Gallery opening to feature artist and art critic

The public is invited to attend a gallery opening and reception at Brenau University featuring two special guests: New York-based artist Margaret Evangeline and independent curator, journalist and critic Lilly Wei.

The Gallery Talk and Reception from 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 23, will celebrate the opening of House and Universe: Margaret Evangeline. Held in Sellars Gallery in the Simmons Visual Arts Center on the Gainesville campus, the event will feature the artist and critic together to offer insights into the works presented in House and Universe, which is on view in Sellars Gallery through March 12.

“Seeing an artwork in person can far surpass the experience of seeing it in print or online,” said Nichole Ferguson, director of Brenau Galleries. “Similarly, hearing an artist speak about their work can offer tremendous insights and new perspectives. The opportunity to hear nationally and internationally known artists speak about their work in person has long been a benefit of attending Brenau University Gallery openings. In this case, the opportunity to hear Margaret Evangeline will be further enhanced by the presence of critic and writer Lilly Wei and their ensuing conversation.”

The exhibition brings together works from the Brenau University Permanent Art Collection and from the artist’s studio. The show demonstrates Evangeline’s mastery of multiple media and includes paintings, prints, video art and sculpture.

Evangeline is a New York-based, Louisiana-born painter, video, performance and installation artist. Her work is both inspired by and reflects on her Louisiana background, employing the American vernacular of guns and their marks. Evangeline’s post minimalist work explores societal minutiae, temporality and the unsaid.

“Brenau University owns 20 Margaret Evangeline works that can be found on the historic Gainesville campus and our Jacksonville campus,” Ferguson said. “Seven of these works were selected to be in the gallery space and are joined by eight new works from Evangeline’s collection. Viewers will see references to the motifs that Evangeline is best known for — the camellia flower, bullet holes, and fluid, wave-like networks of lines that all tie back to her sense of place and personal development.”

Wei is a New York-based independent curator, writer, journalist and critic whose area of interest is global contemporary art and emerging art and artists, reporting frequently on international exhibitions and biennials. She is the author of numerous artists’ catalogs and monographs and has curated exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a printed booklet featuring an essay by independent curator and fellow art critic Dominique Nahas. He said that House and Universe is “indeed a fitting reminder of a special quality that pervades the artist’s aesthetic, the house being a diagram of the intimate universe of the artist. Her working process, as intuitively guided as it is, is drawn to exploit the immediacy of the here and now, to create a surge of presentness in the mind and soul of the viewer.”

Evangeline and Wei will share more in this special Gallery Talk and Reception, which is free and open to the public. For more information, call 770-534-6263 or visit galleries.brenau.edu.