Five artists explore the ties that bind
Threading Through Us,” a new summer exhibition at Overture Center for the Arts, features a two-year collaboration between five artists working across different mediums. Artists include Janine Bessenecker, Dr. Fabu Phillis Carter, Cynthia Reynolds, Bobbette Rose and Dr. Eugenia Sherman Brown.
If you are anticipating a short-teTheir artwork explores how our lives and relationships are like threads—knotted and tangled, weaving and unique—telling a larger story of how we enrich each other’s lives. Throughout this two-year journey, these artists walked through life together as they collaborated in creation.
The centerpiece is a 40-foot installation made of 1 x 1-foot tiles—woven visually and conceptually using watercolor, poetry, mosaic, encaustic and textile. One section shows a tightly braided rope, while poetic lines beneath it narrate the group’s experience of connection and shared creativity. The project reflects a long process of dialogue and discovery, where each artist’s unique voice was essential to shaping the whole. Their combined efforts explore how relationships and stories can intertwine, much like the threads in their work, to build something richer than any could make alone.
Their artist statement reads, “We are five women, each raised in our own traditions of what it means to create and tell stories. These stories and how we move through life together become the context for our individual art making. We come together as friends and artists who respect each other and who have come to realize the influence we generate for each other as women and art-makers.”
Their discussion revolves around their lives, culture, struggles and victories with the intention to celebrate how the threads of our lives weave together over time. They aspire to show that relationships are essential, and understanding is always evolving.
On Sunday, July 20 from 1-3 p.m., Dr. Fabu Phillis Carter will do a poetry reading in Wisconsin Studio, located on the third floor of Overture Center. Fabu will read original poetry about the art installation. Poets are invited to an open mic with poems that celebrate the exhibition, art and artists.
Overture Galleries are free and open to the public. The summer exhibitions in Galleries I, II and III run through Sunday, August 24, the Playhouse Gallery exhibition runs through Sunday, August 17, and the Rotunda Gallery exhibition runs through Sunday, August 10.
