CHICAGO, IL.- In May, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago presents the first solo museum exhibition of Molly Zuckerman-Hartung in the third of the BMO Harris Bank Chicago Works series. One of Chicago’s most promising emerging artists, Zuckerman-Hartung’s new paintings incorporate collage, found objects, and sculptural elements in unexpected ways that push the work beyond traditional ideas of painting. Her meticulously crafted paintings involve cutting, weaving, layering, and scraping, and work together with her deeply personal manifesto to create a visual record documenting the artist’s intellectual, technical, and formal decision-making process. This exhibition opens on Tuesday, May 1, and runs through July 24, 2012, and is curated by MCA Pamela Alper Associate Curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm.

Zuckerman-Hartung works and re-works her canvases, sometimes over years, to create intimately scaled paintings that embody a state of being, each one with its own mood and personality. While some of the paintings simultaneously seduce and repel, others suggest desires of the mind and body, or refer to distinct personalities such as Hedda Gabler, titled after one of the first fully developed neurotic female protagonists in literature. For this exhibition, Zuckerman-Hartung also presents 95 Theses on Painting, a manifesto modeled after Martin Luther’s 1517 protest against indulgences in the Roman Catholic church.

Molly Zuckerman-Hartung is an instructor of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and co-founder of Julius Caesar Gallery, an artist-run exhibition space in Chicago. Born in Olympia, Washington, the artist received her BA in 1998 from Evergreen State College in Olympia, and her MFA in 2007 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

BMO Harris Bank Chicago Works is a series dedicated to artists of all generations, and at various points in their careers, living and working in Chicago. The exhibition series, which launched in November 2011, presents new work by four artists each year.