Windy City Times: West Loop gallery showcases illustrations by artist David Lee Csicsko

Tucked away in a restored church in the West Loop, the retrospective of artist David Lee Csicsko, which closes in one week, marks his decades-long career and lifelong commitment to uplifting both the queer community and its icons throughout history.

Illustrations from Csicsko’s books. Photo by Jess Savage

Csicsko’s solo show, “Mr. Fancy Pants: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Icons,” is at the Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland Ave., through July 27. Located in the Chase Gallery at the Center, “Mr. Fancy Pants” includes works across multiple mediums, including paint, digital, mosaic and collage.

Csicsko’s works are characterized by his art deco style, bold colors and simple shapes. In his portraits of LGBTQ+ icons, Freddie Mercury’s head is shaped like a slice of pie and George Michael’s chest hair is represented by a row of simple, elongated spirals.

“The vision is, it’s all about shapes,” Csicsko said.

These portraits are some of the illustrations he made for a series of books, many of which highlight LGBTQ+ icons and artists. The fifth book in the series is set to come out at the end of this year.

David Lee Csicsko at his solo show in the Epiphany Center for the Arts. Photo by Jess Savage

“The world needs a positive book celebrating gay and lesbian and trans people, because the world is changing,” Csicsko said.

Among other well-known projects, he designed the massive, colorful mosaics at the Belmont “L” station and the 2012 Christmas decorations for the Obama White House.

The Center operates from a renovated Episcopal church, which shuttered in 2011 but opened back up in 2020 as an arts and community center. It is a designated heritage site, and was once a meeting place for the Black Panther Party.

Csicsko grew up in Hammond, Indiana and dreamed of moving to Chicago to be an artist. He came to the city shortly after he graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1980.

“I got out of school and everyone was running off to New York, and I was like, I’m coming back to Chicago,” Csicsko said. 

He worked as an illustrator for Chicago Magazine, creating art deco-inspired images. Among his earlier works at the time were portraits of “Mr. Fancy Pants,” a design series made with black contact paper and an X-acto knife.

“I was always being called Mr. Fancy Pants because I was who I was, but I really wanted to come across as a regular guy,” Csicsko said. “And then I thought I should take ownership of the fancy pants… I’ve been drawing Mr. Fancy Pants from the beginning. And in some way, these are all self-portraits without me realizing it.”

Epiphany’s Art and Program Director Julie Carpenter curated five exhibitions by LGBTQ+ artists for Pride month, including Csicsko’s show.

“It’s a lovely retrospective of his work, but [it’s] just a small fragment of what he’s done, of how he’s touched Chicago,” Carpenter said.

Alongside the queer portraits are illustrations Csicsko made in the ‘90s of religious saints. Originally, he didn’t intend for the saints to be queer-coded, but in this show, they took on a new meaning.

“I started thinking, is there such a thing as the gay imagination?” Csicsko said. “And then thinking about the saints, which all have different identities… I thought that Mary Magdalene could be thought of as a patron saint of someone who was an outsider… in the same way that Joan of Arc could be thought of as the patron saint of non-binary people.”

Csicsko has worked as a designer for the LGBTQ+ community for years. He has designed posters and signs for local businesses like the Ann Sathers restaurants and Unabridged Books, and Chicagoans can still spot his work all around the city.

“I feel very fortunate that I live here, I can do things in Chicago, and I see my stuff out on the street,” Csicsko said. “That’s very, very satisfying.”