HYDE PARK — The University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art lobby will get a fresh coat of paint by artist Judy Ledgerwood.
Ledgerwood will paint an original work on a 50-foot span of the lobby at the museum, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave., starting on Dec. 26.
“Chromatic Patterns" will be a work in tempera that will hang like a tapestry on the wall, Ledgerwood said. She said the work will be a series of repeating patterns responding to Louis Sullivan’s elevator screens from the former Chicago Stock Exchange building, which are also displayed in the lobby.
“Only when the painting can be made in direct response to architecture can the artist have the most control — and therefore power — over the viewing situation," Ledgerwood said. “It is my hope that the painting will actually change the viewer’s perception of a space, making it seem like an altogether new experience than what they may have perceived before.”
Ledgerwood is a professor of art theory and practice at Northwestern University and has work on display at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and other museums and galleries.
The work is part of the Threshold Series at the museum, which brings a major installation of contemporary art to the museum lobby every year.
The painting will be on display through July 20.
