M. LeBlanc is proud to present Monologue of a Deaf Man, the gallery’s first exhibition with Chicago artist Joseph Grigely, and his first solo gallery show in Chicago since 2004. Grigely's exhibition consists of two bodies of work separated by the space of over 30 years: early dispersion paintings from the late 1980s and more recent conceptual work related to the politics of disability and difference.

The framework for Grigely's thinking about working as a deaf artist was mapped by the deaf South African poet David Wright, who Grigely met while at Oxford in the early 1980s. At this time Wright had an international reputation as poet, essayist, anthologist, and translator, however largely kept to himself, rarely appearing in the public. Grigely persuaded Wright to revisit Oxford for a poetry reading alongside the Deaf poet Dorothy Miles. The event stayed with Grigely as a profound realization that there are different ways of being deaf, and different ways of making art out of these…