What Is Miller & Shellabarger’s Always Now at Western Exhibitions?

Short answer

Miller & Shellabarger: Always Now opens at Western Exhibitions, 1709 West Chicago Avenue, with a reception on Friday, November 6, from 5 to 8 PM, and runs through December 19, 2026. For their sixth show with the gallery, the married artist collaborators present artists’ books, screenprints, photographs, three non-theatrical performances and, for the first time, paintings.

Key facts

• Who: Miller & Shellabarger, the Chicago artist duo whose shared practice meditates on love and death through self-portraiture and laborious craft processes.
• What: Always Now — new unique artist books, screenprints, photographs, three non-theatrical performances and the duo’s first-ever paintings.
• Where: Western Exhibitions, 1709 W. Chicago Avenue, 2nd floor, Chicago, IL 60622.
• When: November 6 – December 19, 2026; opening reception Friday, November 6, 5–8 PM.
• Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11 AM to 6 PM. Admission is free.

What will you see?

New unique artist books and paintings on paper built from silhouette images of the two artists, recycled from earlier bodies of work as stencils, stamps and resists. Layered over each other, the silhouettes produce Rorschach-like mirror images of entwined and entangled bodies. The silhouette has long been central to their Loving Repeating series of artist books, the most recent of which is included here.

The show also marks a first: after two decades of works on paper, textiles and performance, Miller & Shellabarger are showing paintings. Three non-theatrical performances accompany the objects, continuing a practice in which the artists’ own bodies are both the material and the subject.

Who are Miller & Shellabarger?

The married collaborators adapt traditional American craft techniques, including silhouette cutting, sewing, crocheting and bookmaking, into a contemporary art practice about connection, partnership, interdependency and loss. Their own summary of the silhouette comes from the mechanics of the craft: a silhouette is made by tracing a shadow, a shadow is a reminder that a body is present, and a silhouette is a reminder that a body is gone. The Loving Repeating title borrows from Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans, where history is made by the repetition of the everyday across generations, and love is tied to loving the way another person repeats.

Why now?

Six shows into their relationship with Western Exhibitions, the duo is stretching its vocabulary: the first paintings arrive alongside the books, prints and performances that built their reputation. It is a compact way to watch what a commercial contemporary art gallery does over time, letting an artist’s practice change shape in public. Reading their doubling silhouettes as a meditation on presence and absence is close to what our glossary calls cultural mediation of the most personal kind.

How do you visit?

Western Exhibitions is at 1709 West Chicago Avenue, 2nd floor, in West Town, open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 AM to 6 PM, with free entry. The opening reception on Friday, November 6, from 5 to 8 PM is the liveliest moment; the show runs through December 19.

FAQ

When does Miller & Shellabarger: Always Now open?

Friday, November 6, 2026, with a reception from 5 to 8 PM; it runs through December 19.

Does it cost anything?

No. Entry to Western Exhibitions is free.

What are the hours?

Tuesday through Saturday, 11 AM to 6 PM.

What is the Loving Repeating series?

The duo’s ongoing series of artist books built from silhouettes of each other, titled after a passage in Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans about love and repetition. The most recent book in the series is in this show.

About Antre

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Sources

• Chicago Gallery News, event page for Miller & Shellabarger: Always Now: dates, reception, address, hours and the show’s contents.
• Western Exhibitions, exhibition announcement: the artists’ statement on silhouettes and the first paintings.

More context: our guides to Charles White Across Media at the Logan Center, opening the same day and Beatriz González: In Series and Full Color at the Art Institute of Chicago.