Jyl Bonaguro
Chicago, IL
Sculpture/Installation
Jyl Bonaguro is a Chicago based sculptor and playwright with a professional studio in the Hermosa neighborhood. She creates sculptures of wings and the human figure in marble, limestone and mixed media for public and private art. Her hands on artistic practice means she fabricates all of her sculptures herself and carves stone with manual tools like chisels and hammers. As an educator, a grant from the Awesome Foundation Chicago, allowed her to offer public stone carving workshops in her studio and she also published a 76 page book, “Hammer & Stone,” on the ancient art of stone carving.
Her sculptures have been featured in publications like CS Modern Luxury Interiors, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, and Sheridan Road and are in private art collections throughout the United States. Her play readings have been sponsored by Loyola University Chicago, Columbia College Library, Zhou B. Center, Hinsdale Public Library and the Chinese American Museum of Chicago. She has also earned grants and support from the Illinois Arts Council, Cliff Dwellers Arts Foundation, Dante Alighieri Society Charleston and the Chomicz Family Foundation for her greatest project which is to carve a female figure at the scale of Michelangelo’s David in marble - Modern Athena. Currently, she has carved a 4 foot tall scale model in Italian marble.
Jyl believes in a zero waste studio environment and all the marble and other stone waste in her studio is recycled into new sculptures and bases. Her recycled marble aggregate and concrete feather sculptures “Vane” and “Hermes in Blue,” both received Honorariums from the Chicago Sculpture Exhibit CSE for 2023 and 2024. Another public art sculpture in wood, “Transmigration,” has been acquired by the Wicker Park Bucktown SSA neighborhood of Chicago for display in Metzger Court. She is excited about carving the 200 year old elm into a sculpture for her residency at Ragdale.
As president of Chicago Sculpture International CSI, she works with the 250+ member base to bring public access to art across all socioeconomic sectors and demographics of Chicago. Since 2014, CSI’s Sculpture in the Parks and Tree Project programs have placed over 200 public art sculptures in Chicago parks. CSI also has a member-run gallery Project Space and institutional collaboration with numerous Chicagoland museums, galleries and art centers for interior exhibitions for members. The CSI community outreach program provides cost free workshops to the Boys and Girls Club of Chicago, Lathrop Homes and to the general public to encourage creativity and led by CSI members. In the future, Jyl looks forward to creating more programs that mutually benefit CSI members, the public, sculpture, the Chicago land area and beyond to truly create community through sculpture.