A moving collection of children's art opening on November 17th at the Takohl Gallery in Chicago's West Loop. Young Artists in Motion features art from blossoming young artists ages 2 to 12. This imaginative art exhibition titled " Young Artist's in Motion" explores the uninhibited wonder and magic of childhood through the lens of super-sized holographic-like original drawings and paintings, such as "Before DeKooning" , a painting by 2-and-a-half-year-old Eero from Chicago and "The Tree of Life", a drawing by 8-year-old Nika from MIlwaukee, Wisc.

"My vision is to enrich these young artists' work by utilizing modern processes to take teir imagery to the next dimension," says Takohl Gallery owner Tammy Kohl.

Kohl knew by age 4 that her destiny was in art. That's why she decided to team up with artist and photographer Susan Aurinko to curate this first-of-its-kind art exhibit featuring child artists. Moreover, Kohl and Aurinko are committed to mentoring the featured artists, sharing their love for art to inspire and support others' artistic pursuits.

On Friday Nov. 17 at 6-9 p.m., members of the press and public are invited to Takohl Gallery for the "Young Artists in Motion" unveiling and to meet the artists: Eero Sebastian Hilton, Grace Kepes, Emmett Kyoshi, NIka Wegner, and Veda Wegner.

Cudra Clover is a silk painter, multimedia, and installation artist. She studied at Columbia College in Chicago and now lives in Hawaii and creates in her jungle studio on Maui. Her art is in the permanent collection of the Hawaii State Museum of Art and can be seen in various other public spaces. She has exhibited in Chicago, Denver, Japan, China, Black Rock City, Honolulu, and Maui.

This collection is a meditation on living things, both real and imagined. In my studio (laboratory) the canvases serve as petri dishes for new beginnings, intended to contribute to the healing of our planet's imbalances. I seek to draw attention to the urgent need to respect and protect nature. These biomorphic abstracts are original works on silk. I employ various techniques with traditional and experimental mediums including Serti, Rozome, batik and painterly styles. During these exchanges I explore subjects such as: ocean-life, viruses, botany, genetics, water issues, gmo's, the body, over-population, etc. I often use cells, amoebas, algae and other microscopic life to inform my work and then recreate them macro. Reproductions of these original works are also available as custom prints on canvas, archival paper, metal and glass.

www.Cudraclover.com

Arica Hilton is a Chicago based multi-media artist and poet. Born on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, many of her collaborations are with a variety of international artists, where inner and outer landscapes, light, sounds and ultimately, words transmit the artist's expression. Much like the Luminists, the poetic art movement that captured light as it moved across the American Landscape, Hilton's works are inspired by the European Romanticists, who depicted cool waterscapes reflecting nuanced skies. Hilton's paintings and installations are intricately woven with her poetry and three-dimensional materials, which transports them to the present while still capturing a timeless quality that is ever present in her works.

Her latest series, I FLOW LIKE WATER, is a commentary on the lack of consciousness of human beings discarding plastic without thought to where it will eventually end up. States Hilton, "One thing artists have in common is their propensity to alert people to pay attention to what is right and more often, what is wrong in the world. Having said that, I realized I am guilty of not being as conscious of the environment as I should be. I wanted to know where our discarded water bottles, containers, toys and wrappers disappear to after they have been removed from our site." In exploration of this topic, Hilton decided to take matters into her own hands. With the fear that her own discarded plastic would end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, she searched for months to find a recycling center in Chicago that would recycle her plastic water bottles. The recycled plastic would then be infused into her paintings and become the "water" on her canvasses.

Hilton's works have been seen in Astronomy Magazine, Michigan Avenue Magazine, Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Crain's Chicago Business, DNA Info, The Examiner, Art World News, Fine Art Magazine, Windy City Times. Until recently, she was the president of the board of the Poetry Center of Chicago. Hilton was also invited to participate in a solo exhibition of her paintings and poetry at EUROPALIA, a biennial held in Brussels in the fall of 2015. Her works are in major collections throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.

At twelve years old, Lisa Goesling began taking classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. She always made time to visit her favorite part of the museum, the ancient art of Asia. Their 'stories' of nature had a huge impact on her art making. She continues to create art following the age-old practice of Gong-bi, (Chinese for meticulous). Magnifying glass in one hand, X-Acto knife in the other, Lisa concentrates on nature's minute details, which compels everyone who views her art to do the same. Her complex compositions evolve into exquisite renditions of contemporary art.

Scratchbords are hard boards covered in a layer of dark Kaolin Clay (used to make Porcelain) and then India Ink. "When I etch away at the ink with an X-Acto knife, the image appears in the clay. If I like, I can paint with colored inks or paint at the end of the process. It is a slow, precise path, layering line over line, and color over color. I always tell people that it takes a lot of artistic courage to approach a medium like this, since I do not sketch or erase. Unlike traditional etchings where prints are made, each one of these creations are an original piece of art."

In a photographic quest driven by a sense of connection to the remarkable heroine, Joan of Arc, Susan Aurinko has sought statues and figurines and shot them as portraits, each one expressing a different mood, but all unified by strength. Aurinko communicates that strength by shooting the representations of Joan's face, which always has an iron determination, whether she is meditative and pensive, prayerful, stoical or even innocent.

The photographic work takes on a uniform sensibility by the digital move of putting the straight shots of Joan's image into backgrounds from the places where she stayed in her war of liberation and through emphasizing the bronze and burnished tonality of the original shots. Aurinko is one of Chicago's more important photographers and here she has produced her masterwork. She has studied Joan's life deeply and intensely, has traveled to the places where she lived, and has lived imaginatively as a visual method actor. Therese images are infused by the admiration, reverence and gratitude that Aurinko feels towards Joan, a great figure of female power and righteousness. – An excerpt from the review by Michael Weinstein.