Dane County visual artist Kelly Parks Snider offers the community an opportunity for social healing and connection through her new exhibit Between Spaces. A free reception in the gallery will be held on Saturday, June 18, starting at 6:30 p.m. with a gallery talk at 7 p.m. Parks Snider will discuss her work and read from her collection of poems written during the pandemic. She will be joined by guest speaker Dr. Richard Davidson, founder and director of The Center for Healthy Minds, who will lead a conversation on resiliency and wellbeing. The exhibit runs Tuesday, May 31 through Saturday, Aug. 6, 2022.
Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 12-5pm (free). The galleries will be closed July 9, 2022. Please check our current COVID-19 safety guidelines before your visit.
Artist Statement
“Between Spaces” is an interdisciplinary project that combines Parks Snider’s visual art and poetry created in response to and during the COVID-19 pandemic and features large-scale monoprints, paintings, wood sculptures, fiber art and installations composed of blown glass and found objects.
“A ‘between space’ is a disrupted state of ambiguous loss and uncertainty in which our former way of being is forever changed,” said Parks Snider. “Disruptions are the new normal. Our world is in constant transition filled with uncertainties: the ongoing pandemic, the challenges to our democratic ways of functioning, the escalating climate crisis and personal hardships faced by too many.”
As an artist, Parks Snider believes that creativity flourishes in times of uncertainty, and that a reimagination of this world and our capabilities to make change is needed. Her new work reflects her journey, a guided path to wellbeing, grounded in art, self-reflection and connection. She offers it to the public in hope that it will be useful to others because “building a resilient world is in the interests of everyone.”
“Between Spaces” serves as the inspiration for other project activities throughout the community in May and June that acknowledge the challenging roles women, front line healthcare workers and young people have experienced during the pandemic and chart a way forward: (1) The Banner Day Project, (2) two evenings of visual art, music and movement and (3) youth art workshops.
Youth Art Workshops – June 13-17, Arts + Literature Laboratory: Parks Snider will lead five days of youth arts workshops to groups of grade school and middle school students. Curriculum includes mindfulness and meditation, a group artmaking project focused on helping youth increase media literacy and individual art and writing projects that give participants an opportunity to share positive messages for other young people and the world.
