Two New Exhibitions on View September 3 – December 5 at the Gibbes
For Immediate Release, July 2010gibbesmuseum.org
The Gibbes Museum of Art will present two new exhibitions from September 3 through December 5, 2010. Face Lift, organized by the Gibbes and on view in the Main Gallery, offers a fresh look at trends in American portraiture from the 18th century to today. The innovative works of emerging artist Stacy Lynn Waddell will be featured in the Rotunda Gallery in Stacy Lynn Waddell: The Evidence of Things Unseen, an exhibition co-organized by the Gibbes Museum of Art and the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
The power of portraiture is revealed in this exhibition sequel that presents thought-provoking juxtapositions of outstanding portraits from the Gibbes’ nationally recognized contemporary and historic collection of colonial, federal, and antebellum American portraits, enhanced by objects from private collections. Featuring both whimsical and more traditional portrait pairings, this exhibition will challenge viewers to contemplate the power of portraiture through comparisons of iconography, pose, attire, props, medium, subject, and style. Oils, works on paper, photographs, and sculpture from divergent artists including Edwin Harleston, Benjamin Long, Thomas Sully, Leo Twiggs, William Aiken Walker, and Mary Whyte will be showcased.
Face Lift highlights both the changes and constants in portraiture over the last three hundred years. From Egyptian art to American Pop, portraiture is considered by most art historians as the oldest and most popular form of artistic expression. The desire to capture one’s likeness or the likeness of others in order to project certain identities, values, lifestyles, and interests remains a compelling art form. As technology continues to make the capture and distribution of one’s own image readily available to us, we as a society continue to explore our own identities through the power of portraits.
The Evidence of Things Unseen features recent works by emerging artist Stacy Lynn Waddell in her first solo museum exhibition. Waddell’s innovative technique involves burning, singeing, and branding paper and fabric to create works that explore differing perceptions of American history and culture. This exhibition includes recent paintings, works on paper, installations, and projections.
Stacy Lynn Waddell was born in Washington, DC and received her MFA from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007. Her work has been recognized and exhibited nationally including exhibitions at The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston Salem, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Project Row Houses in Houston, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Waddell was named a finalist for The Factor Prize for Southern Art in 2008. She currently resides in Chapel Hill, NC where she is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Evidence of Things Unseen will travel in January 2011 to the Weatherspoon Art Museum at The University of North Carolina in Greensboro.
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