America Grows
Artists
Krehbiel Gallery
Alysa Kirkpatrick (LEGO Artist)
Alysa Kirkpatrick is a Skokie-based LEGO artist who creates immersive art installations that transform an everyday toy into a medium for fine art and storytelling. They build detailed sculptures, mosaics, and life-scale works that blur the line between traditional art and playful construction.
Classically trained in architectural design, they approach their work through structure, balance, and spatial awareness. Their pieces explore texture, color, and form, ranging from hyper-realistic replicas to more open, wireframe-inspired builds.
They are especially drawn to nature, translating its curves and complexity into LEGO. They are also inspired by the material itself; its recyclability allows each piece to be taken apart and reimagined, so every work can evolve into the next.
Through their work, they invite audiences of all ages to engage with art in a hands-on, imaginative, and playful way.
Ishita Gupta (Origami Artist)
Ishita Gupta is an origami artist and paper stylist who highlights the everyday beauty of paper through practical, shareable folds like bags, boxes, and seasonal motifs. A lifelong enthusiast, she has led workshops and created installations across Chicago, inspiring children and adults to find creativity, calm, and connection through folding.
In this piece, a solitary fuchsia origami bloom emerges from windswept, concentric earth-toned folds, evoking the arid and dusty Amache landscape. Branching stems and persistent leaves signal quiet survival, while the single flower embodies rare defiance and hope. The contrast between rigid terrain and soft petals reflects resilience—life asserting itself gently, yet powerfully, against constraint and scarcity.
Daniel Olvera (LEGO Artist)
Daniel Olvera, also known as Danielbrickson, is a Chicago-based professional LEGO artist specializing in the design and construction of complex, custom-built models. With a background rooted in architectural precision and advanced design techniques, their work focuses on translating intricate biological and technical subjects into the medium of plastic bricks. From professional commissions to educational exhibits, Danielbrickson uses a meticulous custom process to create high-fidelity, one-of-a-kind installations that explore the intersection of structural engineering and organic form.
Camille "Katahtu'ntha" Billie (Storyteller and Artist)
Camille "Katahtu'ntha" Billie is a Black Indigenous artist enrolled in the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. She is an alumna of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a bachelor's degree in fine arts with an emphasis in designed objects. Based in Chicago, Camille works at the Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum, allowing her to learn more about the functions of a growing museum while she works as a visitor services specialist. Billie's preferred mediums focus on illustration, linoleum block printing, and stitchwork. Her special interests grow around themes of critical ecology in addition to stories and philosophies relevant to her culture and upbringing in Oneida, Wisconsin.
Rocco Buttliere (Visual Artist)
Rocco Buttliere is an internationally recognized artist with a passion for and a degree in architecture. A lifelong brick builder, he began his current body of work of 1:650 scale models, titled Landmark | Landscape, in 2009. Since then, he has created dozens of original, brick-built works depicting a multitude of world landmarks and geographically and historically accurate landscapes. Through his work, he strives to push the boundaries of parts usage with a particular emphasis on detail, accuracy, and realism, as well as to further the recognition of works representing collective world heritage.
Since finishing his studies at Illinois Institute of Technology in 2017, Rocco has successfully adapted his artistic pursuits into a working business model, in lieu of a traditional architecture career. From his location in Chicago, he manages a full-time, one-man small business: creating live exhibitions, free and subscription-based social media content, creating and selling one-of-a-kind merchandise, as well as fulfilling the occasional commission request.
Rocco’s work has been featured at venues around the world and has appeared in many publications, news stories, and interviews.
Lucy Knisley (Comic Artist and Author)
Lucy Knisley (she/her) is a best-selling comic artist and author with more than a dozen titles ranging in readership from infant to adult. She specializes in books about food, found family, and felines.
She lives in Evanston, Illinois, where she enjoys playing with her partner and kiddo, eating yummy food, riding bikes, reading, and going to bed early. She’s a fan of tea, puzzles, cats, books, as well as tattoos, reproductive justice, and local community building. Her last name is confusing and has a silent K. It's pronunciation is close to "nigh-slee.”
Raychel Steinbach (Printmaker)
Raychel Steinbach is a Chicago-based letterpress printer and the creative force behind Current Location Press. Raychel creates fine art prints inspired by native flora, fauna, and landscapes of the Midwest. Much of her work showcases the natural beauty that can be found in city and state parks. Raychel’s prints use hand-carved blocks to give an organic definition to her subject, as well as abstract color fields set with wood and metal type that add cohesiveness and depth. By embracing traditional methods of letterpress printing’s movable—and inherently reusable—type, her production method is kept as sustainable as possible to help preserve the beauty of the natural world through conscious creation.
Raychel received her B.F.A. in printmaking, papermaking, and book arts from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design in 2009 and apprenticed at Starshaped Press and Spudnik Press in Chicago. She has been awarded artist residencies through Love Road Residency (Chicago), ComPeung (DoiSaket, Thailand), and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. She was also a teaching artist at Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago) and Silverwood Park (St. Anthony, Minnesota). Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Pyramid Atlantic (Maryland), Brushwood Center (Illinois); and Haley Gallery at the Country Music Hall of Fame (Tennessee), Minneapolis College of Art & Design (Minnesota), and the Burren College of Art Gallery (Ireland), among others.
Regin Igloria (Multidisciplinary Artist and Educator)
Born 1974 in Manila, Philippines, Regin Igloria lives and works in the Chicago area. A multidisciplinary artist and educator based in the Chicago area, his drawings, artists’ books, sculptures, and performances portray the human condition as it relates to the natural environment and inhabited spaces. In 2010, he founded North
Branch Projects, an organization that builds connections through the book arts, which allows him to work with various communities to create crossover between disparate populations. Igloria has taught at places such as The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Rhode Island School of Design, Marwen, Snow City Arts, and Carthage College. He received a 3Arts Next Level Artist Award as well as local, national, and international grants, support through artist residencies such as Camargo Foundation and Ucross, and has exhibited internationally. He received his M.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design.
Rachel Nador (3D Graphics Artist)
Rachel Nador is an Evanston-based 3D graphics artist who also loves needle felting. She loves the different textures one can create and the sculptural potential of the wool. Rachel occasionally runs Chicago-area felting workshops and is @micromakery on Instagram.