Award-winning artist Anne Nordhaus-Bike will display two of her custom-framed watercolors in the show Color Songs: Musicians As Visual Artists at the Bridgeport Art Center's prestigious fourth floor gallery, 1200 W. 35th St., Chicago, from Friday, July 17, through Friday, Sept. 4, 2026.
The center will hold a free opening reception from 7 to 10 p.m. on Friday, July 17. The public is welcome, and the reception will feature refreshments.
Color Songs is a juried show featuring artworks by artists who also are musicians. Nordhaus-Bike, who along with working as a visual artist is a pianist and vocalist, is displaying paintings of flowers called Nocturne (The Flowers Dance) and Reveille (The Flower Awakens). She mounted the paintings, which she created on rare Asian paper, by hand on handmade cotton paper.
"Remember the delight of seeing flowers dance and sway in a breeze?" Nordhaus-Bike asked. "It's as if they're moving to music, the symphony of nature. These two paintings create that impression."
Nordhaus-Bike noted, "It's my honor to have not one but two of my artworks selected for display. Curators and jurors for art shows generally choose one piece from each artist they want to participate in a show, so in the rare cases when they decide to display more than one work from a single artist, that's a special honor and recognition."
In choosing artwork for Color Songs, curator Yaounde Olu, PhD, focused on a marriage between the disciplines of visual art and music. She sought participation from visual artists who also create music as well as musicians who compose visual artworks.
Each of Nordhaus-Bike's paintings carries a name, colors, and visual form attesting to its musical sensibility.
Nocturne (The Flowers Dance) shows two colorful, iridescent flowers in watercolor on handmade black paper, referencing music historically written to evoke the nighttime and giving them the chance to dance gently in the moonlight.
Reveille (The Flower Awakens) shows a white chrysanthemum on bright red handmade paper. "The flower bursts with lively 'wake up' energy, indicated in part by the kinetic lines dancing around the petals," Nordhaus-Bike said.
Bridgeport Art Center at 1200 W. 35th St. is a multi-disciplinary home for artists and other creatives, housing art galleries, artist studios, and other arts spaces.
Gallery and office hours are Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, 8 a.m. to noon. Enter on the building's north side off of Racine Avenue and 34th Place. Free parking is available.
For more information about the Bridgeport Art Center and Color Songs, call (773) 843-9000.
About Anne Nordhaus-Bike
Award-winning artist Anne Nordhaus-Bike paints colorful, joyful watercolors inspired by nature.
Anne’s art has appeared in numerous solo and group shows as well as many arts programs, presentations, and performances. Her work has been published in periodicals and books; covered in numerous print publications; and featured in broadcast media, both on television and feature films.
She received a degree in art history, with honors, from the University of Chicago and went on to launch a fine arts column that ran for two decades in the Gazette Chicago newspaper, where she served in various capacities from 1983 through 2024. She joined Gazette Chicago’s board of directors in 2004. She founded her multimedia arts firm, ANB Communications, in 1993.
A member of the prestigious Woman Made Gallery in Chicago since 1998, she launched her book, Follow The Sun, with a book signing at Woman Made in 2012; the book includes more than a dozen of her original watercolors. Among her many awards and honors, she was named to the National Women’s Hall of Fame’s Wall of Fame.
Anne lives with her husband Bill and cat Sterling in the Clearing neighborhood of Chicago, where she makes art and enjoys cooking, tai chi, and time in nature.
For more information go to https://annenordhausbike.com/ or email anne@annenordhausbike.com.