contest notions of sanity-insanity, while challenging socially constructed notions concerning mind-body relationships and definitions. CarianaCarianne lives and works in Chicago. http://subaltern.org/carianne.html

Elke Claus is an artist living in Chicago with an Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been shown at various spaces including Anchor Graphics, Artemisia Gallery, the Contemporary Arts Workshop and The Krasl Art Museum. Her work mostly deals with combining various photomechanical printmaking processes and transferring these onto handmade or found paper. The prints contain images appropriated from science textbooks; mostly illustrations of things that are usually invisible, for example: satellite orbits, sound waves, atomic reactions, etc. These images have been collected and layered to reveal unusual similarities in their patterns and shapes. Elke chooses special papers and translucent, flourescent, or metallic inks in each print and manipulates and "collages" these in order to create a style that mixes mechanical reproduction with a handmade touch and for the hope of blending a space-age style with old- fashioned craftmanship. http://www.elkeworks.com



Miguel Cortez is an artist living in Chicago and born in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1970. He has studied filmmaking at Columbia College and painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited for more than a decade in Chicago, Mexico, and Spain. Recent exhibitions include a group show "Art Against Aids" in Barcelona and "Change of Policy: International Artist Respond to the George W. Bush Administration" in Detroit, Michigan. http://www.mcortez.com

Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud is a Miami based artist with a Bachelor of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has curated and participated in group exhibitions at El Museo Francisco Oller y Diego Rivera, Buffalo, New York, Community Artists Collective, Houston, Texas, and Body Builder and Sportsman, Chicago, Illinois. She utilizes various methods of mark-making and ritual to record the actions of the body . She is currently recording breath, heart rhythms, and other internal economies of the body. Works can be viewed online at www.artic.edu/~nmcclo and www.polvo.org.

Gisela Insuaste is an artist currently living in Chicago, born in New York City, 1975. She creates art inspired by her travels in North and South America. Her work is based on episodic memories that are triggered by real and imagined ethnographic experiences in rural and urban landscapes. These landscapes are precarious: shifty, unstable, unpredictable, unsettled and ambiguous. They reflect the physically, emotionally, and socio-politically charged spaces we currently live in, where political unrest, social unease, and economic instability affect our individual and collective concepts of space, time, history, and memory. In her artistic practice, the process of collecting, documenting, and interpreting material culture is significant for the creation of drawings and installations that express the interconnectedness of people, places, and things. She 'draws' in real space and uses found material that includes wire, paper, tape, cotton, matchsticks, and fabric to create installations that emphasize a fragile and dynamic relationship with the natural and man-made architectural forms that surround us. She received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a B.A in Anthropology & Studio Art from Dartmouth College. She is a recipient of several art and research grants that have funded her artistic and academic pursuits, including the recent 2004 Richard H. Driehaus "Emerging" Individual Artist Award. She has exhibited in several group shows in Chicago, Kansas City, MO, Washington, DC, and Ecuador. She currently works as Arts Program Coordinator at Association House of Chicago, a community-based social service organization. http://www.giselainsuaste.com

Hannelore Lott is an active artist and performer, currently living in Chicago. She exhibited successfully around Europe, in New York and Chicago. In Europe, she worked as an actor, dancer, scene-designer, and puppeteer. She has been doing several commissioned painting, which are placed in Germany, France, Turkey and Chicago. In 1998 she founded "How" group, organizing several performances, workshops and group exhibition, supporting young emerging Romanian artists. The nonprofit association continues to exist in Timisoara Romania, after her moving to Chicago, as "H.Arta" alternative art gallery. Hannelore also did several site-specific installations and participated at international alternative art festivals. Born in Timisoara, Romania, 1976, she graduated Fine Arts in 2000, after which she moved to Chicago. Since then she continued to explore the role of art in social and spiritual change. http://subaltern.org/hannelore.htm

Harold Mendez is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work challenges the male role and identity in contemporary society. His recent work explores street vernacular, self-designed prisons, the use of language, illusions and the concept of the body as a contested and divided field. His work is informed by memory, globalization, power structures and the nature of personal experience. Based in Chicago, he works in sculptural installation, street intervention, public art and conceptual work. As a former graffiti artist, he combined traditional and alternative approaches to his work while critiquing the landscape as a stage of dissonance. With an interest still rooted in graffiti and hip-hop culture his work has bridged gaps between low and high art. He is currently seeking avenues for experimental collaborations with established and emerging artists in their development as cultural leaders. He recently exhibited in Tart, a group exhibition of new media artists at Klein Art Works. In 2003, he exhibited in There Goes My Hero group exhibition at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom. While exhibiting in the UK, he also delivered a lecture, entitled Experimental Performances: Exhibiting the Other, at the University of Northumbria. His curatorial experience includes The Brown Sheep Project: Mexotica, A Living Museum of Intercultural Fetishes, with Guillermo Gómez-Peña and La Pocha Nostra in 2002. He is currently a Trainer with The Posse Foundation, a college access youth leadership program that identifies, recruits and trains student leaders from public high schools to form multicultural teams before entering into higher education. http://www.kleinart.com/html/harold_mendez.html

Jaime Mendoza was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1974. In 1998 he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Arts from Northeastern Illinois University and a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Mendoza is among the few Latino artists in the Midwest who continues to redefine and reestablish the dialogue between community and artist. His installations confront society with an in your face approach to socioeconomic cultural politics in the US. Mendoza’s use of video and large scale prints embodies the idealisms of Chicano Art theory and Contemporary art practice by forging and fostering a visual language that explores the perspective of multiculturalism in the U.S. through the eyes of the undocumented and bicultural/bilingual community. http://subaltern.org/jaime.htm

Hugo Michel Hernandez is a Chicago based artist and educator, born in Havana, Cuba in 1972. He received a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a MA from Columbia College Chicago. His primary work is painting and installation work. Hugo has exhibited throughout Mexico, Cuba, Colombia and nationally. His most recent exhibit was at the 8th Biennial of Havana, Cuba. He is currently a faculty and staff member at Columbia College Chicago. http://www.subaltern.org/augustshow.htm

Allison Rentz is an Atlanta, Georgia artist, who creates installations, drawings, multimedia works, and performances. Used drier sheets, wood scraps, and clear plastic containers/bags are some media that she recycles into art. Her work has been displayed in Atlanta, GA, Chicago, Lexington, KY, and New York City. To learn more, please visit: http://www.allisonrentz.com

Edra Soto was born in Puerto Rico in 1971. In 1995 she received the Alfonso Arana Fellowship to work in Paris, France for a year. In 1997 she moved to Chicago to attend the Art Institute of Chicago where she obtained her Masters degree in 2000. Her most recent presentations include a live performance at El Museo del Barrio in New York, as part of the travelling show Don't Call it Performance, curated by Paco Barragan. She will be presenting a solo show in 2005 at UIC Gallery 400 and at Polvo Art Studio. http://polvo.org/edrashow.htm