Rhonda Wheatley

Multidisciplinary Artist

2017 Make a Wave

Visual Arts

Rhonda Wheatley is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist, energy worker, and educator whose installations and interactive projects are grounded in the speculative and metaphysical. Her recent projects include a solo show at Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC); group shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), DePaul Art Museum, and Art League of Houston; and performances as part of the MCA’s In Progress series, at Gallery 400, and at the Terrain Biennial, to name a few.

As part of her practice, Wheatley seeks to cultivate healing and personal transformation via wellness workshops, such as those she’s facilitated with Creative Capital, Artists at Work, The University of Chicago, Threewalls, 3Arts, Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC), 6018North, and more. Additionally, has taught contemporary art at Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis and she teaches at HPAC where she is a 2023 Jackman Goldwasser Artist in Residence. Wheatley received CAC’s inaugural Coney Family Award and a 3Arts ‘Make a Wave’ Grant, and she was a Loghaven Fellow. She received her MA from DePaul University and BA from Loyola University.

Profile caption: Rhonda Wheatley in her studio

Rhonda Wheatley's Website

Living plants in jars of water, vintage perfume bottles with colored water, vintage apothecary bottles filled with dried flowers, some filled with green and pink crystal chips

Title: Energy Grid for Activating Sweetness in Life, 2019

Featured Artworks

art installation on white pedestal with white background consisting of two vintage TV antennas, large quartz cluster, crystals, preserved dyed green polypore mushrooms, two vintage restaurant coffee pots, dried/preserved plants and artificial plants

Energy Grid for Grounding into One's Intuition, 2020 Installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Materials: Vintage TV antennas, vintage coffee pots and decanter, vintage apothecary bottles, crystal cluster, dried and artificial plants

white pedestal with installation consisting of vintage radios and clock radios, vintage brown TV antenna, several vintage apothecary bottles filled with dried flowers, assorted crystals, tarot cards arranged in fanned half-circle

Ritual Arrangement for Opening a Manifesting Portal, 2022 Installation view, 'Relic' exhibition atArts + Public Life, University of Chicago Materials: Vintage clocks and clock radios, vintage TV antennas, crystals, tarot cards, vintage apothecary bottles, dried and artificial plants

dark brown painted vintage mannequin hand laid flat, wrist upright with a pink and purple barnacle cluster extending upward from top of wrist; gold-painted twisted piece of cactus wood extending from top of hand and quartz points extending out from wrist

Power and Energy Amplifier, 2015 Materials: Vintage mannequin hand, pink and purple barnacle cluster, cholla cactus wood, titanium quartz points, and acrylic paint

Empath Protector, 2017 Materials: Vintage mannequin hand, wooden beads, fluorite octahedron crystals, acrylic paint

Energy Grid for Activating Sweetness in Life, 2019 Installation View, Glass Curtain Gallery, Columbia College Materials: Living plants, vintage perfume bottles, vintage apothecary bottles, dried plants and flowers

Energy Grid for Dissolving Blocks and Barriers, installation view, DePaul Art Museum, 2019 A series of pedestals lined up against a wall with an arrangement of 19 vintage clock radios and several vintage TV antennasembellished with preserved and artificial plants and green preserved polypore mushrooms; a floor pedestal in front w/ crystal grid Materials, 19 vintage clocks and clock radios, vintage TV antennas, polypore mushrooms, preserved plants, artificial plants, crystals grid

Detail Image: Energy Grid for Dissolving Blocks and Barriers

a geometric arrangement of different sized and colored crystals

Crystal Grid Detail Image of Energy Grid for Dissolving Blocks and Barriers Various crystals

Dream Journeying Device, 2017 An arrangement of two vintage metal silver film cameras with sides open, one vintage still camera with vintage vacuum tube in place of flash bulb, and a space-age clock radio with a geometric grid arrangement of small crystals in between Materials: Vintage film and movie cameras, vintage clock radio, goat horn, vacuum tube, crystals

Get Woke to Self Series, 2018 Three vessels in series, including vintage teapot, coffeepot and decanter, each filled with resin and materials including fossils, crystals, sand, sea urchin shells, porcupine quills, catfish bones, and wasp nests.

Elixir Stills & Cure Bottles, 2017 Image by: Robert Chase Heishman Materials: Vessels filled with resin, sea horses, crystals, fossils, dyed sand, dried flowers, and more.

African Diasporic Ancestral Memory Transmutation Device, 2016 Materials: Two vintage clock radios, reel-to-reel tape player/recorder, vintage TV antenna, collage of hand-drawnn elements (on side of radio), fossilized coral, ammonite fossil, African trading bead

Vintage green and gold metal clock radio with a vintage TV antenna sitting on top of it, pointing out at viewer, translucent orange calcite crystals in square and rectangular shapes that appear to be leaning to the left, placed flat atop the clock radio.

Karma Planning Device for Future Lifetime Maximization, 2016 Materials: Vintage clock radio, vintage TV antenna, orange optical calcite crystals

31 people dressed in warm winter clothing and coats gathered in the Heaven Gallery space, posing for a group photo after Rhonda's 'Manifesting' workshop

Rhonda (middle front, bending forward with long hanging scarf), gathered with 'Manifesting' workshop participants at Heaven Gallery, as part of Petty Biennial, 2020; Vessel from Rhonda's "Get Woke to Self'' series shown on pedestal in front.

A group of workshop participants sitting in chairs arranged in a circle and doing a writing exercise with papers in their laps.

Participants in Rhonda's 'Manifesting' workshop at Heaven Gallery completing a writing exercise before a guided meditation; Petty Biennial, 2020

Rhonda leading her 'Align & Manifest' workshop at 6018North as part of the Sanctuary Sundays Workshop Series she organized for 'Justice Hotel' project in 2019

Participants in Rhonda's Manifesting Workshop completing a writing exercise at The Logan Center, University of Chicago, 2019

Rhonda gathered with a group of 13 attendees gathered for a group photo after her workshop at DePaul Art Museum

Rhonda with participants 'Manifesting' Workshop participants at the 'New Age, New Age' group exhibition at DePaul Art Museum, 2019

a group of 16 people gathered together after Rhonda's workshop smiling into the camera

Rhonda (front middle) with 'Release & Receive' workshop participants at her 2018 solo exhibition at Aurora Public Art, Aurora, IL Rhonda has a tradition of taking group photos with participants at the end of her workshops.