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Racine, WI     March 2, 2012
 

The Racine Art Museum Explores  

the Comforting Feeling of Wood

Out on a Limb: Contemporary Wood Jewelry

 

Edgar Mosa, The Hours, 2010, Wood, 12 x 12 x 3 inches, Courtesy Galerie Louise Smit, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Photography: Edgar Mosa

Long utilized in wearable objects, wood immediately connects the body to the natural landscape. This versatile material offers compelling color, pattern, and texture as well as a pliable surface to manipulate. Open through June 17, 2012, Out on a Limb: Contemporary Wood Jewelry features the work of emerging and established artists that use wood as the primary medium for creating jewelry and adornment.

 

Those whose works are featured in this exhibition are drawn to the material for both conceptual and aesthetic reasons. Whether carving, painting, appropriating, or otherwise manipulating it, they stretch the boundaries of how we understand this familiar material. Wood's historical uses, its flexibility as a surface, and its connection to so many elements of our environment and experience (e.g. trees, furniture, homes, and more), make it a rich substance for a variety of material and metaphorical investigations.

 

Artists whose works are featured in Out on Limb include: Michael Dale Bernard, Liv Blavarp, Christine Brandt, Gillion Carrara, Sharon Church, Daniel DiCaprio, Julia Harrison, Sukyo Jang, Bruce Metcalf, Edgar Mosa, Tina Rath, Gustav Reyes, Julia Turner, Flora Vagi, and Julia Walter.

 

More Contemporary Comforts at RAM

Each year, the Racine Art Museum welcomes the newest gifts of artworks to its contemporary craft collection with a debut exhibition. Open through May 6, Sitting Pretty: Furniture from RAM's Collection celebrates the arrival of a number of recent gifts of handmade furniture.

 

In the late 20th century, conceptual boundaries between furniture and sculpture blurred as pieces began to look less and less traditional, and artists employed new materials and processes. Sitting Pretty offers a diverse sampling of artwork that reflects the complexity of contemporary furniture.

 

Also, RAM is pleased to be one of five museums nationwide to host the first major retrospective of ceramic artist Karen Karnes. Open through May 27, 2012, A Chosen Path: The Ceramic Art of Karen Karnes features 69 dramatic salt-glazed masterworks from this pioneering artist whose lengthy career continues into its seventh decade.
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Together, the two campuses of the Racine Art Museum, RAM in downtown Racine at 441 Main Street and the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts at 2519 Northwestern Avenue, seek to elevate the stature of contemporary crafts to that of fine art by exhibiting significant works in craft media with painting, sculpture and photography, while providing outstanding educational art programming.

Docent led contemporary craft and architectural tours of the museums are available. Both campuses of the Racine Art Museum, are open to the public Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 am - 5:00 pm, and are closed Mondays, Federal holidays and Easter. RAM is open Sunday Noon - 5:00 pm, while Wustum is closed Sundays. An admission fee of $5 for adults, with reduced fees for students and seniors, applies at RAM. Admission to Wustum is free. Members are always admitted without charge to either campus.

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For more information or to request images, please contact:

Laura Gillespie
RAM Marketing Assistant
262.638.8300 x 114