three upcoming exhibitions!

PRESS RELEASE

THREE NEW EXHIBITIONS OPEN AT THE MOREAU ART GALLERIES

Saint Mary’s College Moreau Center for the Arts & Moreau Art Galleries are pleased to announce the opening of three new exhibitions: Beneath the Surface: digital imagery by Ellen Jantzen in the Sister Rosaire Gallery, For Better or For Worse and Other Mixed Messages by K. Johnson Bowles in the Little Theatre Gallery, and Vision Fields by Mary Magsamen & Stephan Hillerbrand in the Hammes Gallery. These exhibitions will be on view at Saint Mary’s College, Moreau Hall, from October 5 through November 2. An opening reception will take place on October 4 from 4 to 6 p.m., with a gallery talk by Mary Magsamen & Stephan Hillerbrand at 5.30 p.m. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., or by appointment.

In Beneath the Surface, Ellen Jantzen presents a series of inkjet prints showing altered ephemeral assemblages, temporary sculptural set-ups that she photographs, layers, manipulates, and mines for surprising connections. In this project she creates a series of anthropomorphic beings hovering symmetrically over backdrops ranging from the apocalyptic to the sublime. Her method of altering images parallels her interest in creating an altered reality for her viewers, in which objects combine to form a moment that seems to fall outside of our ordinary expectations for space and time. Ellen Jantzen is based in Valencia, California, and has been pursuing this body of work for over three years.

K. Johnson Bowles presents For Better or For Worse, an installation first created in 2005, alongside Mixed Messages, a new body of mixed media work developed in 2007. In each project, she uses a combination of precious and disturbing materials to explore the shifting and formative nature of memories and personal history. In Mixed Messages, a layering of delicate domestic items combined with staples, flies, and candles simulates a decayed surface that points to trauma’s potential to eat away at the formation of new perceptions and experiences. For Better or For Worse is a poetically surreal environment including a combination of classic domestic objects and symbols of decay, causing us to question our preconceptions about marriage and the effect of long-term relationships on individual identity. In addition to her studio work, K. Johnson Bowles directs the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts in Farmville, Virginia.


Mary Magsamen & Stephan Hillerbrand, a collaborative husband/wife team who use abstraction and play to re-contextualize everyday items, are presenting a set of three video installations in Vision Fields. In these three related projects, the artists use balloons filled with their own air as new lenses through which the work is both shot and projected. In Flash Light, air-balloon-water, and Dragon Story, the artists use this altered mode of perception to explore childhood, memory, and parenting. The artists install these works with balloons filling the gallery, enveloping the viewer in the obscuring effect of this uncanny optical tool. Mary & Stephan will be giving a gallery talk at 5.30 on the night of the opening as part of their work as Visiting Artists in the Department of Art.

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