The Nervous Circus

Opening Reception April 5, 2025 | 5-7 pm

On Display April 5 - May 3, 2025

May 3 | Chicago Collage Collective Meetup@ Open Studio Project | 3-5 pm

Frederick Nitsch (b. 1984) is a collage artist and abstract painter. "The Nervous Circus" is his first solo show since 2020, and will feature painted and mixed media work made in the past year. Frederick is an artist with Project Onward studio in Bridgeport. Through the accumulation of layers, Nitsch builds complex tones and ethereal textures. They’re bounded in sharp-edged shapes, the whole ensemble often varnished for a brilliant sheen. Many works also incorporate fragments that the artist has cut from vintage magazines and recontextualized. Nitsch is drawn to black and white photos of faded grandeur and staccato snatches of text, the phrases often deployed as provocative riddles. Nitsch describes his work as a kind of process art: “It’s like I’m doing an exquisite corpse with myself.” A defector from the world of academic philosophy, Nitsch originally made art to escape thinking, but now believes he can use art to do thinking. Nitsch currently lives in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood with his cats Wendy and Wally. He was a founding member of Chicago’s cooperatively run Agitator Gallery.