Jim Lutes, Untitled, 1998, oil on linen

It Looks Easy considers the space and place of end-of-the-millennium painting, recognizing its continually unfolding aspects. The exhibition demonstrates that as much as painting as a practice is unresolved, it continues to complicate itself, remaining playfully defiant of its oft proclaimed death. The diverse painting practices in this show reflect the spirit, recent shifts, innovations, improvisations and function of recent painting in Chicago.

"Air-built," a graceful, calligraphic abstraction by Susanne Doremus, keeps company with Shona McDonald's methodical patterned painting "180 envelope innards," constructed of thin strips cut from the insides of envelopes. A disturbing structure of cartoon faces in Mark Otten's "Pickle Tickled," finds its alterego in a pretty pattern of pastel dots sweeping across Michelle Grabner's "Rainbow." Walter Anderson's deceptively simple text painting, It Looks Easy, lends the exhibition its title.