John Preus

John Preus (b.1971) (MFA-University of Chicago, BA-Gustavus Adolphus College) is a Chicago-based trans-disciplinary artist, designer and furniture-maker. Preus founded Dilettante Studios in 2010, co-founded SHoP with Laura Shaeffer (2011), and Material Exchange with Sara Black (2005), and was the creative director of the Rebuild Foundation shop until 2012, and project lead for Theaster Gates' 12 Ballads for Huguenot House, at Documenta 13.  Preus is currently a Kaplan resident at Northwestern University and visiting lecturer. He was the 2013-2014 Jackman-Goldwasser resident at the Hyde Park Art Center, a 2016 and 2014 DCASE individual artist grant recipient, a 2015 Propeller Fund recipient, a 2014 Efroymson Fellow in sculpture and installation, 2014's first place winner of the Maker grant and a 2013 finalist, a finalist for the 2015 Artadia Award and the 2014 Creative Capital grant. He also received the Propeller Fund award as a founder of SHoP. Solo exhibitions include John Preus: New Works, at the Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco, The Relative Appetite of Hungry Ghosts at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, John Preus: On Drawing at the Heilbronn Kunstverein in Germany, The Beast at The Hyde Park Art Center, Slow Sound at The Audible Gallery at the Experimental Sound Studio.  He has also had solo exhibitions as a founding member of the art collaboration Material Exchange with Sara Black at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Threewalls Chicago, The Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, OR, and The Iceberg Gallery in Portland, OR.  Group exhibitions include, Miami/Basel represented by Rhona Hoffman, EXPO Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The Elmhurst Biennial, the Hyde Park Art Center, The Huguenot House in Kassel, Germany, The Devos Art Museum in Michigan.