Two galleries in the School of Art, Design and Art History at James Madison University will have an opening reception for two new exhibitions on Jan. 29, 5-7:30 p.m.
New Image Gallery will open Murmuration, which counters expectations of a conventional exhibition series. The show will have three variations, each adding to the previous, reshaping and building in complexity as the series evolves, creating a harmony of imagery and narrative from nine Virginia women artists.
The exhibition will grow with additional work on Feb. 12 and March 18.
“Last summer, while I was watching the senate hearings, I started to think about ways that women are not heard or, by choice, stay silent and wait,” said Rebecca Silberman, one of the featured artists and a professor of art at JMU who is curating Murmuration. “I wanted to put together a project that would build into a kind of chorus of collective ideas and voices to counteract the moment of hopelessness. Days later, I fortuitously discovered the book ‘When Women Were Birds’ by Terry Tempest Williams. The opening passages are blank, an invitation to imagine/reimagine the words left unspoken or the stories that can be told moving forward.”
In addition to a callback to Williams’ book title, the exhibition title Murmuration comes from “the idea that the whole series is one single thing, in a kind of responsive, creative flux, like the magic one witnesses in watching a bird murmuration,” according to Silberman.
Murmuration I: Jan. 29
Nava Levenson: project manager for InLight at 1708 Gallery in Richmond, Va. (JMU B.F.A. ‘17)
Martha Saunders: assistant professor of art, Mary Baldwin University
Rebecca Silberman: show curator, professor of art (photography) at JMU
Murmuration II: Feb. 12
Corinne Diop: professor of art (photography) at JMU (JMU B.S.)
Julia Merkel: preservation specialist for JMU Libraries Special Collections (JMU M.F.A ’92)
Kristin Skees: senior lecturer at Christopher Newport University
Murmuration III: March 18
Christa Bowden: professor of art at Washington and Lee
Dymph de Wild: professor of art (studio art) at JMU (JMU M.F.A ’12)
Rosemary Jesionowski: Associate Professor of Studio Art at University of Mary Washington
Faculty, students, staff and community members are invited to the opening reception celebrating both of these show on Jan. 29, 5-7:30 p.m.
New Image Gallery is open Wednesday and Thursday, 2-4 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, noon-2 p.m.
Share
AFP
