UW Art Museum Spring Opening Reception to Feature Student Art Feb. 22

The University of Wyoming Art Museum will feature the 45th annual Juried UW Student Exhibition during a free reception to celebrate the exhibitions for the spring semester Saturday, Feb. 22.

Refreshments and music by Davis and Mavrick begin at 5 p.m., and the student awards ceremony begins at 6:30 p.m.

The 45th 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 UW distance courses. The exhibition is on view through May 16.

The student exhibition is juried each year by an out-of-state juror. This year’s exhibition was selected by Mandy Vink, public art administrator for the city of Boulder’s Office of Arts and Culture in Boulder, Colo., who reviewed over 150 submissions by UW students. A number of purchase and scholarship awards will be announced at 6:30 p.m. during the Feb. 22 reception.

“The annual student exhibition is a highlight of the UW Art Museum’s program,” says Marianne Eileen Wardle, director of the UW Art Museum. “The quality of the submissions is consistently high, and purchases of student artwork by university departments have enriched our campus. The show provides incredible insight into the critical questions and issues confronting young, emerging artists, and gives many students their first professional experience.”

Other spring semester exhibitions are:

-- “Material Slip” features six contemporary artists who use fiber or textiles as sources to pose questions about accumulation, mass production and the role of materials and the handmade in the 21st century. Artists featured are Margery Amdur, Philadelphia, Pa.; Diana Baumbach, Laramie; Josephine Cachemaille, Auckland, New Zealand; Michelle Forsyth, Toronto, Canada; Wendy Kawabata, Honolulu, Hawaii; and Io Palmer, Pullman, Wash. The exhibition is on view through June 12.

-- The Pat Guthrie Teaching Gallery Exhibition is on view through May 16. The teaching gallery model integrates original art into UW coursework curriculum and presents exhibitions available to students and the public throughout the semester. Working closely with faculty, courses this semester are “Art and Art History 4790: Environment and Sustainability Issues in Art”; “Classics 2020: Classical Greek Civilization”; “Ecology 5620: Creative Approaches to Writing About Science”; and “English 5061: Rhetoric, Theory and Criticism: Public Memory.”

-- “The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Wyoming” features the UW Art Museum’s collection of works from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel national gift program, “Fifty Works for Fifty States.” Works included are representations of the Vogels’ interest in minimalist, conceptualist and post-1960s art. This is the first time this collection has been shown in its entirety at the UW Art Museum; a selection was exhibited in 2011. The exhibition is on view through March 21.

-- “Sharon Louden: ‘Windows’ at the University of Wyoming Art Museum” presents a suspended, temporary custom, site-specific sculpture using highly reflective, curved aluminum sheets in the UW Art Museum’s entrance hall.

The spring opening event also is the last chance to view the UW Visual Arts Department Faculty Exhibition, which includes paintings, sculptures, drawings, photography, graphic design, videos and mixed media. Participating faculty members are Baumbach, Ashley Hope Carlisle, Kathleen Frye, Brandon Gellis, Leah Hardy, Margaret Haydon, David Jones, Patrick Kikut, Ricki Klages, Mark Ritchie, Rani Robison, Bailey Russel, Doug Russell and Shelby Shadwell.

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

The UW Art Museum collects, exhibits and interprets art to inspire creativity and nurture lifelong learning for the people of Wyoming. Located in the Centennial Complex at 2111 E. Willett Drive in Laramie, the museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday hours are extended to 7 p.m. Admission is free.