Exhibition #BemisPainters: 1985-2015
July 16 to October 10, 2015
Opening Reception, July 16, 6 to 8pm
Curated by Ellina Kevorkian, Artistic Director, Residency Program
The Bemis Center For Contemporary Art
724 S 12th St, Omaha, NE 68102
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| Mary Ann Strandell, Vigil or The Promise of Gravity, oil, 48x60", 2008 |
Link: #BemisPainters
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts presents #BemisPainters, 1985–2015, an exhibition that celebrates nearly 35 years of paintings by artists-in-residence.
Bemis Center was established in 1981 by artists for artists, and has since the beginning been devoted to supporting the creative impulse and advocating for experimentation beyond the expectations of any discipline. Richard C. Cox, visual artist and one of the show’s featured alumni, says his Bemis residency “provided a dedicated and uninterrupted period of intensive study resulting in an important step forward in the development of my work.” The #BemisPainters, 1985–2015 exhibition will reveal – through an installation of more than 30 works of art – that painting by Bemis artists-in-residence is an ever-changing genre that eludes definition.
These painters offer contemporary points of view by for example, incorporating other disciplines and traditions into their painting. Disparate influences and responses travel across periods in time and can be seen in the diversity of content and materials in painting, such as in the use of wallpaper by Hyun Soo-Choi, embroidery thread on canvas by Amanda Valdez, and other surface applications of paint.
The title of the exhibition references hashtagging, a form of online metadata used to assign content to specific themes. In this exhibition, the hashtag describes various motifs, themes, and painterly considerations that form a constellation of inspiration and ideas highlighting painting’s formal and conceptual possibilities.Artistic Director for Residency Programs Ellina Kevorkian says, “The allusion to internet categorization and the web’s limitless access to art research speaks to Bemis Center’s own expansive and systematized archive, where descriptive meta tags attempt to categorize and address painting’s vast pluralism.”
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Ellina Kevorkian
Artistic Director, Residency Programs
Bemis Center for Contemporary Art
