Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture
Exhibits:
Weaver Room
Carol Hartman’s, Challenges will be featured in the Weaver Room Gallery from
July 1st – August 26, 2016. A Montana native, Hartman creates large square colorful oil landscape paintings on cradled Royal Birch panels. She finger paints instead of using brushes, which allows her a significantly closer relationship with her art. Carol creates this art to honor the history and incredibly beautiful landscape of Montana.
Jessie Wilber Gallery
The Jessie Wilber Gallery will feature Gordon McConnell, a Colorado Native who first visited Montana in the 1960’s and was inspired by the historically haunted and wildly romantic places from the Little Bighorn to Yellowstone. Like early twentieth century illustrators, McConnell derives much of his imagery from photographic sources and is particularly drawn to classic black and white. He interprets these still images with animated brushwork, variegated paint handling and modulation of values for a graphic, expressive effect. The show entitled Outdoor Adventure will be on display from
July 8 -September 2nd, 2016.
Lobby Gallery
The Lobby Gallery will showcase an Emerson Tenant Exhibit featuring the work of: Dana Aaberg, Bille Rose Agee, Susan Dabney, Loretta Domaszewski, David Hutchison, Duncan Kippen, Mike O’Connell, Jessica Palmer, Angela Prond, Robert Royhl, Kelly Sullivan, Kara Tripp, Cherlyn Wilcox and Rod Zullo. The Emerson is proud to build community while promoting arts and culture. The exhibit will run from July 8- September 2, 2016.
Reception: These shows will an opening reception on July 8th, 2016 from 5-8pm with an Art Walk Reception on August 12th, 2016 from 5-8pm.
Extended Release for Exhibits
Gordon McConnell
“Outdoor Adventure”
Jessie Wilbur Gallery
July 8 – September 2, 2016
The Jessie Wilber Gallery will feature the works of Gordon McConnell from July 8- September 2, 2016. A native of Colorado, he first visited Montana and Wyoming in the 1960s, on family and Boy Scout excursions. These trips imprinted on him the historically haunted and wildly romantic places of Montana, from Little Bighorn and Crow Agency to Yellowstone. He studied studio art and art history in college earning a B.A. from Baylor and M.A. from the University of Colorado. A friend encouraged him to apply for a curatorial and administrative position at Yellowstone Art Center in Billings. He joined their staff in 1982 and remained through 1988. He currently is a painter, free-lance curator and writer.
Like early twentieth century illustrators McConnell derives much of his imagery from photographic sources. He is particularly drawn to classic black and white western movies like My Darling Clementine and Red River. A number of distinct series are included in this exhibition of works dating from 2014 to the present. The Olympia Series features competitive divers from the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Eight paintings are derived from Rocky Mountain, a film that was released in the year of McConnell’s birth. The beginnings of a new series, set in the modern West, are represented by two paintings of a cowboy and horse crossing a busy highway in Lonely Are the Brave, circa 1962.
Carol Hartman
“Challenges”
Weaver Room Gallery
July 1 – August 26 2016
The Weaver Room Gallery will showcase the art of Carol Hartman. Born and raised in Sidney Montana, Hartman received formal art training from Montana State University Bozeman and California State University Fresno. Hartman was the Gallery Director at CSU-Fresno as well as serving as the Executive Director of the Fresno Arts Council. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally and now resides and paints full time in Montana.
Hartman states that, “finger painting instead of using brushes provides a significantly closer relationship to my art.” Her work is in a large square format (3ft and 4ft). She creates colorful oil and cattle marker landscape paintings on cradled Royal Birch panels. The work depicts the history and the significance of the people and places found in Montana. Working on large birch panels provide a surface to pound and scratch on, thus creating various luminous layers of paint. Her artwork is created to honor the history and incredibly beautiful and remote landscapes in Montana.
