EDGE: On the Verge
Installation View
Juror Statement:
It was a delight to jury EDGE 2017. The chosen works explore and experiment along the edges, where quilters meet and mingle with painters, weavers, collage/assembly artists.
When approaching an artwork in any media I look for several things: skill in the use of the media, a recognition of the history and traditions of the materials being used, strong formal visual language skills, an awareness of artistic conventions (including when they are artfully broken), and the ability of the artist to combine these elements into original content that can engage the viewer deeply in an aesthetic, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual way.
The artists in this exhibit honor traditional media and criteria for excellence while celebrating experimentation and creative use of materials. They exemplify high skill and wild innovation. I selected a total of 28 exceptional works that include expressions that range from abstract and textured to graphic and figurative. These works truly do forge new pathways, and new connections with other visual disciplines.
HELEN KLEBESADEL, juror
Bio:
Helen Klebesadel is an artist, an educator, and an activist. Best known for her environmental and women centered watercolors, she is particularly interested in how myths and stories socialize us to have different expectations for some people than others. She uses the creative process to re-examine and re-present narratives that resist and contest existing power structures by revealing they exist.
Helen earned her BS and MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She taught studio art and chaired the art department at Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) from 1990-2000, before leaving to accept the position of Director of the University of Wisconsin System’s Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium in 2000. From 2013-2016 Helen was the Director of the UW-Madison Division of Continuing Studies’ Wisconsin Regional Art Program. Helen continues to direct the Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium, now hosted by UW-Madison Department of Gender and Women’s Studies.
EDGE: On the Verge
Installation View
Juror Statement:
It was a delight to jury EDGE 2017. The chosen works explore and experiment along the edges, where quilters meet and mingle with painters, weavers, collage/assembly artists.
When approaching an artwork in any media I look for several things: skill in the use of the media, a recognition of the history and traditions of the materials being used, strong formal visual language skills, an awareness of artistic conventions (including when they are artfully broken), and the ability of the artist to combine these elements into original content that can engage the viewer deeply in an aesthetic, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual way.
The artists in this exhibit honor traditional media and criteria for excellence while celebrating experimentation and creative use of materials. They exemplify high skill and wild innovation. I selected a total of 28 exceptional works that include expressions that range from abstract and textured to graphic and figurative. These works truly do forge new pathways, and new connections with other visual disciplines.
HELEN KLEBESADEL, juror
Bio:
Helen Klebesadel is an artist, an educator, and an activist. Best known for her environmental and women centered watercolors, she is particularly interested in how myths and stories socialize us to have different expectations for some people than others. She uses the creative process to re-examine and re-present narratives that resist and contest existing power structures by revealing they exist.
Helen earned her BS and MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She taught studio art and chaired the art department at Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) from 1990-2000, before leaving to accept the position of Director of the University of Wisconsin System’s Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium in 2000. From 2013-2016 Helen was the Director of the UW-Madison Division of Continuing Studies’ Wisconsin Regional Art Program. Helen continues to direct the Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium, now hosted by UW-Madison Department of Gender and Women’s Studies.