Getting ready for the new show!

While the kids are happily working on the earthworks in the Menomonee River Valley, we are getting ready for our next exhibition, which promises enticing food for both the eyes and the minds. On Gallery Night (July 24th), we're opening a two-person exhibition by Regan Golden and Jennifer Harris titled "Decorative Directive."

Perhaps in a surprising pairing, the show brings together two artists with seemingly radically disparate backgrounds. Regan Golden received her MFA training in the department of painting and drawing at UW-Milwaukee and has a strong background in art theory and philosophy from her studies at the Grinell College. Today, she works primarily with cut paper. Jennifer Harris, on the other hand, studied industrial design during her undergraduate career and later engrossed herself in jewely and metalsmithing at the MFA program at SUNY-New Paltz. Having taught and maintaining the labs at UWM for a few years, she has recently returned to her roots in industrial design.

Regan Golden, What is yours is mine is yours: Part Three, 2006. Hand cut and wrapped Seamless Photography backdrop paper, dimensions vary.
Jennifer Harris. Etiquette Tray (detail), 2004. Fiberglass tray, original image, 16 1/2 x 12 x 1 inches.

Despite those different backgrounds, both artists share a number of interests that both aesthetically and conceptually bring them together in a refreshing and unexpected duo. While their aesthetics is strongly influenced by postminimalist art movement, they both use processes that are normally asocciated with feminine craft, rather than high- or avant-guarde art. They also both are deeply engaged in the question of what it means to be a female today and how our tumultuous relationship with what we inherited from the past shapes the values we associate with "femininity" today.

Peggy Sue Dunigan previewed the exhibition for The Shepherd Express. You can see her article here.