James Watrous Gallery
Third Floor, Overture Center for the Arts (2/27/2009)
The Wisconsin Academy's James Watrous Gallery will open a new exhibition, High Honors: An Exhibition of Artwork by the 2008 Wisconsin Arts Board Visual Arts Fellows, on Tuesday, March 24 at 11:00 am. The opening reception is Friday, March 27, 5:30-7:30 pm. Wisconsin Arts Board Executive Director, George Tzougros, will give opening remarks beginning at 6:30 pm
High Honors: An Exhibition of Artwork by the 2008 Wisconsin Arts Board Visual Arts Fellows will show several artworks by each of the seven winners of the 2008 Wisconsin Arts Board Visual Arts Fellowships. The Wisconsin Arts Board Individual Artist Fellowship Awards recognize the significant contributions of professional artists in Wisconsin. These awards provide unrestricted funds to support continued artistic and professional development, enabling artists to create new work, complete work in progress, and pursue activities which contribute to their artistic growth.
The artists included in High Honors work in a wide variety of styles and media. High Honors will give James Watrous Gallery viewers a chance to become acquainted with these innovative and accomplished contemporary artists. On show here are seven different art making strategies that result in objects that will delight and intrigue the viewer.
The seven artists featured in this exhibition are:
Jennifer Angus (art installation, Madison)
Beth Lipman (mixed media, Sheboygan Falls)
Steven Lubahn (mixed media, Milwaukee)
Charles Munch (painting, Lone Rock)
Jim Rose (metalwork, Forestville)
Natalie Settles (drawing, Madison)
Fred Stonehouse (painting, Slinger)
For the past seven years Jennifer Angus has been creating installations using insects pinned directly to the wall in repeating patterns which reference textiles and wallpaper. Her work is heavily influenced by the styles and aesthetics of the Victorian era. Angus, who holds an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is an Associate Professor of Environment, Textiles and Design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has exhibited her work all over Canada and the Midwest, including a solo exhibition in 2007 at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison. Most recently Angus has shown at the Craft Alliance in St. Louis and the Newark Museum in Newark, NJ.
Since 2005 Beth Lipman has been the Arts/Industry Coordinator for the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan. As an artist, Lipman works in glass and mixed media to create works that pay homage to still life paintings of the 17th-20th centuries. In an artist statement Lipman says "glass creates a tangible third dimension, capturing the (still life's) polished quality…its clarity and absence of color captures the essence of an object and offers a counterpoint to trompe l'oeil (deception of the eye) found in still life paintings." Lipman's artwork is included in the Milwaukee Art Museum's Remains: Contemporary Artists and the Material Past on view until June 7, 2009. Lipman's artwork
was included in the 2007 Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY, and the Corning Museum of Glass, NY.
A 1994 graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Steven Lubahn uses charcoal to create highly rendered figure drawings. He feels that "the intimate and primordial aspect of using charcoal on paper is a welcome contrast to our digital age." He is interested in depicting movement and the transformation of images. Lubahn has been involved with several group exhibitions at Elaine Erickson Gallery, Milwaukee, most recently in 2007. Also in 2007, Lubahn had a solo exhibition at the University of Wisconsin Manitowoc and a solo show at the Portrait Society, Milwaukee.
Charles Munch lives and paints among the trees and unfarmed fields of southwestern Wisconsin. His paintings reflect the relationship between humans and the natural world: "I see the paintings as icons for meditation on the place of humans in nature. They serve that purpose for me as I paint." Painting in oil Munch's most recent canvases are larger than previous paintings and darker in tone, a reflection of his "emotional reactions to the shifts in balance occurring around him." Munch is represented by Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, and by Tory Folliard Gallery, Milwaukee. His paintings have been included in the Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Last spring he had a solo exhibition at the Paine Art Center in Oshkosh. His work is part of many private and corporate collections.
A 15-year resident of Door County, Jim Rose has been exposed to art and design from diverse cultures from a young age. Primarily working with steel, Rose uses furniture-making techniques to create Shaker-influenced pieces, Asian inspired designs, and most recently cupboards that reflect the quilts of Gees Bend. His work has been shown in many national exhibitions, including the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery and at Art Chicago through Ann Nathan Gallery since 2002. Rose was part of the exhibition Contemporary Studio Case Furniture: The Inside Story at the Elvehjem Museum of Art (now Chazen) in 2002. His work is in numerous collections around the country including the Renwick Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Rose is a full-time studio artist.
Natalie Settles earned her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003. After graduating, Settles' curiosity about natural history prompted her to explore the realm of museums. She was awarded an internship as model-maker for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, making objects for the National Museums of the American Indian, American History and Natural History. She returned to full-time studio work in 2004 and spent the first half of 2007 making new drawings based on decorative and scientific patterns while living in Cambridge, England and traveling abroad. Settles easily navigates a variety of media including sculpture, drawing, installation and printmaking processes. Settles is currently exploring the role of natural patterns in art and science. Her solo exhibition, The Natural Motif at the Charles Allis Art Museum in Milwaukee runs through May 3, 2009.
Fred Stonehouse, an Assistant Professor of painting and drawing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that he has always "looked for what was just below the surface or behind the curtain. For me, reality is a mask that covers up what is really going on." His paintings are on the cutting edge of "peculiar figuration", a kind of Magic Realism or personal surrealism derived from many sources, including Hispanic and alternative pop cultures. Stonehouse was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Individual Artist Grant in 2005/2006 and also in the same year he won the Mary Nohl Artist's Fellowship. He consistently exhibits in Los Angeles, Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison.
Exhibition events:
Friday, March 27, 5:30-7:30 pm, opening reception; opening remarks by Wisconsin Arts Board Executive Director, George Tzgouros, 6:30 pm
Sunday, April 5, 2:30 pm, Gallery Talk by Artist Natalie Settles
Sunday, April 19, 2:30 pm, Gallery Talk by Artist Fred Stonehouse
Friday, May 1, Spring Gallery Night, 6:30 pm, Gallery Talk by Artist Charles Munch
All events are free and open to the public.
This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission with additional funds from the Overture Foundation and a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support comes from Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c. Attorneys at Law. Ongoing support comes from DoubleTree Hotel-Madison; the Garden Guesthouse, Bayfield; and Robert & Carroll Heideman. The Wisconsin Academy thanks these sponsors for their generous support.
The James Watrous Gallery is the premier gallery for Wisconsin visual art. A program of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, the James Watrous Gallery presents works by Wisconsin artists, Wisconsin art and craft history, works owned by Wisconsin collectors, and exhibitions that bridge the sciences, arts, and humanities. Our mission is to promote the visual arts in Wisconsin through quality exhibitions and related educational programs. For gallery hours and current exhibitions, please visit www.wisconsinacademy.org or call the gallery at 608/265-2500.
Contact:
Martha Glowacki, Gallery Co-Director
tel: 608/265.2500
email: mglowacki@wisconsinacademy.org
