[Interlude] - My Top 10 Works at Expo Chicago 2026

Last week, I attended an art expo at Navy Pier in downtown Chicago, an event that has been running for 13 years, passing through several owners, where international galleries gather to showcase trending work and local museum's expanding collections. This was only my second year attending, but the changes made by Frieze, their newest owner and operator, were very welcome.

First, the show was just a bit smaller than last year - noticeably so, but without detracting from the experience. The layout was more focused into specific initiatives, with a natural back-and-forth winding path to more easily take in all the work present.

Second, they also included partnerships with some major players like the in-the-works Obama Presidential Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. The variety this year was really fantastic; so many different mediums and styles. I especially enjoyed a lot of the Korean works, but in this quick blog, I'll be sharing ten pieces that really caught my eye. These are listed in no particular order, and with the understanding that there we SO many honorary mentions that I had to just omit them altogether. Truly, this show was a real joy to attend this year, even as a person who isn't terribly fond of being in the city for a long time.

'Folds 5 (Gypsy Moth)', Watercolor and pastel painting by Nina Murdoch, 2023.

Nina Murdoch's 'Folds' series is one of the best representations of the simplification of her subject matter - she'd started her career painting portraits and figures, then landscape and near-abstract architectural works. Each of her newer works presents an open space, one that's hard to determine exactly where we are as a viewer, but still clearly a set of dreamlike planes. Seeing this painting in person was really breathtaking and very much like viewing a dream you've forgotten. The paint is layered in such a way that makes it impossible to lock on to one specific hue for too long. Whether staring at one section for an extended period of time, or letting your eye be guided across the entirety of the piece, it's a real smorgasbord of color.

'Lucid Dreams 2', Acrylic painting by Johannes Wessmark

The size of Wessmark's paintings certainly helped to push the sense of presence his work had at the expo. Each one was around 40 or 50 inches per side, all similarly realistic and highly saturated, all moving portraits with a hint of sea magic sprinkled in. That's just speaking for this series and his 'Black Gold' paintings, which were also on display at the Gefen Gallery booth. I admit, the color and expression on this piece is what drew me in. There's a few artists I've been studying lately for a paper I'm working on, each of whom combine loose swaths of seemingly abstract painting with extreme, concentrated detail, and 'Lucid Dreams 2' fit the bill like a dream, almost unintentionally. It's more the depth of field and how it's rendered in this piece that lends to the effect, but still!

'Life is Fear, Nothing Else', Acrylic, paper, bamboo, wood and dacron structure by Jacob Hashimoto, 2026.

It's no secret that I really love all kinds of art, but I always find it astonishing that there are types of work that I've never seen before, and there's new levels of impressive effort that some artists put into that work. Jacob Hashimoto, an artist I've only just come to learn more about through Expo Chicago, is one of those artists. Every single work of his is unimaginable dense in structure and pattern. This work, 'Life is Fear, Nothing Else' was present at Miles McEnery Gallery's booth, sort of tucked away behind a corner wall, and yet there was NO way attendees could miss it. There was a healthy mix of small and large works, but it wasn't just the mass of this sculpture that drew in viewers, it was the depth of it. The layers and layers of these small, decorated pieces of wood pulled you in like a whirlpool. It's a challenge to not stand still and peer into the inches of space, trying to navigate between the gaps to see to the back. (By the way, you can't see through it, no matter the angle you stand at.)

'The Space with Sunshine III', LED lightbox of sandblasted tempered glass by Hwang Seontae, 2021

Okay, so Hwang Seontae was also present at the 2025 Expo Chicago so repeating this as a favorite artist may seem like a bit of a cop out. I'm sorry, but I'm willing to accept it as a failing on my part for the sake of sharing this artist. These expertly designed 'paintings' feel minimalist and sparse, but so intensely like HOME. There's a sense of stillness in what feels like a living work. In 'The Space with Sunshine III', the warmth of the sun peering through the windows casts into an otherwise cool, grey slate of a room, where you can feel the sense of the morning. I feel like I'm sitting on that couch, working on my laptop, drinking my coffee. But I have no idea where that place is; it's not even how I'd decorate my house. This is the feeling that Hwang Seontae's work gives the viewer, regardless.

'The Western Mountain', Oil painting by Andrew Kuo, 2026

As I write this post, I realize more and more that this year, color played a huge role for what drew me into gallery booths. Andrew Kuo had several pieces, themed to specific seasons or locations, that used color almost exclusively to express the feeling of those themes. The lovely sunset palette in 'The Western Mountain' is only interrupted by the meticulously painted lettering on each canvas, which lends a nostalgic factor to the pair of paintings, similar to old mass market paperback book covers. I feel almost certain that I've held Steinbeck novels that felt just like these paintings, and despite being in a totally neutral, white-walled gallery space, I remember feeling almost as if I could smell a faint hint of printed paperbacks.

'The Truth in Black and White with some grey areas 6', digital print on archival paper by Phil Shaw, 2023.

Another attention-grabber this year was Phil Shaw, a British hyperrealist artist who creates jaw-dropping renditions of bookshelves, each with carefully chosen book titles that provide the message to the piece. It could be that the spines are arranged in a sequence of importance, or the titles themselves spell out a story if viewed with a discerning eye. The books are all hardcovers and the attention to detail paid helps to establish their rigidity on the fictional shelf, just as the contrast in cool and warm tones chosen for each title lends to their realism. Many people understandably crowded around Shaw's work to try and interpret the secrets hidden within.

'Tómbola', Layered oil painting by Antonio Santín, 2026.

Speaking of a staggering amount of detail....there's no contest of comparison to any other work present at Expo Chicago this year. Antonio Santín's 'Tómbola' is almost impossible to properly photograph to impress upon you the endless, volumetric layers of paint that create the illusion of massive rug paintings. It's only up close that you can see every single tiny strand of paint. Yes, strand. This painting is all built up with tiny, thread-like globs of oil paint, woven on top of the other strands until they create the piece you see. As with many of the works that were among my favorites this year, the painting is enormous, measuring at a whopping 86 by 78 inches. It's unimaginable, what kind of process this must have been to cover a canvas, let alone creating such a luscious image.

'A Letter from the Forest', hand polished & hammered stainless steel sculpture by Satoru Ozaki, 2025.

One of my favorite gallery booths was one called 'A Lighthouse Called Kanata'. Satoru Ozaki's metalwork sculpture was the centerpiece among many beautiful and unique works, but the story behind this delicately rendered piece of stainless steel is even more interesting, so I'll let their story speak for itself: "An ascetic recluse living in the foothills of Chiba who refused to hold exhibitions of his work for nearly 10 years before his representation by Yufuku Gallery in 2014, metal artist Satoru Ozaki (b. 1963 –) is considered one of the 'lost treasures' of Japan in light of his mind-bending techniques of hammering and polishing the immobile and adamantine material of stainless steel into beautiful, minimal forms of great depth and presence."

'El paisaje es el escenario de la vida', oil painting by Diego Beneitez, 2025.

Here is another painting that is difficult to describe, though I'll really try to because it was very special to experience in person. Some minute details are lost trying to share the image online, but the intersection between simplicity and tiny - but important - details. It's easy to be fooled into thinking this painting is actually a photograph from afar. The starkness of this work in person is what gives the viewer pause - the white and grey fog being cut into by a streak of black cliffs is an instant draw point for the eye, but upon closer inspection, one finds extremely fine details like little lights where a dock or town might be, or other boats floating out at sea. This painting is one that needs a vast open space to hang properly in, or else it would overwhelm a room. It's very light and extremely heavy all at the same time.

'Renewal', oil painting by Chris Rivers, 2026.

Last, but not least, a beautiful abstract by Chris Rivers. Between the blooms of pink and blue and golden streaks, Rivers places specific objects of interest - in this case, rose heads. It's a very heavenly painting, and some of the other works that accompanied this one had what appeared like 'objects of power' such as crystal balls. You feel as if you're floating in the ether, wherever that might be, experiencing a hallucination, or a dream. There were many pieces of art at Expo Chicago this year leaning into dreamscapes, perhaps as a sign of the times. That fact, much like 'Renewal', provided a resting point from walking between packed aisles and bustling gallery booths. Allowing myself to pause and be absorbed, that was the highlight of many parts of this year's show.

There were thousands of paintings, sculptures, fiberworks and so many more things to see at Expo Chicago, so this is the tiniest bite-sized snack of what the full experience really was. I'm hoping to make Expo Chicago a regular event for myself each year and to share it again in the future, but if you're interested in seeing a large chunk of the other work that was present at the show, check out their website.