National Biennial Watercolor Invitational

February 21 – April 6, 2005

Curated by Gladys Nilsson

 

  • Reception: Thursday, February 24, 2005, 6-8 p.m.
  • Curator’s talk at 7 p.m.
  • Music by Lanterna in the Gallery Lounge

The theme of this invitational is "the figure" (the human body), and the exhibit's works reflect a fresh, loosely defined perspective of the traditional medium of watercolor. Guest curator Gladys Nilsson has selected more than 20 artists, those who use the figure in their work, to participate.  

Nilsson, an established painter and faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is one of the founders of "The Hairy Who," the Chicago-based group of Expressionist painters from the 1960s responsible for an unconventional style known as Chicago imagism. Her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, among others.

Audiences will note the diverse representation of the figure in the exhibit, which features works using watercolor, gouache, and other "wet" materials. Nilsson says "the word 'figurative' is excitingly open-ended and can be presented as such: the figure in a stark manner, existing by itself on the page; in the landscape, as part of nature; within an interior, perhaps so slyly placed it must be searched for; or as a portrait, the head filling the page. Each artist I selected works from different notions of what the figure might mean, and explores each notion to its fullest."

Participating artists include: Susanna Coffey, Warrington Colescott, Dana DeAno, Julie Farstad, Valerie Hird, Peregine Honig, Linda Kramer, Riva Lehrer, Judith Linhares, Robert Lostutter, Jim Lutes, Stephen Pace, Charles Parness, Philip Pearlstein, Stanley Louis Rosenthal, David Sharpe, Nicholas Sistler, Ray Smith, Eleanor Spiess-Ferris, Fred Stonehouse, Donna Tadelman, Masami Teraoka, and John Wilde.