Whitney LaMora

The Martin was my first entrepreneurial endeavor, originally opened in June of 2018 as an events space in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. Closed during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, I reopened The Martin in July of 2021 in West Town as a full time gallery and event space. I hung and hosted dozens of exhibitions, highlighting hundreds of artists in the five year span that The Martin existed across two storefronts and a virtual stint during quarantine. These are some selected exhibitions from 2500 W Chicago Ave.

You can see exhibition history from 2021-2023 HERE.

I began curating at Split-Rail, a neighborhood restaurant that my gallery The Martin was attached to, in 2021. What started as one curatorial effort of two complimentary large scale artworks flanking the dining room’s main archway soon expanded into three areas across the restaurant - highlighting artists in a regularly rotating design. We crafted cocktails and dishes inspired by the artwork and held soft openings for the artists to gather with their community around their public artwork.

The Robin is a vintage jewelry display turned mini-gallery. Originally purchased as a decorative mirror for the bathroom in The Martin, I quickly reimagined and converted it into a gallery space for small exhibitions. Originally a monthly rotating gallery, I pivoted to quarterly takeovers in its final year, specifically highlighting artists who would change and shift the artwork over the three month takeover period. The Robin now lives in Dorothy and will once again be a gallery space starting in spring 2024.

You can see the exhibition history for The Robin HERE.

I was invited to be the juror for Woman Made Gallery in April of 2021 coming out of the COVID-19 quarantine period. My theme was “Boundaries” and I selected works by 23 artists for the exhibition. Alongside the works in the gallery I developed an interactive experience called “The Boundaries Broadcast” where I invited people to leave anonymous voicemails on Google Voice practicing a boundary they wanted to set.

You can see the exhibition in full HERE.

During the COVID-19 lockdown period, I was selected to be a part of a virtual residency for the Tennessee-based Stay Home Gallery. After six weeks with our cohort, we were invited to curate a virtual exhibition that was represented by the gallery for a set period of time. My nine-work exhibition was titled “OUROBOROS: or, Life, Death & Rebirth” and played with the cyclical shape of a nine-grid social media layout depicting an interpretation of the life cycle while also nodding to the Ouroboros aka the snake eating its own tail.

You can see the exhibition in full HERE.