Alison Gates, Colin Matthes

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courtesy Watrous Gallery

Works by Colin Matthes (left) and Alison Gates.

Works by Colin Matthes (left) and Alison Gates are on display at the James Watrous Gallery April 28-July 23, 2023.

media release: Alison Gates: Points of Departure;and Colin Matthes: The Days Go By Like Wildness; paired solo exhibitions. On View: April 28 to July 23, 2023. Artists' Reception: Friday, April 28, 6:30-8:00 pm.

Also: In celebration of World Wide Knit in Public Day, join us at the James Watrous Gallery for an afternoon of knitting and a gallery talk with exhibiting artist, Alison Gates. Working primarily within fiber arts, Gates uses her artistic practice as a way to explore deeper social issues such as climate change and gender. This event is in partnership with Fiddlesticks Knits, aiming to make the art and skill of fiber arts accessible to everyone. Bring your needles and your latest project and join the conversation! Let us know you're coming - RSVP here: https://www.wisconsinacademy.org/evenings/knitting-social-practice This event is free and open to all ages.

Upcoming solo exhibitions feature textiles by Alison Gates (Appleton) and drawings by Colin Matthes (Milwaukee), two artists who apply humor and wit to subjects as serious as survival skills and global warming.

"Colin Matthes' lively, direct drawing style reflects his improvisational, stream of consciousness approach. He combines hand-lettering and simple, vivid images that convey an urgent, unfiltered desire to communicate," according to Watrous Gallery Director Jody Clowes. "In contrast, Alison Gates uses traditional knitting patterns and clean, precise embroidery stitches to share mordant observations about communication, surface design, gender roles, and climate change."

Admission is free and the public is welcome. The James Watrous Gallery is located on the third floor of Overture Center for the Arts in downtown Madison. These exhibitions are made possible in part by a grant from Dane Arts.

The James Watrous Gallery is dedicated to celebrating Wisconsin artists. A program of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, the Watrous Gallery focuses on solo exhibits by contemporary Wisconsin artists and curated shows that reflect the Wisconsin Academy's interest in drawing connections between art and other disciplines.

Colin Matthes: The Days Go By Like Wildness: Growing up in a remote rural area, Colin Matthes learned to be resourceful, working with whatever was at hand. In 2011, while living on Ireland’s desolate west coast, he began a project of cataloguing the skills and information he’d need to survive without outside help. This was the inspiration for Matthes' ongoing series of “Essential Knowledge” drawings, which cover everything from surviving grizzly attacks and escaping a riptide to reading body language and the safe way to move a heavy object.

More recently Matthes has been drawing without a fixed agenda, using the quiet hours after his children’s bedtime to let pencil or brush roam freely with his imagination. With this unfettered approach, Matthes says (in his young daughter’s words), “the days go by like wildness.”

Alison Gates: Points of Departure: Alison Gates works primarily in textiles, using knitting and embroidery to explore issues of gender, climate change, and the way language and cultural traditions shift over time and in different contexts. Adding subtly embroidered words to printed textiles, she creates a quiet disturbance, a whisper of new meaning that shifts the pattern in unexpected directions. This exhibition will also include her Global Warming series of wool bikinis, hand-knitted in traditional patterns from northern Europe. These beautifully made bikinis use humor to raise a serious question. As the climate warms, what will happen to these northern knitting traditions, which are such important markers of cultural identity? Will they disappear like other traditions and skills that no longer suit the local climate, or evolve to suit changing conditions?