2018/19 Overture Gallery Exhibits Announced

Overture Galleries create a forum for diverse artistic expression that fosters the growth of local artists, curators and arts organizations. On Monday, May 14, 2018, a committee of local visual artists and art professionals selected 12 exhibitions for the 2018/19 season of Overture Galleries I, II & III. All galleries and related events are free and open to the public.

Members of the committee:

• Kaplana Prakash - Artist
• Erika Herrera - Photographer
• Leslie Smith III - Professor of Painting and Drawing, University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Barbara Landes - Artist
• Stephen Hilyard - Professor of Digital Media, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Fall Cycle
Tuesday, September 11 - Sunday, December 2, 2018
Reception & PhotoMidwest Curators' Talk | Friday, October 5, 2018, 5-8:30 p.m.

Gallery I - 10th Biennial PhotoMidwest Juried Exhibition

This exhibition is part of the 2018 PhotoMidwest Festival, celebrating its 20th anniversary. Photographers from Wisconsin and 12 midwestern states exhibit in this show juried by Alex Garcia and Alfred Rasho.

Gallery II - Studies in Stone, Ice and Memory | Peter Blanchard, Terri Messinides & Steven Ralser

This exhibition considers memories, both static and fluid. Ralser's photographs show us the beauty and abstraction in ice. Messinides explores the fragility of memory through collage using natural materials. Blanchard exposes patterns in strata of stone.

Gallery III - Two Selves: Explorations of Personal Experience | Jacob Newman & Ryan J. Robinson

Robinson and Newman both deal with the confusion of everyday life. Robinson's portraits contemplate the lack of perceived reason behind existence through his rough handling of the figure on the canvas. Newman imagines current social issues in the context of the fictional worlds he creates with his drawings on paper.

Winter Cycle
Tuesday, December 11, 2018-Sunday, March 3, 2019
Reception | Friday, January 11, 2019, 6-8 p.m.

Gallery I - Ellen Hall & Angelica Contreras

Hall and Contreras are both painters who create rich compositions that embody a moment or feeling. Influenced by imagery from many cultures, Contreras uses paint and mixed media to create figures and the environments they reside in. Hall explores the color, depth, light, and energy of varied spaces within the natural world.

Gallery II - Hannah Bennet & Gabrielle Cordes

Bennet and Cordes push the boundaries of the materials they use. Bennet is inspired by the natural world, using paper pulp as a sculptural medium to express her ideas. Cordes creates intuitively, assembling dynamic pieces with contrasting colors and materials.

Gallery III - Painted Stones, Laurel Fletcher

Additional Event: Rock Painting | Saturday, January 26, 2019, time TBA

Stone-painting has become a popular activity recently, driven largely by social media and the "Kindness Rocks" movement. Adults and children paint stones and leave them in public to be discovered by strangers, with the goal of spreading friendship and a sense of community.

Spring Cycle
Tuesday, March 12-Sunday, June 2, 2019
Reception | Friday, May 3, 2019, 6-8 p.m.

Gallery I - Jerry Butler & Shelby Kahr

Butler and Kahr depict the people that have shaped their lives through portraiture. Butler honors the people he has known over the last decade through mixed media compositions. Kahr uses figurative painting to explore her cultural heritage in the Midwest.

Gallery II - Maryam Ladoni & Kayla Story

Personal narratives resonate with universal themes in Ladoni and Story's images. Story explores the hidden impacts of fatherlessness through photography and screen printing. Ladoni travels back to her hometown of Iran, documenting her journey towards understanding her identity through memory.

Gallery III - Empathy Timeline, Simone & Max

Additional Event: Community Forum | Date/Time TBA

Simone and Max are inspired by the idea of empathy as a consciously-cultivated skill. Empathy Timeline is an installation presenting a futuristic timeline that looks back at the "Age of Carnism" from the perspective of a human society that has learned to empathize with nonhuman animals, ceasing all consumption of them.

Summer Cycle
Tuesday, June 11-Sunday, September 1, 2019
Reception | Friday, June 28, 2019, 6-8 p.m.

Gallery I - Victoria Maidhof & Noël Ash

Maidhof and Ash both capture profound yet relatable moments. Through photography, Maidhof tells the story of a kinship between two individuals from different generations. Ash paints still lifes of student-parents as they navigate the intersections of school, work, and daily living.

Gallery II - Soñe una Milpa, Maria Amalia Wood & J. Leigh Garcia

Soñé una Milpa (I dreamt of a corn field) highlights the journeys of ten Latina immigrant women from the Madison community. Garcia and Wood were treated to corn-based meals from each woman's home country, then interpreted their narratives through hand-made paper and printmaking in this collaboration.

Gallery III - Jacki Whisenant & Robert Lundberg

Additional Event: Community Forum | Date/Time TBA

Whisenant and Lundberg illuminate subjects that are often overlooked. Whisenant inspires closer inspection of insects, presenting them at a larger-than-life scale in her exquisite drawings. Lundberg documents the critical infrastructure of water systems, inviting questions about our relationship to water and the societal and cultural implications of this hidden world.

Playhouse Gallery
Sanctuary: Environmental Land Art at the Farley Center
Friday, September 7-Sunday, October 28, 2018

Reception | Friday, September 28, 2018, 6-8 p.m.

Hosted by the Farley Center for Peace, Justice and Sustainability, sixteen local artists use natural and organic materials to celebrate our connection with the earth. Sanctuary is a photographic tour of art installations created on their wooded land near Verona, WI in Fall 2017.

In Good Company: Works from Veteran Print Project

Saturday, November 3, 2018-Thursday, January 10, 2019

Reception | Monday, November 12, 5:30- 7 p.m.

Hosted by Yvette M. Pino and Ash Kyrie, Veteran Print Project matches veterans with local printmakers who artistically interpret their experiences and perspectives. The artwork and narratives on display seek to honor and celebrate our veterans, while creating a better and more honest understanding of our world in the spirit of truth-telling and community-building.

Located in Overture Center for the Arts at 201 State Street, Overture Galleries I, II and III radiate off the Rotunda Lobby on three levels and the Playhouse Gallery runs in the lower level from The Playhouse to the building's Henry St. entrance. They are free and open to the public Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Friday from 9 a.m.-9 p.m., Saturday from 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m. and Sunday from Noon-5:00 p.m.

Galleries I, II, III sponsored by the Arts Access Fund, a component fund of the Madison Community Foundation and by contributions to Overture Center for the Arts.

Overture Playhouse Gallery is sponsored by Norman Berven & Barbara Mittelstaedt Berven, The Arts Access Fund, a component fund of the Madison Community Foundation and by contributions to Overture Center for the Arts.

Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wis., features seven state-of-the-art performance spaces and five galleries where national and international touring artists, ten resident companies and hundreds of local artists engage people in over a half million educational and artistic experiences each year. Overture.org

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