Skip to main content

Art Exhibition Themes

Setting up an art exhibition quite often begins by choosing a theme.  A theme can serve to tie all of the included works together.  It usually explores a particular concept or idea.  



I am a member of the artists group FUSEDChicago.  For our first group show of the year, Textual Encounters at ARC Gallery in Chicago, we exhibited works that are inspired by the written word.  My textural reference was a quote from the artist Jasper Johns:  “One likes to think that one anticipates changes in the spaces we inhabit, and our ideas about space.”

For this exhibit I wanted to include some of the columns from my sculpture "Spaces We Inhabit".  These 15 feet high sculptures were designed to be hung from the ceiling, enabling visitors to walk among them but I was unable to do so in this space.  So I adapted and installed 7 of the columns with this wall hanger.
 

 
"Spaces We Inhabit", ARC Gallery

I have been in art exhibitions that use an art medium as a means to tie the work together.  Big Bad Wax at the Mount Dora Center for the Arts in Mount Dora, Florida was a juried exhibit of works by 36 nationally acclaimed artists that incorporated the medium of wax.

My sculpture "Place" hanging on the wall at the Mount Dora Center for the Arts

Some exhibitions are created through a collaborative effort.  University galleries work with an academic department to create an interesting and educational exhibit.

 
"Vessel 24", Koehnline Art Museum


Call and Response: From Artemisia to Frida at the Koehnline Museum of Art in Des Plaines, Illinois was created in collaboration with the Oakton Community College's Women's and Gender Studies Program.  This juried art exhibit included artwork by "prominent lacal and naitional women artists...that respond in ways that honor, critique or expand upon techniques and content of groundbreaking female "master" - past and present."  My encaustic and fiber vessel series paid homage to Dat So La Lee, a renowned American Indian basket weaver.

"Passages", Swope Art Museum

Many art organizations include an annual art exhibit in their exhibition calendar.   The Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana has had an annual juried exhibition for 70 years.  This annual event includes the work of artists from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky and Ohio.


 

Comments