Explore West Town on the first Friday of every month, when our neighborhood galleries and arts- based businesses stay open until 8PM.
September 4th, 2026 from 6pm-8pm
September Featured Galleries
West Town Chamber of Commerce
1819 W Chicago Ave
Masquerade Menagerie
Artwork by Jared and Jessica Joslin
Opening: Friday September 4th, 6pm-8pm
Jared and Jessica Joslin are artists who have shared their lives, and a studio space in the Ukrainian Village, for the past 30 years.
They create complementary yet distinct bodies of work; Jared in painting, and Jessica in sculpture. Their work is animated by a fascination with the glamour, mystery, and theatricality of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially circuses, carnivals, and cabaret culture. This exhibit, Masquerade Menagerie, celebrates that tradition, and the spirit of mystery and magic that it represents.
Jared Joslin is a painter whose rich oil canvases feel like windows into dreams of a past life. His subjects are rendered meticulously, radiating an evocative mix of melancholic isolation and allure. Influenced by the 1920s and 1930s Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement, his portraits feature carnies, circus animals, and other enigmatic characters and tableaux.
www.instagram.com/jared_joslin
Jessica Joslin is a mixed media sculptor, who creates elegant creatures of vivid character and intricate anatomy. An unexpected union of antique metalwork and animal skulls, rich with ornamentation, and imbued with the illusion of sentience.
www.instagram.com/jessica_joslin
ARC Gallery
1463 West Chicago Ave
ARC Gallery is pleased to present three solo exhibitions by the Athena Fund awardees Alexa Wheeler, Anat Wegier, and Xinchen Li. Exhibitions: Alexa Wheeler: kept + carried "kept + carried" examines how care is inherited, performed, and remembered through the ordinary objects and rituals of domestic life. Drawing from family photographs, German folk traditions, household vessels, and stories gathered through community participation, the work considers the labor historically assigned to women: preserving, nourishing, mending, witnessing, and carrying memory forward.
Anat Wegier: THE ROOMS THAT MADE ME There are rooms we leave, and rooms that never quite leave us. The Rooms That Made Me enters a feminine world of dollhouses, sewing tables, bedrooms, fabric, painted faces, seams, and small rituals of making and care. It is a world that can feel intimate, delicate, almost enchanted — shaped by objects and gestures that have accompanied women and girls across generations.
Xinchen Li: The Shape of What Was The Shape of What Was transforms the gallery into a domestic interior made from life size furniture and household objects built with 3D printing pens and black Polylactic Acid (PLA) filament. Based on objects from places I have lived and left behind, the exhibition explores domestic objects as memory holders and reflects on migration, belonging, and the impermanence of home. For me, the act of remaking is empowering. It allows lost or distant objects to gain a new form and presence. Although the work begins from my personal experience, it invites viewers to reflect on what they have held onto, what they have left behind, and how they define home.
Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1998985432239?aff=oddtdtcreator
Chicago Artists Coalition
1431 W Hubbard St, Ste 201
On View: September 4 – October 15 Opening Reception: Friday, September 4 from 5-8pm at Chicago Artists Coalition
https://www.chicagoartistscoalition.org/exhibitions/all-is-fish-that-comes-to-the-net/
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The WTFF program facilitates connection amongst West Town's galleries and arts-based businesses and their represented artists, collectors, and patrons, as well as independent area artists.
The West Town Chamber of Commerce launched the First Fridays program in October 2022 at the request of and with support from a contingency of its Member galleries.
The goal of WTFF is to ensure the continued success of West Town area galleries, both emergent and established, as cornerstones of the West Town neighborhood—a nexus of organic growth and sustainable development in the arts and beyond.
The program intends to amplify Member galleries' own programming efforts by creating a monthly guide to exhibitions and events and supplementary programming for patrons to utilize when visiting the neighborhood on the first Friday of each month.
Is your business interested in participating? Here are the guidelines:
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Be located within (and be a Member of) the West Town Chamber of Commerce's service area: Division Street to Hubbard; Halsted Street to Kedzie Avenue. Not a Member yet? Apply today!
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Be showcasing art in some form. This includes traditional galleries, as well as retail, food & beverage, or service businesses that are exhibiting art.
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Be open from 6-8 p.m. the First Friday of each month. Extended hours of programming before or beyond that window are fine, but 6-8 p.m. is the minimum requirement.
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Provide your programming details in advance of the first Friday of the month via this google form.
Interested in presenting an exhibition or event in our office gallery?
In addition to organizing the monthly initiative, the Chamber has also transformed its office space into a rotating gallery where arts-based Members that lack a traditional gallery space are invited to utilize the space for their own exhibitions and related programming.
Interested Members can fill out this Member Expression of Interest form. Not a Member yet? It's easy to apply!