Art of Insects and Interconnection

Arts + Literature Laboratory presents Art of Insects and Interconnection, a group exhibition curated by Heather Swan, on display in the first floor lobby project space from Wednesday, May 1, 2024 through Saturday, June 22, 2024.

A reception for current exhibitions will be held on Friday, May 3 from 5:00pm to 9:00pm.

Come celebrate the many crucial insects and tiny beings that populate our myths and make our ecosystems thrive. The artwork of these four renowned artists challenges us to move past our preconceptions and to recognize the beauty of these complex and important creatures which are facing rapid decline. Several pieces in the show are included in the book Where the Grass Still Sings: Stories of Insects and Interconnection by Heather Swan (poet and organizer of the present show) which narrates strategies for humans to coexist with these miraculous beings.

Featured artists include Jenny Angus, Emily Arthur, Lea Bradovich, John Hitchcock, and Tilly Woodward.

Jennifer Angus

Jennifer Angus is a professor in the Design Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin -Madison where she teaches textile design, specifically, everything to do with the dyeing and printing of cloth, including natural dyes. She is an artist described by Art Daily as “one of the top contemporary installation artists in the country.” Jennifer creates some of the most provocative work most people have ever seen in an art museum setting. She composes patterns using hundreds of insects, placing them in arrangements that suggest wallpaper and textiles. Angus was one of nine leading contemporary artists selected for the landmark exhibition Wonder at the... Read More

Emily Arthur

I see nature as an interdependent living force rather than as the backdrop for human events. Land is living matter that holds specific meaning to a place. This is the nature-based perspective through which I conduct my research. My fine art practice is informed by a concern for the environment, displacement, exile and the return home from dislocation and separation. I seek the unbroken relationship between modern culture and ancient lands which uses tradition and story to make sense of the enduring quest to understand our changing experience of home.

Lea Bradovich

My magical realist portraits depict a playful engagement with nature in her guise as the eternal feminine. Allegorical figures wear honeycomb garb, butterfly crowns, and caterpillar necklaces. Last summer's leaves are raiment for their decorative pleasure, metaphoric compost for the eye. Mythopoetic headgear is often entomological, hats display life cycles, food sources and sometimes predators as well.

As a child I was entranced by the tiny worlds which flourished in the back yard, realms of bees with their royal families, worm like caterpillars who sprouted fairy wings and took flight, the heroic odysseys of the birds who reappeared in the spring. Immersed in fairy tales and myth I gave these creatures human traits. Years later these early fascinations with narrative, myth and wonderment reappeared in my painting. Delight is sufficient reason to proceed, and so I have.

Although my academic training was steeped in modernism, I've lately studied classical painting. In... Read More

John Hitchcock

John Hitchcock was born in 1967 in Lawton, Oklahoma. He is a contemporary artist and musician. He earned his MFA in printmaking and photography at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas and received his BFA from Cameron University, Lawton, Oklahoma. He has been the recipient of The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artistic Innovation and Collaboration grant, New York; Jerome Foundation Grant, Minnesota; the Creative Arts Award and Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts at the University of Wisconsin. He is currently an Artist and the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he teaches screenprinting, relief cut, and installation art.

Hitchcock’s work has been exhibited at numerous national and international venues, notably "Air Land Seed” and “Epicentro: Re Tracing the Plains” curated by Nancy Marie Mithlo on the occasion of the Venice Biennale 54th and 55th International Art Exhibition at the University of Ca' Foscari,... Read More

Tilly Woodward

Tilly Woodward graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the University of Kansas. She is Curator of Academic and Community Outreach at Grinnell College Museum of Art, and Founding Director of the Pella Community Art Center (1989-2007). Her work has been exhibited in more than 191 museums and galleries nationally and can be found in museum, corporate and private collections in Israel, Ghana, Uganda, India, and throughout the United States. Collections include the Addison Gallery of American Art, Des Moines Art Center, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Meredith Corporation, University of Iowa Museum of Art, West Publishing and Vermeer Manufacturing. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including two Fellowships for Drawing from the National Endowment for the Arts, and has initiated many arts outreach projects designed to help communities address specific social issues, foster creativity, build tolerance and... Read More

Heather Swan

Heather Swan's poems have appeared in such journals as Terrain, Minding Nature, Poet Lore, Phoebe, The Raleigh Review, The Hopper, Midwestern Gothic and Cold Mountain, and in many anthologies. She is the author of the poetry collections A Kinship with Ash (Terrapin), which was a finalist for the ASLE Book Award, and Dandelion (Terrapin). She is also a recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, the Maud Weinshenk Award, the August Derleth Prize for Poetry, and an honorable mention for the Lorine Niedecker Award. Her nonfiction has appeared in Aeon, Belt, Catapult, Edge Effects, Emergence, ISLE, Minding Nature, and The Learned Pig. Her book Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories from the Field (Penn State Press) won the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. A companion book, Where the Grass Still Sings: Stories of Insects and Interconnection, will be released in May 2024. She teaches environmental literature and... Read More

PLAN YOUR VISIT

Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.

Our galleries are open Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm, and other programs take place throughout the week. Please check the events calendar and education section for details.

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