Chicago’s South Side is more than a collection of streets, buildings and neighborhoods to artist Andrei Rabodzeenko. It is home, a place shaped by working people, everyday routines and the passage of time.
Those surroundings are the focus of “Chicago South-Side World,” a solo exhibition of 28 oil paintings that opened Oct. 17 at the Beverly Arts Center, offering viewers a closer look at a part of the city that rarely takes center stage in the fine art world.
“I live on the Chicago South Side. It is my home, and these paintings come from the world immediately around me,” said Rabodzeenko, who lives in Evergreen Park.
The exhibition represents nearly a decade of work. Rabodzeenko began the project in 2017, painting scenes that caught his attention throughout the South Side and surrounding communities, including Blue Island, Robbins, forest preserves and parks.
Rather than concentrating on specific neighborhoods, he follows the places that inspire him. His paintings feature familiar elements of the landscape, including cars, street signs, homes, trees and aging or abandoned buildings.
Together, the works portray a Chicago that differs from the familiar postcard images of the city. Rabodzeenko instead turns his attention to the everyday environments where residential and industrial life intersect and working people build their lives.
“This is not the Chicago of postcards or celebrated views,” he said. “It is a place where residential and industrial life coexist, where working people live where they can afford to live and, like people everywhere, make those places their homes — as comfortable, cared for, and beautiful as they can.”
Rabodzeenko approaches these scenes without trying to make them appear more attractive than they are or focusing exclusively on their difficulties. Instead, he looks for what lies beneath the visible surface.
“I am not interested in beautifying this world, nor in emphasizing its hardships. I want to look at it as it is,” he said. “But the longer I look, the less it seems to be about what is visible on the surface.”
That perspective gives the paintings their depth. An aging building or an ordinary street becomes more than a physical location, suggesting the lives, labor and memories that have accumulated there over time.
“A landscape has depth,” Rabodzeenko said. “Like a cut through something that appears ordinary from the outside, painting can reveal another reality within it — the accumulation of lives, work, necessity, care, time, accident, and memory.”
Those details may not be immediately visible, but Rabodzeenko believes they remain present in the places he paints.
“Perhaps that is what I am painting,” he said.
His approach reflects a background in classical painting, interior design and architecture. Rabodzeenko studied classical painting at the Benkov School of Art in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, from 1976 to 1980. He then attended the Mukhina School of Design in Leningrad, Russia, from 1980 to 1985, studying interior design and architecture. Both schools were in the former Soviet Union.
That artistic training informs the way he observes and interprets the world around him. His work is not simply about recording a location but understanding what makes it distinctive.
“Painting requires research, communication, and understanding what’s behind what I see, and that influences the way I paint,” he said.
The result is an intimate portrait of a place often overlooked, with attention to the textures, structures and ordinary details that give South Side communities their character. By focusing on familiar surroundings rather than celebrated landmarks, Rabodzeenko invites viewers to reconsider what makes a landscape meaningful.
“These places are not scenery to me. I live here. I am inside this landscape myself,” he said. “And through painting, I try to go a little deeper into the place I call home.”
Rabodzeenko sees the exhibition not as the conclusion of a project but as another chapter in an ongoing exploration of the region. He hopes to continue painting, discovering new locations and finding fresh perspectives on the communities and landscapes around him.
“I believe that this is an ongoing project, and I hope to work further on it, finding new angles and spots that inspire me,” he said.
