UW Art Museum to Feature Faculty and Student Art at Spring Opening Reception

The University of Wyoming Art Museum will feature the 42nd annual Juried UW Student Exhibition and the UW Art Department Faculty Exhibition during a free reception to celebrate all new exhibitions for the spring semester. The opening reception is set Friday, Feb. 10, from 6-8 p.m., with the student award ceremony beginning at 6:30 p.m.

The 42nd annual Juried UW Student Exhibition is open to any student enrolled at UW during the current academic year regardless of area of study. This includes any in-state student enrolled through the UW Outreach School. The exhibition will be on view through March 18.

The student exhibition is juried each year by an out-of-state juror. This year’s exhibition was selected by Catharine Clark, owner of the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, Calif., who reviewed submissions by a record 189 students. A number of purchase and cash awards will be announced at 6:30 p.m. during the Feb. 10 reception.

The triennial UW Art Department Faculty Exhibition showcases the creative work of the department’s faculty. Artwork includes painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, graphic design and mixed media.

Participating faculty members are Diana Baumbach, Ashley Hope Carlisle, Peter C. Fine, Brandon Gellis, Leah Hardy, Margaret Haydon, David Jones, Patrick Kikut, Ricki Klages, Mark Ritchie, Rani Robison, Bailey Russel, Doug Russell and Shelby Shadwell. Individually, Department of Art faculty exhibit their work in national and international venues; the UW Art Department Faculty Exhibition is a unique opportunity to view their new work collectively. The exhibition is on view through March 18.

“Appalachia: Photographs by Shelby Lee Adams, 1989-2009” features work by native Kentucky photographer Shelby Lee Adams. Returning to the same Kentucky hollers year after year, his work is biographical and autobiographical, exploring generations of families -- births, deaths and marriages -- and the changing culture and place of Eastern Kentucky’s mountain people as the modern world encroaches. Adams works with a 4-by-5 view camera, a wide-angle lens and lighting effects to create monochromatic photographs that reveal details in striking clarity in compositions that are complex and direct, simple and poetic. The exhibition is on view through May 13.

“Places and Spaces: Works Progress Administration Artworks from the Collection” will be on display through May 13. Drawn from the Art Museum’s permanent collection, “Places and Spaces” features artwork by American artists produced under the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which includes scenes that were familiar to both working and unemployed people: quiet streets, residential neighborhoods, factories, parks, industrial landscapes and farms.

From 1935 to 1939, the WPA’s Federal Project Number One put artists to work documenting the American experience during the Great Depression. The WPA was a work relief program, but it also embraced broad cultural goals: to bolster achievement in the fine arts and to promote a cultural democracy in which art existed for and about the people.

The Pat Guthrie Special Exhibitions Teaching Gallery is on view through May 13. The teaching gallery model integrates original art into coursework curriculum and presents exhibitions available to students and the public throughout the semester. Working closely with faculty, courses this semester are: “Energy Resource Management and Development 2500 -- Writing Across Topics in Energy”; “History 1221 -- U.S. Since 1865”; “Art 3002 -- Mesoamerican Art & Architecture”; and “English 4640 -- Democracy in the Americas.”

“Beyond the Model: Women Artists and Photographers from the Art Museum Collection” explores female artists and photographers who have been influential to art history. Women have been the subject of the most famous works of art; however, as artists, they have been historically underrepresented. The exhibition is the second part in the series of female artists from the Art Museum collection. The exhibition is on view through July 29.

For more information about the Art Museum, call (307) 766-6622, visit the website at www.uwyo.edu/artmuseum, or follow the museum on Facebook.

Through its “Museum as Classroom” approach, the UW Art Museum places art at the center of learning for all ages. Located in the Centennial Complex at 2111 Willett Drive in Laramie, the museum is open Mondays through Saturdays from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday hours are extended to 7 p.m. February through April and September through November. Admission is free.