Paintings hang on white walls in an unfinished garage with cracked concrete floors. Leaves and insects add decoration.

“This place is just fun and funky,” said Karen Brown about her garage-based Bad Dog Gallery.

The assistant art professor at NIU has created an independent art exhibition space at her home at 808 E. Garden St.

Since its opening on Oct. 30, 2003, the gallery has seen five shows, with a sixth opening today.

Sandra Olund, a senior fine arts major, created the last show, a one-person exhibition called “Recent Work.”

The idea of the gallery is to intermingle shows from national and international artists with shows from NIU graduate and undergraduate students.

NIU students, most of them studio art majors, volunteered to help Brown make Bag Dog Gallery a reality last year.

They ripped out the ceiling of the garage and cleared the rafters. They installed electricity and track lights and put up new walls where work could be shown.

“I just gave the kids pizza,” Brown said. “Some of them weren’t even my students.”

Brown got the idea to establish an independent gallery when she first came to DeKalb several years ago. Billie Giese-Vella, also an assistant art professor, has collaborated with Brown on the gallery project.

“This gallery has freedom for artists to do what they want,” Olund said. “There are fewer restrictions than at other places to show art in town. Plus there aren’t many places to show on campus.”

Olund said she knows of other basement and home-based galleries in Chicago, but this is the only one of its kind in DeKalb.

Brown said the Bag Dog Gallery provides more opportunities for installation, sound and performance pieces. Bad Dog also is open for curatorial projects.

In addition to the garage, artwork also is shown in Brown’s living areas, in her backyard summer house and in her yard.

Currently, the summer house shares an installation piece with an injured bird.

Brown intends to get a business license so she can sell works through Bad Dog. It’s still a not-for-profit project, however.

“It’s actually anti-profit,” Brown joked. “I have a hole in the ground to sink money into.”

So far, Brown estimates she has put $5,000 of her own money into the gallery.

She decided to give her space the name “Bad Dog” because when her students didn’t do what she wanted them to do, she used to say, “Ah, bad dog!” to them.

Brown said she has neighbors with troublesome dogs, but that’s just a coincidence.

Future plans for the Bad Dog Gallery include opening another exhibition space in a smaller garage adjacent to the main one. Brown also wants to add heat and continue to make structural and aesthetic improvements to the gallery. The gallery is essentially booked for shows through 2005.

“I also want to keep having fun and showing art,” Brown said.

Olund and Brown then started singing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

So far, the intended spirit of Bad Dog gallery remains strong.

The opening reception for the collaborative show, “Mad Dogs” takes place from 6 to 10 p.m. today at the Bad Dog Gallery.