Events
I Think I Made You Up Inside My Head - Alison A. Smith and Tracy Longley-Cook
I Think I Made You Up Inside My Head features the directorial, constructed photographs of Alison A. Smith and Tracy Longley-Cook. (image: Tracy Longley-Cook)
Press / Pull - Jay Ryan and Ryan Stander
Flood and Pull, a two-person exhibition of Jay Ryan and Ryan Stander, two artists using printmaking technique in their contemporary practice.
Ebb and Flow - Betsy Stirratt and Tracy Templeton
Ebb and Flow is a two-person collaborative exhibition by painter/photographer Betsy Stirratt, and printmaker Tracy Templeton. The artists have explored sites in Indiana for the last several years, searching for and documenting little known places where water is central to the landscape and culture.
Michael K. Paxton - Bone Deep
Michael K. Paxton, Pillars of Dust #6
Michael K. Paxton plumbs his Appalachian roots, taking images of coalminers’ black lungs and creating epic paintings which are at once seductive abstraction and dark reminders of a people underrepresented in contemporary art.
Libby Rowe - Like Panes of Glass
Like Panes of Glass explores the memorial construct of the modern family as an ideal and a reality. Having grown up in the Midwest during the 1970s and 1980s in a family of five, I experienced “The American Dream” in all its idyllic glory. Loving, kind, supportive parents, a sister and a brother, a dog and multitudes of hamsters, really, who could ask for more? Over the years I have watched my perfect family and the perfect families of my friends crack and fade into the dysfunctional state of the contemporary American family. How did this happen to us?
Celestial Streams - Derrick Burbul, Morgan Ford Willingham, David Ondrik, Heather Stratton
Four artists working in photographic materials in non-traditional ways come together for this unique exhibition.
Derrick Burbul takes images acquired through his travels and overlays them with fine layers of text which adds an abstract texture.
Morgan Ford Willingham explores motherhood in poetic images, printed on found vintage textiles using a 150 year old process.
David Ondrik exposes black and white prints, then deliberately misprocesses them, to build door-sized abstract collages.
Heather Stratton prints astronomic imagery on black and white paper and then exposes the paper with flash to imprint ripples of chemistry.
Closing reception and artists’ talk: Friday, February 4, 4pm
Naturally Synthetic - Elissa Cox Wenthe and Laura Gleissner
Naturally Synthetic, an exhibition of paintings by Laura Gleissner ceramic sculptures by Elissa Cox Wenthe, and collaborative works by both at Vincennes University’s Shirliff Gallery of Art. An opening reception featuring a talk by the artists will take place on Friday, Novemberth, 4pm.
We intend for the space to draw viewers close to the two different styles of work, dissecting texture, color, form, and composition through two-dimensional and three-dimensional pieces so that the relation of two bodies of work is questioned and connected on both a natural and synthetic understanding.
Our work focuses on the beautiful similarities that can be found between interior, man-made architectural works and the compelling architectural similarities found in the natural world.
Using a wide variety of materials, we carry out both individual bodies of work into a complimenting installation. Working together, we draw inspiration from each other’s methods and approaches to create a body of work that invites viewers to examine and engage their senses in a new way.
– Laura Gleissner and Elissa Cox Wenthe
Elissa Cox Wenthe is the McCosh Professor of Fine Arts and Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Upper Iowa University. She holds a BA and BFA from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and an MFA from Ohio University. Her work has been in numerous solo and group exhibitions including: Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa; Steckline Gallery, Wichita, Kansas; The Sculpture Center, Cleveland, Ohio, and the International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago, IL.
Laura Gleissner is a painter with a concentration in oil and mixed media and an Assistant Professor of Art at Upper Iowa University in Fayette, Iowa. She earned a BA from the University of Northern Iowa and an MFA in Painting from Northern Illinois University. She is the Gallery Director of the Bing-Davis Memorial Gallery on the Upper Iowa University campus and an active member of FATE (Foundations in Art: Theory & Education). Her work has been in numerous solo and group exhibitions including: Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, Illinois; McLean County Art Center, Bloomington, Illinois; and Northern Illinois University.
Nathan Meltz - That’s Great, It Starts with an Earthquake, Birds and Snakes, and Aeroplanes, and Lenny Bruce is Not Afraid
“That's great, it starts with an earthquake, Birds and snakes, and aeroplanes. And Lenny Bruce is not afraid,” explores the end of the world as I know it. The last year has been marked globally by the pandemic, climate crisis, and a national reckoning with home-grown fascism. Personally, in the last year I underwent a series of invasive medical procedures culminating in doctors freezing and stopping my heart, and leaving my chest full of metal. The works in this show respond to the technologies that have played a role in these various conflicts and crisis, giving clues to what the world will look like next.
Nathan Neltz
Blake Sanders | Home Bound
WED. APR. 7. 3:00 PM EST - In Home Bound, artist/educator Blake Sanders will discuss his artwork centered around his family's complicity in ecological impact and being a good neighbor in a competitive, consumerist society. He explores these themes through an expansive printmaking practice and connection to the international print community.
Most of the materials that comprise these works are repurposed: from the fabric passed down from quilting friends and family or recycled from previous projects, to the inks left behind by students in the collective studio stash, to the printed curtains comprised of donated, decommissioned hotel linens. The conservation employed in these projects challenges the “every family for themselves” mindset, instead promoting a practice that ensures there are resources for all and messes for no one in the neighborhood.
Artist Talk, Wednesday, April 7, 2021, 3:00 PM EST
Event Video (coming soon)
2021 Knox County High School Art Exhibition
The annual Knox County High School Art Exhibition will feature 75+ students works from the four county high schools. Juror Statement and presentation of Awards for Best of Show and 5 other categories will be announced on-line Thursday, April 1.
Awards Posted Thursday April 1, 2021
A Yellow Rose Project | A Photographic Collaboration
THUR. MAR. 11. 6:30 PM EST | A virtual discussion led by Gallery Director, Arthur Fields will take place on Thursday, March 11, 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. (EST) via Zoom. Panelist included will be AYRP creators Meg Griffiths and Frances Jakubek along with select artists on art, voting, and social issues.
A Yellow Rose Project | A Photographic Collaboration, features 30 photographs from 30 women photographers in tribute to the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage.. From inception, the goal of this project was to provide a focal point and platform for image makers to share contemporary viewpoints as we approach the centennial of this event, to gain a deeper understanding of American history and culture, to build a bridge from the past to the present and future.
Artist Talk/Panel, Thursday, March 11, 2021 6:30 PM EST
Jessica Bellamy | Forage
TUE. MAR. 23, 3:00 PM EST | Artist/Educator Jessica Bellamy will speak about the cultural and historical interpretation of her mixed media work.
The paintings in Forage are inspired by the craft and artforms of her multiracial heritage, which is American Indian, European, and Tejano.
Alex Emmons | For Rosalie: Eggcups and More
THUR. NOV. 19. 7:00 PM EST - Artist/Educator Alex Emmons with selected artists will be speaking about a print exchange project dedicated to her mother’s life called For Rosalie: Eggcups and More. This is a celebratory portfolio of art prints created by 60+ artists in remembrance of her mother, Rosalie Emmons.
This collection of prints was created by 68 different artists touch on suggested themes connected to Rosalie’s life from Nature, Landscape, Birds, Human & Animal Migration, Farming & Sustainability, Craft & Feminist Traditions, Material culture (the way objects contain stories), and Loss & Remembering.
H. Jennings Sheffield | Going Away From Here
THUR. NOV. 19. 11:00 AM EST - Join the climate change conversation. Artist H. Jennings Sheffield shares her artistic research of Tangier Island. An island in the Chesapeake Bay, that is sinking. Tangier is not alone and sadly tells the tale many different low-lying cities in the US and around the world are facing in the next 80 years. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Miami, Florida; Atlantic City, New Jersey; New Orleans, Louisiana; Galveston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; and Virginia Beach, Virginia will all be under water by 2100. By photographing Tangier Island, I hope to inform viewers of the need to take notice now, and to think about the difficult decisions that stand before us—how will we decide who and what is worth saving? How will we choose who receives the funds necessary to survive, and who are we willing to let wash away into the water?
Carlos Diaz | Confederate Monuments in the American South
THUR. NOV. 12. 6:30 PM EST - Join the virtual discussion as the Shircliff Gallery presents the ongoing project by Artist/Educator Carlos Diaz, The Confederate Monuments in the American South. No single phenomenon has had more direct and impactful repercussions on the shaping of our countries historical and contemporary conditions, as that of race. As a person of color, there is no experience without that single piece of reality. In a general sense, this project, questions how race is intertwined with history, memory, place and how they manifest and reconcile within a contemporary American experience.
Anders Johnson | Afterimage
WED. NOV. 11. 2:00PM EST - Join us virtually in a conversation with Anders Johnson as he shares Afterimages, is latest project. “Afterimages” refers to painted worlds where there is no observable hierarchy of value – Hellenistic Sarcophagus lids sit adjacent to Yeti coolers and pontoon boats are covered with intricate mosaic tesserae. In response to his Ready-mades, Marcel Duchamp once suggested that a Rembrandt painting could be used as an ironing board. In the wake of the global pandemic, this series of paintings now suggest an “After times” where surrealism becomes the new normal.
Marian Lefeld | Light Memories of Venezuela
THUR. NOV. 5. 10:00AM EST - Join us virtually at the Shircliff Gallery as contemporary artist Marian Lefeld talks about her experience of living between the U.S. and Venezuela.
For over twenty years I’ve been teetering between two cultures, two languages, two places. Art-making allows me to create a separate space where I do not need to mediate, to reconcile distinct identities; a place in which I can conceptualize and affirm a sense of self - a space in which I fully belong. My latest work challenges my binary experience while creating a new, personal sense of place by alternating translucent, and opaque geometric forms overlapping landscapes of my homeland.
Her work reflects the high density of the capital city, Caracas, which is an improvised place sitting over an intricate geographical valley.
Libby Rowe | Pink
WED. OCT.28 2:00 PM EST - Join us virtually in the Shircliff Gallery as Artist/Educator Libby Rowe presents her experience driven performance art project Pink. The most recent work included in Pink stems from my experience of regularly being addressed as “Sir” since moving to the South. I have always been a tall woman with short hair, a relatively low voice, and a confident presence. This constant questioning of femininity lead her to explore the standards of femaleness and the gendered indoctrination systems in place during her childhood.
Evita Tezeno | Colorful Collage
THUR. OCT. 15 10:00AM EST - Artist Evita Tezeno shares her colorful collages with a cubism influence in a live studio tour. Her bold use of color, texture, and shapes is at the core of her work. Inspired by her personal experiences and images from her childhood, Evita translates these memories through mixed media by combining handmade papers, acrylic paints, and found objects.
Nitashia Johnson | Image is Everything
WED. OCT. 7. 2:30 PM EST - Join us virtually in the Shircliff Gallery as designer and photographer Nitashia Johnson shares her creative path from student to first-round Sony Alpha Female Creator-in-residence. With an unwavering passion for design and photography she is an alumnus of the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) in Art & Design Education program at the Rhode Island School of Design. Johnson is currently developing a community-based media arts program for highly creative school teens. She uses her talents to make others happy, and to promote positive images of people of color.
Anh-Thuy Nguyen | Boat Journey
PAST - Join us virtually at the Shircliff Gallery as Transdisciplinary artist Anh-Thuy Nguyen talks about the Boat Journey series. Nguyen shares her feelings of dual tensions of the impossibility of full assimilation in a new land and the difficulty of returning and reintegrating in one’s own culture. in her onging photographic project Boat Journey. The project focuses on a quest for a place where we, immigrants, seek to belong. Captured by prairies and coasts, a figure dressed in traditional Vietnamese tunic and pant, áo dài, holds onto a small makeshift leather boat. This boat is the ticket, the passport to the escapades. However, it gets stuck on the land, can never be set free.
Benjamin Timpson | About Face
PAST - Join us virtually as Benjamin Timpson walks us through the history of his creative process. Timpson combines is love for biology, art and activism through the complex creation of detailed portraits. He also introduces us to Oscar, his hand built 16"x20" View camera and explains the process of making 16"x20" paper negatives. Viewers use their smartphones to decode the negatives turning them into positives on their own devices.
Michael Darough | The Talk
ONLINE NOW - Artist and educator Michael Darough introduces his award winning project,The Talk (2018-Present) via on-line video. These images were created in response to the Black Lives Matter Movement. The faceless men represent individuals affected by this systemic issue. Those void of the figure symbolize the stories that struggle to be told; they ones that do not receive news coverage.
Shircliff Gallery exhibitions and speaker programs in the Art and Design Department are made possible in part with a generous grant from the Indiana Arts Commission; the Vanderburgh Community Foundation, a partner of the Community-Foundation Alliance, Inc.: and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Additional support is provided by the Vincennes University Foundation.