The abstract art scene in Chicago, particularly along the elegant yet understated Oak Street Corridor, has long fused Midwestern grit with intellectual ambition.

In contrast to the often-theatrical dominance of New York’s Abstract Expressionism, Chicago’s take on abstraction grew from the ground up—visceral, rebellious, and fiercely personal.

This city’s artists carved out a movement steeped in psychological depth, political tension, and unflinching experimentation, creating a distinct language of abstraction that pulses with narrative urgency.

From the mid-20th century onward, Chicago’s abstract identity has been defined by a few signature traits: bold, saturated color and daring textures; a dynamic interplay of organic curves and architectural geometry; and themes rooted in both the personal and political. There’s an unmistakable urban materiality to much of this work, echoing the steel, smoke, and rhythm of the city itself.

Abstract art in Chicago is rarely sterile or aloof—it’s alive, layered, and often carries the emotional and visual weight of the streets it was born from.

Though better known for designer storefronts and luxury living, the Oak Street Corridor has quietly nurtured Chicago’s modern art evolution for decades. Stretching through Oak Street Beach, the Gold Coast, and into Streeterville, this area became a hidden artery of creative exchange in the 1950s through the 1970s.

Private galleries, collectors’ salons, and boutique spaces flourished here—places where art wasn’t just displayed, but lived with, commissioned, and collected with intention.

Even today, the corridor continues to house works of contemporary abstraction in the curated interiors of high-rises, boutique hotels, and sophisticated residences.

Several key institutions helped bridge the gap between Chicago’s abstract artists and Oak Street’s discerning collectors.

The Richard Gray Gallery, founded in 1963, became a nationally respected platform for postwar American abstraction. With roots in the Gold Coast, it often hosted intimate viewings for collectors just steps from Oak Street. Meanwhile, the now-closed Perimeter 

Oak Street’s Quiet Power in Abstract Art

While not as overtly public as the River North galleries or the West Loop, Oak Street has long served as a quiet corridor of taste-making, where abstract art finds intimate, curated homes.  Even now, works by emerging and mid-career abstract artists are collected in the area, especially those working in encaustic, impasto, or geometric abstraction, echoing Chicago’s industrial textures and light.

The Distelheim Gallery™ is being reimagined and relaunched by the youngest daughter of its original founder—bringing a rich family legacy into the digital age. What began in the early 1960s as a passion project by renowned Chicago dermatologist Dr. Irving Distelheim is now being thoughtfully reawakened, blending old-world charm with contemporary curation.

Tired of golf on his days off, Dr. Distelheim found himself wandering through the art galleries near Chicago’s storied Oak Street. By 1970, his curiosity had grown into community—he’d befriended several local gallery owners, one of whom urged him to open a gallery of his own. He did—and from that point on, Distelheim Galleries became a sanctuary for storytelling through art.

From paintings and sculptures to photography and installations, each piece offered a lens into the human condition, capturing emotions, cultures, and the inner worlds of its creators. Then, as now, art was never just decorative—it was a journey. A way of seeing.

Today, that vision continues. The Distelheim Gallery now features exclusive proprietary collections, curated and created under the guiding principle that: “Each Work Is a Journey.” This mantra invites patrons to explore the intersections of history, geography, identity, and emotion—guided by the hands and hearts of the artists we showcase.

THE ORANGE & BLACK COLLECTION™

“Tangerine Whorl” is an abstract expressionist piece that features a bold, black circular shape on a textured tangerine orange background. The black shape is not a perfect circle but more of an organic loop, giving the impression of motion, as if it were a brushstroke captured mid-swirl. Click Here To Access The Collection

THE ORANGE & BLACK COLLECTION™

“Patina Over Orange” is an intriguing table top or bookshelf-sized limited edition artwork forming part of The Orange & Black Collection. It presents a vibrant composition of black dots overlaying a textured, orange-hued backdrop that suggests a weathered yet energetic patina effect. Click Here To Access The Collection

“Orange Eclipse,” each available in various formats, from large-scale artworks to personal note card sets. The collection aims to evoke a wide range of emotions and themes, encompassing power, beauty, and romance. Click here to learn more.

This artwork from The Distelheim Gallery’s Orange and Black Collection features a bold, textured diptych-like composition. The piece is divided vertically: the left side a sun-baked ochre yellow, the right a vibrant burnt orange. Both sections are heavily impastoed—thick with ridges and ridged textures—evoking an earthy, visceral quality. The background is a soft, icy blue-gray that frames the vibrant colors and enhances their intensity through contrast.

The emotional tone is both warm and contemplative—a dialogue between light and heat, memory and energy. This work is titled:“Thresholds of Fire and Field”—a name that nods to both its color palette and the symbolic interplay between nature, transformation, and internal space.

Setting Description: The setting is a modern, cozy, and minimalistic living space with a warm ochre-yellow wall that harmonizes beautifully with the painting’s palette. A light wood side table holds stacked books and a slender vase with yellow blooms, subtly echoing the hues in the artwork. The mid-century modern armchair in a matching yellow upholstery anchors the room, accented with a black-and-white checkered pillow and a soft beige throw. A floor lamp with a wooden tripod base and white shade stands next to it, adding vertical balance.

Overhead, a black wire-frame pendant light adds a sculptural element, and a small wooden book holder on the floor softens the composition further with practical charm.

The combination of orange and black in art has been used by artists since the early 19th century to evoke intense contrasts, symbolism, and emotional resonance. This pairing is powerful for several reasons, and its value extends beyond mere aesthetics..

Symbolic and Psychological Significance

• Orange: Represents energy, enthusiasm, warmth, and change. It can also symbolize fire, creativity, and emotional intensity. In Western art, it evokes autumn and harvest, signaling transition and decay.

• Black: Suggests power, mystery, fear, and elegance. It often serves as a symbol of the unknown, death, or solemnity.
  Together, these two colors create a striking visual tension, evoking both excitement and darkness.

Historical Use in Art and Design (1800s – Present)

During the 19th century, Romanticism and the Symbolist movement began exploring emotional extremes. Artists experimented with these contrasting colors to heighten the emotional weight of their work. Some examples include:

• J.M.W. Turner: His paintings of atmospheric landscapes and fires, like The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, make heavy use of glowing oranges surrounded by dark shadows, capturing movement and intensity.

• Japanese Ukiyo-e Prints: 19th-century Japanese artists such as Katsushika Hokusai employed bold contrasts with black outlines and bright colors like orange, influencing Western artists and contributing to the development of movements like Art Nouveau and Impressionism.

The Blue Room Collection™ is a curated journey through emotional intensity, psychic landscapes, and the quiet force of reflection—all expressed through the evocative power of blue. Anchored by Jefferey Cornett’s striking and immersive portraiture, this collection invites viewers into an intimate dialogue with color, memory, and meaning.

Blue here is more than pigment—it is presence. It haunts and heals, veils and reveals. In Cornett’s centerpiece work, the viewer is met by an electric gaze—eyes alive with wisdom, sorrow, and unspoken truths. Saturated in indigo, sapphire, and icy ultramarine, his piece serves as a mirror to the interior life. The eyes do not merely observe—they implore. Through texture and layered technique, Cornett

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Emotional Impact of Blue

Blue in this piece is not just a color—it’s a mood, a temperature, and perhaps even a truth. The saturation and layering suggest a deep introspection, melancholy, and an otherworldly watchfulness. Cornett uses blue as a psychological space—cold, contemplative, and alive with inner turmoil.

Eyes as Portals: The eyes, rendered in electric blue and laced with light, pull the viewer in like magnets. They are wide open, glassy, and seem to hold histories. Blue becomes the vehicle for memory, sorrow, or even revelation.

Texture & Technique: The brushstrokes and pixelation give the impression of digital decay or distortion, as if we are peering through layers of memory or emotion encoded in this cool palette. Blue, here, is also the color of distortion—a signal breaking up.

Title: “Threshold of Silence”

Artist: Jefferey Cornett
Collection: The Blue Room Collection
Represented by: The Distelheim Gallery

This quietly powerful piece by Jefferey Cornett, part of The Blue Room Collection at The Distelheim Gallery, is a minimalist meditation on presence, breath, and vulnerability. Composed of a partial view of a human face—primarily the lips and nose—the piece isolates a moment suspended between inhalation and introspection.

The artwork’s surface is veiled in a foggy, diffused blue, overlaid with a lattice of delicate, almost nervous linear etchings. These scratches and strokes evoke both skin and atmosphere, giving the viewer the sensation of peering through layers of quiet tension. The lips are stitched in darker ink, dense with emotional gravity, yet the soft fade of the surrounding blue suggests a state of withdrawal, dreaming, or reverence.

Cornett’s signature is his ability to turn fragments of the human form into portals of feeling. In Threshold of Silence, the viewer is invited to witness the intimacy of a nearly invisible exhale—the quiet between words, the breath before confession, the hush of a remembered name. The color blue, here, is not sadness, but stillness. It does not mourn; it listens.

Yes, he really was a clown on TV. And yes—now he makes art.

Jefferey Cornett is a multimedia artist, author, and seasoned creative leader whose life has unfolded in bold, unexpected chapters. One of his early creative experiences included being in front of the camera as a family game show host for Hearst Broadcasting’s Harmony in a World of Difference initiative—an award-winning campaign promoting inclusion, education, and community connection through the local Emmy Award Winning  “JellyBeans” as the big kid, Zap, a colorful, energetic character that was loved by many.

As former Chief Creative Officer and nationally recognized PR executive, Cornett led campaigns and built brand narratives and experiential marketing for Fortune 500 companies, major entertainment ventures, and cause-based initiatives. He developed strategic messaging and experiential campaigns for national retailers, motorsports organizations, MLB players, and entertainment brands—translating complex stories into emotional, high-impact moments that moved markets and minds. His creative fingerprints are found everywhere from high-profile launch events to quietly transformative advocacy campaigns.

Prior to his agency experience before stepping fully into the visual art world, Cornett spent formative years working in the music industry in New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville, collaborating with producers, songwriters, and legends behind the scenes. These experiences infuse his current work with a deep sense of rhythm, cultural critique, and visual storytelling.

This fall, Cornett releases Yes, I Used to Be a Clown on TV, Now I Make Art, a witty and heartfelt memoir that charts his evolution from entertainer to artist—and the long road between.

He is also the founder and author of FC: Because There Is No Plan B™, a raw, urgent multimedia project born from his stage IV cancer diagnosis. Blending memoir, advocacy, and design, the platform tells not just his own story, but those of countless others facing life-altering diagnoses with courage and creativity.

Cornett’s work is represented by The Distelheim Gallery, where his collections—The Orange and Black Collection and The American Spirit Series—are known for their emotional resonance, cultural layers, and striking aesthetic. Through collage, color, and prose, he transforms the overlooked into the unforgettable.