Peek At Rising Star Ellie Vergura’s Moody Oil Paintings

Although Ellie Vergura earned her bachelor’s in studio art from Agnes Scott College down south, it was an art history professor’s lecture on Chicago architecture that really impacted her future: She ended up moving there upon graduation in 2019. Two years later, she was commissioned for a 50-by-60-inch lobby artwork at the Tribune Tower, the office-to-residential conversion of the former headquarters of the city’s leading newspaper.

Now 27, Vergura is celebrating her first solo exhibition at Jackson Junge Gallery in Wicker Park. Why such success at so young an age, you might ask? She’s found a way to combine her interests into “timeless” oil paintings that combine impressionism and abstractionism, emitting the romanticized aesthetic of a pencil sketch or vintage postcard. Subjects range from Milan’s Duomo and the Eiffel Tower in Paris to tourists on a London street. The dreamy effect is achieved, Vergura explains, with “a neutral palette, which has an eternal feel.” Fittingly, she’s titled her show “Ardor,” as “the work reflects my passion for architecture and the cities that inspire me.”