Chicago artist Hollis Sigler learned she had breast cancer in 1985 and her 15-year struggle with the disease inspired a powerful and surreal outpouring of paintings on display through April 3 at the Chicago Cultural Center.

The exhibit, “Expect the Unexpected,” highlights more than 60 works dating from 1981, before Sigler’s struggles with cancer began, to 2001, when she lost her battle with the disease. The introspective series known as “Breast Cancer Journal: Walking with the Ghost of My Grandmothers,” anchors the exhibit with imagery of apocalypse, nature, lounge chairs and even vanity tables.

Curator Patty Rhea of the Rockford Art Museum, where “Expect the Unexpected” debuted in January, said Sigler’s rawness speaks to people.

“Her work is deceptively simple,” she said. “Most of the compositions are un-peopled, which encourages viewers to enter the scene, become involved and to finish the drama on their own.”

Art in America magazine called Sigler’s journal “one of contemporary art’s richest and most poignant treatments of sickness and health … Taking on a kind of religious conviction, her jewel-colored symbols imbue a death-haunted situation with miraculous, celebratory life.”

Sigler adapted a folk art style called faux naive, contrasting bright, storybook colors and disturbing imagery in a montage of indoor and outdoor scenes. They grab the viewer and can be interpreted as her battle against confinement as a feminist, an openly gay artist and a cancer patient.

Sigler’s frustration at the lack of progress in cancer treatment is presented in the form of statistics, information about cancer research and her personal thoughts inscribed across the frames of her paintings. She documents the emotional ups and downs of coping with cancer and her own body’s betrayal. Some pieces depict fear, pessimism and despair, while others show hope, determination and optimism.

Around the frame of a piece entitled, “The Lady Wishes They Would Package Faith” she writes, “A Mysterious Recovery: the prayer of every cancer patient: asking people with cancer to change their belief to understand that they can recover and live a full and rewarding life – despite their own fears about the disease and negative expectations of the people around them – is asking for a great many acts of courage and personal strength. The same power that allows us to create negative experiences can be used to create positive experiences.”

Sigler was part of the feminist art movement that gained ground in the late 1960s, flourished throughout the 70s and is still a form of reflection for women artists about their lives and experiences.