Installation shot, Rachel Niffenegger & Paul Nudd, Western Exhibitions, Chicago

The pairing of emerging Chicago artists Rachel Niffenegger and Paul Nudd is a pretty incredible one. Each works in a kind of creepy corporeal vernacular here — Niffenegger in discolored sculptural malformations and Nudd in diseased beings — casting grotesque forms of the body in diverse media. Their respective work is both repulsive and deeply engaging, disgusting and overwhelmingly gorgeous simultaneously, making for a natural pair working in unnatural forms.

Their two-person show for Western Exhibitions doesn't mark the first time the two have been exhibited together. Both Niffenegger and Nudd (who has been featured in editions #71 and #83 of New American Paintings) were each recently featured in Seeing Is a Kind of Thinking: A Jim Nutt Companion at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (MCA), curated by forthcoming Midwestern Competition juror, Julie Rodrigues Widholm.

Skulls, boils, ooze, hair, and all manner of painterly body fluids (and tons of pics) after the jump!

Rachel Niffenegger. TOP: Skull Between Stain and Shroud, 
2011
, Watercolor, acrylic, plaster, concrete, hand-dyed fabric, polystyrene, spraypaint and thread, 120 x 37 x 11 inches. BOTTOM: Propped Planter Bust, 
2011
, Watercolor, acrylic, fabric, plaster, string, polystyrene, tape and paper, 
36 x 21 x 10 inches. Images courtesy Western Exhibitions, Chicago.

Installation shots, Rachel Niffenegger & Paul Nudd, Western Exhibitions, Chicago.

(detail) Paul Nudd, Mud Mulch Moss Muck (A Marsh Monster's Mess)
, 2011
 | Ink, watercolor, colored pencil, gouache, acrylic, pencil on paper
, 89 x 42 inches. Courtesy Western Exhibitions, Chicago.

Rachel Niffenegger, Shroud (Striated Spill)
, 2011
 | Watercolor, acrylic, plaster, spraypaint on fabric on paper
, 48 x 30 inches. Courtesy Western Exhibitions, Chicago.

Rachel Niffenegger & Paul Nudd will be on view at Western Exhibitions, Chicago through July 2.
Nudd will be featured in #95, the forthcoming Midwest edition of New American Paintings, juried by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, on newsstands August 9.