Helen Hawley, Gabriel Pionkowski

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Gabriel Pionkowski

Art is not inert, and that’s a unifying theme of this dual show. Helen Hawley’s recent multimedia work questions how we absorb and interpret our interactions with the physical world. Gabriel Pionowski’s large-scale textile works (pictured), both weavings and deconstructions of weavings, are meditations on how things come together and how things fall apart. On exhibit through Nov. 3.

press release: September 13, 2019 to November 3, 2019, James Watrous Gallery • Overture Center for the Arts, 3rd Floor • Madison

Helen Hawley: The Blues of the Rain: "The books, sculpture, and paintings in my exhibit pose questions that are as poetic as they are ecological. They are about the flow of water, the ground we walk on, and our sense of the fleeting moment. My projects map potential relationships between ourselves and the world at large. I am wondering what it means to have a place in the world, especially relative to our environment. Many of the pieces are process-oriented, emphasize transience, and give special consideration to mark-making. One project, for example, uses participation from the rain to create a kind of meteorological journal. 

"I am interested in how rainfall, which makes a global impact, also makes us feel so much. Just as feelings are immeasurable, so is the ebb and flow of water, even as we quantify it and count it among our greatest resources."

Gabriel Pionkowski: Touching—Self—Touching: This collection of works directly addresses the subjectile, the idea that a painting’s subject is inextricable from its physical ground or support. Pionkowski constructs his paintings through a laborious process of repetitively deconstructing, hand-painting, and reconstructing canvas using multiple weaving processes. Within the dense, colorful weave, loose brushstrokes delineate flora and languid, desirous, solitary figures. These canvas works can be understood as an erotic dance of warp and weft, alternating exposure and withdrawal. They reflect Pionkowski’s hypothesis that to touch something or someone is always a form of self-touching.

Art Bites: Helen Hawley and Gabe Pionkowski

October 27 - 10:30am to 12:00pm, James Watrous Gallery • Overture Center for the Arts, 3rd Floor • Madison

Join experts and artists at the table for brunch and conversation inside the James Watrous Gallery. First in our second season of intimate, ticketed events that bring the visual and culinary arts together, Art Bites offers an exclusive opportunity to interact with artists Helen Hawley and Gabe Pionkowski over brunch. Artists Marianne Fairbanks and Chele Isaac, MMoCA curator Leah Kolb, and gallery director Jody Clowes will lead the conversation amid intricate weavings, blue raindrops, and biscuits and gravy.

Menu: Assorted frittatas, biscuits and gravy, yogurt, granola, and fruit, coffee and tea.

Registration is $25 for the general public and $20 for Academy members. Seating is limited. Advanced registration required. If you have any questions regarding our Academy membership status, please contact Matt Rezin, 608-733-6633 ext. 10.