Wriston Art Center galleries

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Painter Joseph Friebert featured in Wriston Art Center Galleries’ summer exhibition series

Joseph Friebert painting "Sunday Morning"
Joseph Friebert’s oil painting “Sunday Morning” is among the works in the latest Wriston Art Center Galleries exhibition.

Lawrence University’s fifth annual summer exhibition series at the Wriston Art Center Galleries features works by painter Joseph Friebert from Lawrence’s own permanent collection.

The exhibition opens July 13 and runs through Aug 19. A 20-minute guided Art @ Noon tour of the exhibition will be conducted July 19.

The Wriston Art Center galleries are free and open to the public Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, noon – 4 p.m.; closed Mondays.

Friebert, who died in 2002, used glazes and varnishes that allowed light to reflect back and produce a luminous effect in his work, reminiscent of Old Master techniques. His work often represents social concerns, a byproduct of growing up the son of a tailor and union organizer in a working class Jewish family. Having experienced the Great Depression, two world wars and the Cold War, much of his art is permeated with a sense of loss, sadness and vulnerability.

“Although Friebert’s artwork is often subdued in its tone and subject matter, he presents us with a vision of the world that is both contemplative and rendered with intense feeling,” said Beth Zinsli, director and curator of the Wriston Art Center Galleries. “A viewer will come away from his paintings with a new perspective on the urban landscape and its inhabitants.”

Joseph Friebert painting "The Funeral"
“The Funeral” will be part of the Joseph Friebert exhibition.

Born in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1908, Friebert and his family moved to Milwaukee when he was still an infant and he spent the rest of his life living there. Working as a pharmacist by day, he also took art classes at the Layton School of Art. He eventually earned a degree in art education from the Milwaukee State Teacher’s College in 1945 and a master of fine arts degree from UW-Madison. He joined the faculty at MSTC (now UW-Milwaukee) in 1946 and taught there until his retirement in 1976.

The Wriston Summer Exhibition Series is an annual program intended to engage the Fox Valley community in conversations about artworks and artists of the Midwest.

The Friebert exhibition is made possible by the Joseph and Betsy Ritz Friebert Family Partnership, the Kohler Foundation, Inc., and other generous donors who have contributed to Lawrence’s permanent collection.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.”  Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Works by student art majors featured in new Wriston Art Center Galleries exhibition

The creative talents of 12 Lawrence University student art majors will be showcased in the annual Senior Major Exhibition opening Friday, May 25 in the Wriston Art Center Galleries. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, runs through July 1.A postcard promoting the 2018 Senior Art Show

Media in the exhibition include paintings, prints, photographs, ceramics, installations, and sculptures in various materials including wood, plaster, steel and 3D-printed PLA plastic.

“Several of this year’s senior art majors have merged their multidisciplinary interests and their studio practices,” said Beth Zinsli, director and curator of the Wriston galleries.  “Their works featured in the exhibition explore mathematical theorems, the history of science and invention, biodegradable plastics, the visualization of psychological and emotional states, and 3D printer programming.

An oil painting of Mme. C.J. Walker by Lawrence senior Aedan R. Gardill
Aedan Gardill’s oil painting “Innovating a Legacy: Mme. C.J. Walker” will be among the works in the 2018 Senior Art Show in the Wriston Art Center Galleries.

“Other students’ works delve deeply into the idea of memory and identity, examining the continued significance of childhood experiences like transnational adoption or the death of a loved one as they transition through college and into adulthood,” Zinsli added. “Sculpture in a variety of media is quite dominant this year, but there are excellent examples of photography, painting, printmaking, and mixed media pieces as well.”

The student exhibitors include: Eryn Blagg, Omaha, Neb.; Natalie Cash, Elgin, Ill.; Molly Froman, San Francisco, Calif.; Aedan Gardill, Waunakee; Susie Hendrix, Appleton; Emily Hunt, Aurora, N.Y.; Kori Looker, Weyauwega; Jake Ryan, Medford, Ore.; Penn Ryan, Madison; Elizabeth Utter-Limon, Milwaukee; Lizzy Weekes, Milton; and Rachael Wuensch, Reedsburg.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday noon – 4 p.m. The galleries are closed Mondays. For more information, call 920-832-6621.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.”  Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

 

New Wriston Art Center exhibition features work by Anna Campbell, Benjamin Rinehart and Zina Mussmann

Sculptor Anna Campbell opens Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center Galleries’ latest exhibition with a discussion of her show “Apparatus for a Dream Sequence” Thursday, March 29 at 6 p.m. A reception follows Campbell’s remarks. Both are free and open to the public. The new exhibition runs through May 6.

Artist Anna Campbell's "chosenname"
Anna Campbell’s “chosenname” is part of her “Apparatus of a Dream Sequence” exhibition.

An associate professor of art and design at Grand Valley State University, Campbell employs props, scaffold and trusswork in her work to explore social constructions, lived experience, and the labor of constructing a utopian future. Through brilliantly varnished marquetry and faceted, gilded cordial glasses, she gestures toward a luxurious and comfortable social space. Her show’s title refers to the diverse terms that generations of LGBT and other marginalized people have used to mark the labor of making and naming home.

“Campbell’s installations are both sensorially enticing and intentionally subversive,” said Beth Zinsli, director and curator of the Wriston Art Center Galleries. “They’re designed to make the viewer think carefully about language, names, pleasure, labor, comfort and to question their assumptions about those ideas.”

The pop-up book "Team Ramey"
Benjamin Rinehart’s “Team Ramey” will be among the pieces featured in the exhibition “Art of the Book.”

The exhibition “Art of the Book” features works from Lawrence’s own Seeley G. Mudd Library’s Art of the Book collection. Started in 2011, the collection features 63 titles, with several new ones added year year. Among the numerous artists included in the exhibition is Lawrence Associate Professor of Art Benjamin Rinehart and his pop-up book “Team Ramey.”

Painter Zina Mussmann, a faculty member at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design whose work has been exhibited regionally and nationally, presents “Unto Itself: New work by Zina Mussmann.”  Referring to the ways micro and macroscopic scientific images awake a new type of existential anxiety, “Unto Itself” features more than two dozen drawings, including watercolor, gouache, ink and graphite on white paper, from Mussmann’s 2016 series “Automata.”

Art drawing "Automata"
Automata #6, mixed media on Paper will be part of the “Unto Itself: New work by Zina Mussmann” exhibition.

According to Mussman, “science has revealed systems that are autopoetic, existing within us on the tiniest of scales and all around us in seemingly infinite space and time. The drawings in this series purposefully reveal and conceal the structure of these systems; they are not faithful representations, rather they beg the question of what is still unseen. What is still hidden from us in the ether? And how will that continue to challenge human primacy?”

The Wriston Art Center is open Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday noon – 4 p.m.; closed Mondays. Free and open to the public.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.”  Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

 

Milwaukee artist Jason Yi opens new Wriston Art Center Galleries exhibition

Jason-Yi_newsblog
Jason Yi’s installation “Terraform” is featured in the Kohler Gallery.

Milwaukee-based multi-media artist Jason S. Yi discusses his work Friday, Jan. 16 at 6 p.m. in the opening lecture of Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center Galleries newest exhibition, which runs through March 15. A reception follows Yi’s remarks. Both events are free and open to the public.

Yi is  featured in the Kohler Gallery with his sculpture installation “Terraform.” Through large-scale, site-specific sculptures and installations, Yi transforms everyday materials into massive architectural and topographic forms, juxtaposing natural and man-made environments.

The Hoffmaster Gallery showcases Sarah Gross’ installation “Continental Drift.” Gross, who is serving as Uihelin Fellow of Studio Art at Lawrence, uses repetition and pattern to create an installation that references architecture and ceramic history. Her hand-made brick/tile hybrids “hover” above the gallery floor, creating interlacing paths for the eye to track.

Sarah-Gross_Continental-Drift_newsblog
Sarah Gross’ installation “Continental Drift” is featured in the Hoffmaster Gallery.

“Wisconsin Wolf Stories,” shown in the Leech Gallery, highlights the work of 20 Lawrence students from Professor of Biology Jodi Sedlock’s environmental studies symposium “Art and Biodiversity Conservation.” Through various media, including video, photography and hand-drawn pieces, students explore the human-wolf interaction in Wisconsin and how wolves have impacted the state’s environment.

The Quirk Print Gallery also features student work focused on the influences of Greek, Roman and Byzantine portraiture coins from Lawrence’s own Ottilia Buerger Collection of Ancient and Byzantine Coins.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday noon – 4 p.m; closed Mondays.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2015 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

 

Furniture-based sculpture, Dust Bowl Era Photos Featured in New Wriston Art Center Exhibition

BA Harrington, an artist specializing in woodworking, discusses her furniture-based sculptural installation “Chest on Chest” Friday, Sept. 26 at 6 p.m. in the opening lecture in the new Wriston Art Center Galleries ChestonChest_newsblogexhibition, which runs through Nov. 26. A reception follows Harrington’s remarks. Both events are free and open to the public.

Harrington, a former custom furniture maker, currently teaches woodworking at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Harrington merges her traditional cabinetmaking experience with academic training as a contemporary artist. Her installation, featured in the Kohler Gallery, explores themes of gender, history, craft and family.

The Leech Gallery presents “Migrant Mother, W.P.A. Prints and the Dust Bowl Era.” The exhibition features artworks from the U.S. Works Progress Administration and the Dust Bowl era of the mid 1930s, including  Dorothea Lange’s iconic photograph “Migrant Mother, Nipomo CA.”

Wisconsin-born, Chicago-based artist Nathan Vernau is featured in the Hoffmaster Gallery. His exhibition, “Scraps & Debris,” uses brilliantly colored mixed-media compositions to draw on a range of recognizable but also obscure symbols: cinder blocks, letters and envelopes, balloons, picture frames, and hearts.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2015 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

New Wriston Art Galleries Exhibition Opens March 29

Painter Rafael Salas and 2012 Lawrence University graduate Caitee Hoglund share the podium for the opening lecture of the latest Wriston Art Center Galleries exhibition Friday, March 29 at 6 p.m in the Wriston auditorium.

A reception follows the lecture. Both events are free and open to the public. The new exhibition runs through May 5.

Rafael Salas, Untitled (Bridge), 2011, oil on canvas

The Kohler Gallery features Salas’ work entitled “You’re Invisible Now.” The series of paintings and drawings depicts the Wisconsin landscapes and moods the artist has observed and include natural occurrences as well man-made events and architecture which complement and conflict.

An art professor at Ripon College, Salas uses non-representational and still life elements to emphasize the dichotomy between figure and ground, perception and feeling. His artwork communicates an aspiration of nobility, but often a failure of that aspiration.

“Stripped Down: Understanding the Female Nude,” featuring works from the Wriston’s permanent collection, will be shown in the Leech Gallery. Designed by Hoglund, this exhibit explores one of the most ubiquitous subjects in art — the female nude — and analyzes the different types represented in the collection. Through presentation, discussion and interaction, this exhibition offers a new perspective on the female nude and its role in art history and gender politics.

Milwaukee-based artist Sonja Thomsen presents “nexus” in the Hoffmaster Gallery. The installation features shelves of short sequences of images and play with shifting scale. The installation forces the viewer to weave back and forth within the space, triggering visceral awareness in conjunction with cerebral perception. The photographs of vast landscapes, domestic scenes and spectacular phenomena create the skin between the memory, place and the present.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from noon – 4 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2013 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries. Follow Lawrence on Facebook.

Portrait Photography, Digital Media Highlight Latest Lawrence University Art Center Exhibition

Chicago photographer Liese Ricketts delivers the opening lecture Friday, Jan. 22 at 6 p.m. for the latest exhibition at Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center galleries. A reception with the artist follows the address.

The exhibition, which runs through March 7, features Ricketts photography in the Leech and Hoffmaster Galleries and “The Theory of the Meat Machine,” a collection of digital prints by Gina Rymarcsuk, in the Kohler Gallery.

Ricketts-Wriston-Exhibit_we.jpg

With an artists’ affection for the human face, Ricketts specializes in photography that documents an individual’s sense of identity and place. Inspired by 19th-century itinerant photographers who roamed the countryside, setting up portable photo studios to make images of local residents, Ricketts has made similar trips to Peru. In her portraits, she allows her subjects to decide how they present themselves, photographing them with pets, objects associated with their trade or dressed in a favorite article of clothing.

The Ricketts’ exhibition also features a story based on a box of old glass plate negatives documenting a pair of dogs that she found. Her story includes characters based on photo theorists Jacques Lacan and Roland Barthes and American essayist Susan Sontag.

Ricketts, who earned an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has taught photography for more than 30 years, including at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools since 1988.

Rymarcsuk, also a photographer, works with digital media, specializing in the way artists deal with the evolving intersection of technology and nature. Her “Theory of the Meat Machine” is a lengthy and elaborate narrative created by combining images of the human body with machine parts. She borrowed from surrealist artist Max Ernst’s pseudo alchemical and metaphysical ideas about nature, creating a series of linearly mounted digital prints, each of which acts as the page of an elaborate book.

“The Theory of the Meat Machine” earned Rymarcsuk “Best of Show” honors at the 2009 Southeastern Aviation Art Exhibition, Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, Ala. An assistant professor of photography at UW-Milwaukee, Rymarcsuk holds a M.F.A. in photography from the University of Washington.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from noon – 4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays.

Oshkosh Painter Jeff Lipschutz, Ancient Coins Featured in Wriston Art Center Galleries Exhibition

A retrospective of Oshkosh painter Jeff Lipschutz’s expressionist style landscapes and a display of ancient Roman coins will be featured in the newest exhibition at Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center galleries. The exhibition opens March 31 and runs through May 14.

Lipschutz, professor of painting and drawing at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and director of UWO’s Allen Priebe Art Gallery, presents “Desert,” a collection of images primarily of the modern American West, in the Hoffmaster and Kohler galleries. Lispschutz opens the exhibition with a discussion of his work Friday, March 31 at 6 p.m. The address, followed by a reception with the artist, is free and open to the public.

Lipschutz draws inspiration for his paintings from his childhood home of tiny Eagle Mountain, Calif., an isolated iron-ore mining town on one of the most barren stretches of the Mojave Desert. Lipschutz says his paintings “tap into the desert’s dream life as a natural extension of my own; into the Mojave’s unconscious; its antediluvian beginnings, science fiction futures and contradictory presents.” While his depictions of arid wastelands share a bond with that of land use artists and conceptualists, his work “also has distinct philosophical underpinnings.”

The Leech Gallery will feature the show “The Women of the Augusti: Coins from the Ottilia Buerger Collection of Lawrence University.” The exhibit was curated by Lawrence student Jennifer Nummerdor, a senior art history major from Appleton, as part of her senior honors project.

The exhibit focuses on Imperial Roman coins featuring important women — wives, daughters, sisters and mothers — and why they earned the distinct honor of being cast on a coin in a world dominated by men. The exhibit details the background of these women as well as the culture and tradition surrounding imagery of women on coins in Ancient Rome.

The exhibit is drawn from the Ottilia Buerger Collection of Ancient and Byzantine Coins. The collection of more than 300 rare, ancient coins dating from the 6th-century B.C. to the mid-1400s, is widely regarded as one of the finest in the United States. It was assembled by Ottilia M. Buerger, a 1938 Lawrence graduate, who bequeathed the collection to the college in 2001.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from noon – 4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays. For more information, call 920-832-6621 or visit http://www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston/.

Sculpture and Prints Featured in Exhibition Opening Jan. 20 at Wriston Art Center Galleries

Humorous sculpture, unsolicited suggestions for public art and whimsical prints will be featured in the latest exhibition at Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center galleries. The three-gallery exhibition opens Jan. 20 and runs through March 12.

Lawrence Assistant Professor of Art Rob Neilson presents “A Face in Time” in the Kohler Gallery and “Unrequested Proposals” in the Hoffmaster Gallery. Neilson will open the exhibition with a discussion of his work as a sculptor and public installation artist on Friday, Jan. 20 at 6 p.m. The address is free and open to the public with a reception to follow.

“A Face in Time” will include a series of sculptural self portraits which express a humorous commentary on otherwise familiar childhood and historical faces and characters, including Ernie from “Sesame Street,” John F. Kennedy and an “Irish” Buddha.
In “Unrequested Proposals,” Neilson showcases models and computer generated images of public art monuments he has proposed — tongue-in-cheek — such as a replacement for the Washington Monument, an artistic addition to Mao Tse-tung’s tomb in Tiananmen Square and an addition for St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City.

A native of Detroit, Neilson joined the Lawrence art department in 2003. He works with a variety of materials in composing sculpture and public art, including rubber, plastics and other exotic materials. His work has been exhibited in galleries and installations around the country. Last year Neilson installed a six-foot-tall, two-headed rubber ducky in front of Chicago’s Navy Pier.

In addition, he has received numerous public art commissions, among them works for the City of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Metro Transit Authority and the Long Beach Transit Authority, for which will he construct a steel sculpture of a figurative male stepping onto a bus while holding an armload of books. The sculpture will be erected at the transportation station in front of the Mark Twain branch of the Long Beach Public Library. Later this year, Neilson will spend five months as an artist-in-residence at the Kohler Company in Kohler.

He studied art at the College for Creative Studies and earned a master of fine arts degree from the University of North Carolina.
The Leech Gallery will host “The History of Printmaking: A Series of Prints by Warrington Colescott.” Featuring brilliant color and fantastical composition, each whimsical print in the 11-set series depicts an important event in the history of printmaking, beginning with the 15th century.

Colescott, a California transplant who taught art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for nearly 40 years, began the “History of Printmaking” series in the late 1970s and continued to work on it through the early 1980s. The 11 prints in the exhibit are part of the Wriston Art Gallery Permanent Collection and were donated by Dr. Robert A. Dickens, ‘63.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from noon -4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays. For more information, call 920-832-6621 or visit http://www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston/.

Three New Exhibitions Open Nov. 11 at Lawrence University Wriston Art Center Galleries

An exploration of the organization of knowledge, a traveling display of photographs of Acropolis monuments and ancient pottery are featured in the latest exhibition at Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center galleries. The exhibition opens Nov. 11 and runs through Dec. 18.

Chicago artist Antonio Contro presents “A to Z” in the Hoffmaster Gallery. Contro also will deliver the exhibition’s opening address on Friday, Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. The address is free and open to the public and a reception with the speaker will follow.

“A to Z,” a 27-piece, collage-based exhibit begun in 2003, features works on paper that merge drawing and Polaroid photography to recombine facts and information in ways other than alphabetical or disciplined. Collectively, the works become their own unique “encyclopedia.”

“Photographs of the Athenian Acropolis – The Restoration Project” will be shown in the Kohler Gallery. The traveling exhibition features large scale photographs by Socratis Mavrommatis, the chief photographer of the Acropolis Restoration Service and document the interventions and transformations of the Acropolis monuments since 1975. The exhibit opened in Athens in 2002 and has since traveled to Brussels, Paris, Rome and London. Lawrence is just the second venue in the United States to host the exhibit.

The Leech Gallery will host “Ceramics of the Classical World,” a selection of ancient Greek and Etruscan pottery from the Wriston Art Gallery permanent collection and from the Ripon College Classical Antiquities Collection.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from noon -4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays. For more information, call 920-832-6621 or visit http://www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston/.