Located in historic Union Station at the foot of Main Street in downtown Brattleboro, the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center has cultivated a stellar reputation over the years for engaging and thoughtful exhibitions and quality programming. Six exhibitions opened on March 18 and all run through June 18.
Mary Welsh: Appearances and Reality
“Appearances and Reality” is a collection of intricate collages by Mary Welsh of Williamsville. Commenting on Mary Welsh’s collages, BMAC Chief Curator Mara Williams said, “Through her unusual combination of images, Welsh explores ideas at once personal and cultural, breaking new ground and creating richly nuanced, unique works of art.” (image: Room with a View II by Mary Welsh)
Thursday, June 1, 7PM: Mara Williams and Mary Welsh engage in a public conversation about Welsh’s work.
Soo Sunny Park: Luminous Muqarna
In the Mary Sommer Room, Soo Sunny Park’s Luminous Muqarna is an immersive, enveloping installation inspired by Islamic architecture. Park, an Associate Professor of Art at Dartmouth College, created the work for the Islamic Arts Festival in the United Arab Emirates. This installation marks the first time it has been shown in the United States. According to BMAC Chief Curator Mara Williams, a muqarna is an architectural feature found in traditional Islamic architecture, especially in mosques. In a statement accompanying the exhibit, Park wrote, “In my work over the last ten years I have moved toward using cast light as a sculptural material. I reconfigure boundary materials—fencing, plastic, glass, sheetrock—to expand and explore a variety of transitional spaces between inside and outside, sculpture and drawing, vision and perception, objects and their shadows.” (image: installation view)
Thursday, May 4, 7PM: Lecture on Islamic architecture by Mohammed Abdelaal, founder of Hampshire Mosque in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Claire Van Vliet: Ghost Mesa
“Ghost Mesa” is a series of lithographs by Claire Van Vliet, the founder of Janus Press and one of Vermont’s most highly regarded printmakers. “Van Vliet conveys the power and presence of giant rock formations isolated against the sky,” said BMAC Chief Curator Mara Williams. “These are bracing images—creations of aesthetic rigor and poetic wisdom.” (image: Little Echo Amphitheater)
Ed Koren: Seriously Funny
In the East Gallery, “Seriously Funny” is 16 original drawings and prints by longtime New Yorker cartoonist Ed Koren, best known for his iconic, fuzzy-haired, long-nosed denizens of New York’s Upper West Side.
Thursday, April 20, 7PM: Koren and curator Jeff Danziger give a talk.
Friday, May 12, 7:30PM: A cartooning workshop led by syndicated cartoonist Hilary Price, the creator of “Rhymes with Orange”. (image: Chickens on Bikes by Ed Koren (1987))
Glasstastic
In Fall 2016, BMAC invited children in grades K-6 to create drawings and descriptions of imaginary creatures, with the promise that some of those creatures would be featured in an upcoming exhibit at the museum. “The response was incredible,” said BMAC Museum Educator Linda Whelihan. “We received over 1,000 submissions, an amazing assortment of colorful and quirky beasts.” BMAC turned those submissions over to a group of professional glass artists, who selected 20 creatures to be transformed into glass sculptures. The glass sculptures and all 1,000 drawings that were submitted will make up “Glasstastic” in the Center Gallery. (image: The Abominable Dust Cloud by Jen Violette, based on a drawing by Morgan Elizabeth Beenen)
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INFORMATION
Brattleboro Museum and Art Center
10 Vernon Street
Brattleboro 05301
(802) 257-0124
Hours:
Daily (except Tuesday), 11AM-5PM
Open until 8:30PM for the First Friday Gallery Walk