Statement and Bio

My curiosity about science, religion, mathematics, and language--elements, both physical and metaphorical--is a response to the bewildering maze of my formal education and the subsequent rearranging of that information.

Through art-making, the puzzlement of that early educational process has turned itself inside out. The “structure of instruction” has become an open framework within which to build, using familiar, accessible materials and methods--wood, paper, string, found objects; hammering, gluing, sawing, sewing. I’m constructing a “conceptual folk art.” The structure is now at the periphery of the idea. 

I received an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.A. from the late Barat College of DePaul University. Over the last forty years, my work has been shown both regionally and nationally, at the Art Institute of Chicago; the National Museum of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Portland Art Museum; the Pratt Graphic Center, New York; the Viridian Gallery, New York; the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago; the Kohler Art Center, Wisconsin; the Chicago Botanic Garden; the Evanston Art Center. I have had shows at The Art Center, Highland Park, IL, the Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago, the Beverly Art Center, Chicago, The Oak Park Arms, Oak Park IL., an installation - "Round-the-Blockness" in the Pedway of the City Hall of Chicago. My work has appeared on the cover of Columbia College's South Loop Review and The River Oak Review. I am included in a book on living Chicago artists.

My work is in the Collection of the Chicago Public Libraries; the Art Institute of Chicago Print Department; the Pratt Graphic Center, New York; Third Unitarian Church, Chicago; as well as numerous private collections.

When I wasn't working on my art, I helped run Pieritz Bros. Office Supplies, my family's 125-year-old, iconic, corner stationery store in Oak Park, IL. That all came to an end in June of 2020.

Contact: pieritz@mac.com