Pawn Gallery is celebrating it's grand opening on December 1st. The Pawn Gallery's mission is to be a champion of the artist. Artists pawn their integrity, self respect and style in order to have a gallery to show their work. Then the creations are sold like a slab of meat at the butcher shop. This gallery is attempting to showcase the creators of the world in an unadulterated form.

Additionally, Pawn Gallery has a commitment to unfettered artistic freedom, cultural democracy, and transnationalism. This mission is carried out in the presentation of visual arts exhibitions, guerrilla art installations, gallery education and other public programs, and in partnerships with community organizations.

The inagural show, Interior Landscapes, features the work of Wafaa Bilal and C.Taylor (Christine Taylor). Within Interior Landscapes, figures exist in equal balance with the landscapes, the images drawing their complexity from this dramatic polar tension. Within the frame, time and place loses specificity to become transcendent and expressive of a broader human condition.

Born in Najaf, Iraq, Wafaa Bilal is a Chicago-based visual artist with both skillful presentation and compelling story. He studied Geography at the University of Baghdad but left to avoid the draft in 1990. For forty-two days, Bilal and his family survived relentless bombing by coalition forces, eventually being caught up in the mass uprising that swept the country following Iraq..s withdrawal from Kuwait. Under suspicion of being a dissident, Bilal was blacklisted and joined hundreds of thousands of others fleeing Iraq in 1991. His harrowing journey took him through Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and eventually the U.S. in 1992. Bilal holds a degree in fine art at the University of New Mexico and has created art in paint, photography and video on his story and the stories of many other Iraqis devastated by the policies of war and siege in their country. More information on Mr. Bilal can be found at www.crudeoils.us/wafaa/index.html.

C.Taylor worked as a freelance photojournalist and artist in Seattle, WA for 8 years prior to heading to the midwest to study concept based art at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she met Wafaa Bilal. Right away they realized that they shared a common interest in content and began to share ideas and help one another in developing concepts for projects. A year later Wafaa became an instructor at SAIC. Until Christine completed her degree in in 2004 he acted as a mentor and has supported the direction she has chosen to take her most recent works. After school Christine took a position with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, to act as Photo Producer and Staff Photographer for a newly award winning, lifestyle publication called MKE. Wisconsin is where she continues to draw her inspiration for her composited photo illustrations and video interviews, both a part of a greater project she calls, ..The New Perception.., a continuing body of work which expresses her personal interest in the American condition and how its cultural contradictions effect the human perception about the quality of life. More information on Ms. Taylor can be found at www.happyplayground.com.

Ten percent of all proceeds of art sales from the opening night will be donated to A.R.T.S. For People. This organization provides a unique blend of interactive art, dance, music, expressive and recreational therapies to contribute to the physical healing and help restore the emotional, mental and social well-being of individuals in Dallas/Ft. Worth healthcare and community facilities. Pawn Gallery is working to make this an ongoing relationship at future events.

Information from the gallery's site