The University of Mary Washington Galleries will host two exhibitions, A Hot Smidge, on view in the duPont Gallery, from Jan. 26 through Feb. 5 and American Perspectives on Modernism, on view in the Ridderhof Martin Gallery from Jan. 26 through April 2.
Opening receptions for both exhibits will be held on Thursday, Jan. 26, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the respective galleries. Both exhibitions are free and open to the public.
A Hot Smidge
A Hot Smidge, by Sidney Mullis ’13 is the inaugural exhibition of Origin: Celebrating UMW Studio Art Alumni. The exhibition of video, projection, interactive objects and sculpture is a “visual playground to probe how gender exists,” said Mullis in her exhibition statement.
“Considering gender to be a stylized repetition of acts, I study how woman is looped in social space,” she said. “In my work, I think about woman from a coming-of-age transition meaning that I focus on when bodies learn to repeat gestures that communicate gender.”
Mullis lives and works in State College, Pennsylvania. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including Berlin and Tokyo. She has had solo shows at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York City, Future Tenant Gallery in Pittsburgh and Lock Haven University in central Pennsylvania.
Mullis is currently the program coordinator of the John M. Anderson Endowed Lecture Series, the visiting artist program at Penn State. She is a studio assistant to ecoartist Stacy Levy, as well as a contributing writer for Maake Magazine.
American Perspectives on Modernism
The Modernist dictate was to “make it new,” to look beyond
appearances for an essential truth in things, according to the exhibition statement. Honest, forthright expression was a longstanding American artistic tradition, and American Modernists felt even the most ordinary things could be transformed through fresh eyes and the imagination.
This exhibition includes works by American modernists including Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Charles Sheeler, Max Weber and others. Responding to the artistic developments in Europe, these artists sought new ways to picture the rapidly changing times of the early 20th century.
Leo Mazow will deliver a lecture titled “Defining American Modernisms” on Thursday, Feb. 2, at 6 p.m. in the Digital Auditorium, Hurley Convergence Center. Mazow is the Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. A specialist in 19th- and 20th-century American painting and cultural history, he received his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 2010 through 2016 he was an associate professor of art history at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. From 2002 through 2010 he was curator of American art at the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University.
Both galleries are located on College Avenue on the Fredericksburg campus and are open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m.; and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. The galleries are closed during University holidays and breaks. Free parking for gallery visitors is designated in the lot on College Avenue on Thornton Street. For directions and more information, call 540-654-1013 or visit www.umwgalleries.org.
