Sense of Place: HERE

We Are Here

Juried Art Exhibition

6.21.2018—9.21.2018

 

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Cool off this summer by enjoying some refreshing original art that you won't find anywhere else at Galaudet Gallery’s 2018 summer art show Sense of Place:  HERE, June 21—September 21, 2018.   See original art from 42 local and international artists with over 70 original breathtaking artworks. This summer art show showcases paintings, fiber, mixed media, photography and more working together to map a Sense of Place:  HERE.  

 

Sense of Place:  HERE begins a four year art series exploring the idea of place.  For this 2018 show, Galaudet Gallery’s four rooms and over 1500 square feet of gallery space will be transformed to offer visitors new ways to view art and enjoy themselves.  Each of the four rooms will present artwork chosen to be read like one of the essays in three different collections of essays the curators are working with:  Beyond the Wall By Edward Abbey, John Hildebrand’s Northern Front and The Studio Reader:  On the Space of Artists.  Art in realism, abstraction, expressionism, botanicals, surrealism, wildlife and architectural photography, conceptual, artist books and other ways are used by artists to explore Sense of Place:  HERE.

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The Tower Room will hold Sense of Place Wilderness artworks; understanding ideas from Abbey by proposing new ways to view place-making and way-finding. Los Angeles artist Erin Schalk creates a “poetry of place” with sculptural abstractions of wilderness—place-making new ways to view cultural similarities by showing a globally shared sense of cartographic representations.  Madison artist Lorraine Ortner-Blake gently walks this wilderness where 21st Century way-finding signs are found in “the dignity of trees” and “the life of breezes”.

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The Bay Room will show Connecting Places artworks as read in Hildebrand’s essays.  Illinois artist Natalie Pivoney works on small scale paintings depicting buildings “which become portraits that bear a history” exploring “the way a place can influence our identity” (shown above).  Maryland artist  Greg McLemore connects the history and psychology of Nagasaki, Japan with its architecture.  Wisconsin artist David Culver sends out “a message” that self and place may be two separate points on a map which can be connected by an image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Studio Room will display Revolutionizing HERE artworks recognizing the revolving traditions connected by artists’ use of studios inspired by The Studio Reader. Vicki Milewski’s Hayfield Series, begun on July 3, 2017 while walking her farm’s hayfield, changes the sense of HERE by furthering the centurial botanical art tradition connecting it to her present studio practice—transforming time and place thru work and art.  Milewski also continues her work with the Phoenix Park Balloon Tree by abstracting it this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Center Shop will bring these three ideas together in Revolutionizing Wilderness Places thru Connection with new artist made jewelry from One of a Kind jewelers and Milwaukee artist Cory O’Brien Borkowski’s wearable art works which utilize topographic maps of the abandoned city outside of Chernobyl, Pripyat, Ukraine. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The artists in Galaudet Gallery’s Sense of Place: HERE also show a new type of Regionalism—centered on individuals who transmigrate places, senses, experiences, creative way-findings. Each artwork visions the future role of HERE which presently is wherever we may be at any given time.

 

 

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EXHIBIT THEMES

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Sense of Place:  HERE is an internationally juried art exhibit which is the first of a four year art series exploring the ideas of sense of place.  This first year we look at  HERE, next year is THERE, the third year is EVERYWHERE and the last year is NOWHERE.  It is the last year that we are driving towards since it it based on William Morris's book News from Nowhere.   All four years will be a continuing exploration of ideas from the Arts and Crafts Movement which Morris helped found during the turn of the last century.

 

The judges and curators chose art that deals with the exhibit theme of Sense of Place:  HERE from many different perspectives.   The first way of looking at the exhibit theme of Sense of Place:  HERE is through ideas from Edward Abbey like his statement about rock art he would find during his hiking in the American southwest:

 

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How do artists want to communicate their presence to the present world and to the future?  Past cultures who have left their arts and crafts behind give use glimpses into their presence, their sense of place and a certain meaningfulness to their cultures.  So the jury for of Sense of Place: HERE  first sought artists who will ask more questions or provide answers as diverse and unique as each artist is. 

 

Another way to view Sense of Place:  HERE is through the lens of author John Hildebrand who grapples with “chasing stories”.  Inspired by his experiences in the community where this exhibit will take place Hildebrand writes:

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Hildebrand then explains how different people can all call a place “home” simply by projecting “their ambitions onto the same space.”

 

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So on one hand Abbey looks at past cultural attempts to express a sense of place what it meant to be HERE at a specific time and Hildebrand examines the stories we tell ourselves about where we “belong” because it is in that belonging that we are feeling a Sense of Place:  HERE.

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The last way to view the exhibit theme of Sense of Place:  HERE is through The Studio Reader which is a collection of essays about how the 21st Century artist studio has changed.  For some artists, the studio is anywhere and everywhere, for others the studio is a specific place a more traditional view of where art is made.  This is the last part of what will inform the judges and curators for the art exhibit Sense of Place:  HERE—the idea of where an artwork belongs and how where it was made might change how it is viewed or even if an artwork was made to be placed in a specific setting.  For the first time we will also consider artworks that have their own Sense of Place:  HERE.

 

This is the beginning of the exhibit Sense of Place:  HERE.  Since Galaudet Gallery is working with Abbey’s ideas for all their shows in 2018 we leave you with another excerpt from his essay "Desert Images" from Beyond the Wall:

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NOTES
 

Beyond the Wall

By Edward Abbey

Galaudet Gallery will focus on Abbey’s essay "Desert Images" from Beyond the Wall for Sense of Place: HERE.  Beyond the Wall will inform all of Galaudet Gallery’s curatorial decisions during their art exhibits for 2018 with Abbey’s idea of the "Back of Beyond" being a primary focus in that the curators will create “back of beyond” experiences in their exhibit designs.  A “back of beyond” experience is one which elicits authentic responses to self and art as well as embracing the idea of a wilderness ethic and a chance to know who we are alone, as part of a family as part of a community and as part of this world.

 

Northern Front

New and Selected Essays

By John Hildebrand

Although the judges will not read Hildebrand’s collection of essays, the curators thought it a good idea to include a writer known to the community the gallery is located within and one who looks into a sense of place and sees a vanishing wilderness and one where this loss may redefine an individual’s senses of where they are and of what their sense of place means.

 

The Studio Reader

On the Space of Artists

Edited by Mary Jane Jacob and Michelle Grabner

This collection of essays written by both artists and art critics about the artist studio experience in the 21st Century is a thoughtful homage to the traditional artist studio that has been in place for hundreds of years.  Having a dedicated, singular place within which an artist makes artworks for specific purposes is almost as vanished as the wilderness Hildebrand looks for.  In this transition Galaudet Gallery and its curators recognize that a change is underway for the traditional gallery space as only a place where art is sold.  Through the next four years of the art series Sense of Place the gallery and curators will explore this transition in order to assist both art collectors and artists to still meet, barter and enjoy art and make a living as has been the role of the gallery in the past; however, how these exchanges take place is what may be the most changed in future.

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