What’s the adage, friends are the family you choose?
Hana Bleue Chausette proves that that idea can be extended to places, too.
She wasn’t born in Chicago (neither was I), but she’s adopted it as her home with a fierce passion.
A visual artist, Hana teamed with Chicago’s DCASE and the JCDecaux company to paper the town with art. Her collection of five multimedia portraits now oversee bus stations around the city. Each is a member of Chicago’s uptown neighborhood. Each installation contains a painted portrait, excerpts from a conversation, and an invitation to delve deeper online.
Hana kindly led me on a walking tour of the pentaptych (yes, I had to look that word up) of Uptown installations. Timed for distance, walking the route could have probably taken 12 minutes at a comfortable canter. But though our conversation spanned just a few city blocks, it stretched nearly 90 minutes.
To my eye, each painting revealed layers of intelligence, humility, and wisdom within its subject. But the images also capture glances of the keen observer who created them.
Enjoy my conversation and tour with Hana Bleue Chausette: