Arts + Literature Laboratory Exhibits

media release: Arts + Literature Laboratory galleries are open Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm.

The following exhibits will be on display at Arts + Literature Laboratory from Tuesday, November 15 to Thursday, December 22 (note new end date). The opening reception will be Friday, November 18, at 6:00pm.

"Heavy Is the Crown," an exhibition of work by Sharon L. Bjyrd, is part of the Bridge Work Madison program.

Sharon L. Bjyrd is best known for her vibrant portraits celebrating the beauty and diversity of the Black experience. Self-taught, with a few classes along the way, Sharon entered the art world as a second passion after a life slowdown due to chronic illness created the space to re-discover her love of art in the form of painting.

Sharon's work includes serving as a juror for Art Fair on the  Square 2022; “Honoring the Black Woman” exhibit which is on permanent display at Madison College; "Let's Talk About It, The Art, The Artists and The Racial Justice Movement on Madison's State Street" the book; the State St Mural Project, 2020; emerging artist at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art's Art Fair on the Square; and the “Flowers in the Garden exhibit at the historic South Side Community Art Center, Chicago.

Heavy is the Crown is a vibrant celebration of the beauty and strength of Black women. The work examines hair as an integral part of Black culture and explores the fabric of our continued ties to Africa as seen through the use of African print inspired headwraps and motifs. This group of paintings are an introduction to a new iconography of modern Black womanhood.

"What to Expect," an exhibition of work by Sarah Stankey, is also part of the Bridge Work Madison program (read more on the program below).

Sarah Stankey received an MFA in photography in 2019 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sarah earned a BFA in photography from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2013. Her studio practice includes photography, curating and research within zoology, limnology and geology. Her interest in the natural sciences and fine arts includes the history of museums, taxidermy and cabinets of curiosity. In addition to her fine art practice, Sarah enjoys working within museums and has spent time employed at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the UW-Zoological Museum and the UW-Geology Museum.

Artist statement: Deciding to become pregnant comes with loads of expectations. I planned, I read the books, I did everything correctly. I pictured what I would look like as an enormously pregnant glowing goddess of fertility, patiently awaiting the arrival of my baby and getting whisked off to the delivery room where I would have an uncomplicated birth, hold my newborn and immediately fall in love as we shared those first intimate, transcendental moments together. At twenty seven weeks gestation, only six months pregnant, that fantasy ended abruptly. I first saw my baby through multiple layers of plastic while I was still sliced open, lying motionless on a steel operating table, trying not to throw up. I was right about one thing, the moment I became a mother was transformative. The memory of our ninety days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is like a whiplash. It was not one traumatic day or event, but rather months. This exhibition is a culmination of me piecing my memories back together and attempting to live alongside the trauma.

"As All Existence" is an exhibition of work by Katherine Steichen Rosing.

Katherine Steichen Rosing explores invisible forces in forests and watersheds related to climate and other environmental issues through vividly-hued paintings, intricate mixed media works, and immersive installations.

Rosing's work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, including Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, and Beijing. Her work is included in public and private collections internationally, including the State of Wisconsin Collection.

She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the Forward Art Prize 2022. Furthering her environmental research, she was awarded artist residencies at the UW-Madison Department of Limnology’s Trout Lake Research Station and the St. Croix Watershed Research Station, sponsored by the Science Museum of Minnesota.

A long-time art educator, Rosing taught at colleges and universities in Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin, where she lives and maintains her studio. She served as curator and board member of ARC Gallery & Educational Foundation and the Chicago Women’s Caucus for Art. Rosing earned an MFA in painting and drawing from Northern Illinois University, a BFA from the University of Colorado-Denver, and a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis represents her work.

Rosing’s vividly colored paintings celebrate the vigor and persistence of life in forests and watersheds. With an intense awareness of the threats facing these ecosystems, these paintings envision hidden energies and intricate relationships between even the most minuscule creatures.

Her paintings are developed in many layers, with drawings, words, and marks inscribed in wet paint, sometimes revealing the underpainting but often buried in subsequent layers of color. These implanted inscriptions encrust the surface referencing invisible processes and microscopic forms and connections between forests, lakes, and the hydrologic cycle.

Recent artist residencies at environmental research stations in Minnesota and Wisconsin profoundly influenced the work in this exhibition. Rosing is also known for her somber immersive installations with suspended sculptural trees exploring climate and other connections to forests.

"Renascence and Waves," is an exhibition of work by Wendi Kent.

Wendi Kent is a queer artist, photographer, and teacher hailing from Austin, Texas, currently residing in Edgerton, Wisconsin. Her paintings are portraits of emotions and are often completed in one session. All pieces are mixed media consisting of acrylic paint, charcoal, graphite, pastel, and spray paint. These are visual representations of her feelings so they may be shared with and viewed by others. The process and results are a therapeutic experience of reliving and releasing these sensations in order to make a healthy and conducive space for new ones.

She is an outspoken advocate for de-stigmatizing mental illness and raising awareness of invisible disabilities. Wendi highly values being a mentor to Madison youth whether it be through art education, emotional support, facilitating valuable relationships, or activist initiatives. She aims to arm artists with what they may need to build coping skills through their technique. Sharing her process also works to supply viewers with the insight necessary to experience abstract art in new and innovative ways. She resides on a farm with her wife, 2 children, 2 dogs, a snake, and numerous other wild creatures, some welcome, some not so much.

Renascence and Waves is a collection of mixed media works all started and completed in the first half of 2021. It explores the emotions and experiences of new beginnings in middle age, love during a pandemic, and major life paths being drastically altered and intensely reborn. As someone with mental illness, I experience a great deal of emotional and psychological turbulence. As a physically disabled, neurodiverse person, chronic interruptions in my comfort make for an even wider range of unique lived experiences. The range of size, color saturation, textures, and tone, directly reflect this. These pieces are visual versions of sentiments so they may be shared with others. The process and results are a therapeutic experience of reliving and releasing these feelings in order to make a healthy and conducive space for new ones.

As a whole, this collection is meant to encourage viewers to acknowledge, accept, and welcome their immediate emotional reactions rather than working to find images that resemble familiar materializations. I hope to guide spectators through a brief journey of this notable period in my life. As a result, I believe they will depart with a new insight and the tools they need to continue their own journeys empathetically and better prepared.

Bridge Work is a collaborative endeavor initiated by Jason S. Yi and Leah Kolb of Plum Blossom Initiative (Wisconsin), with Mat Greiner of Chicken Tractor (Iowa), and Launa Bacon of Darger HQ (Nebraska), and joined in 2017 by the curators of Arts + Literature Laboratory (Madison). Bridge Work provides critical opportunities for emerging artists to broaden the scope of their professional connections and experiences. This multi-state project also endeavors to forge a more interconnected arts community throughout the region by facilitating meaningful artistic exchanges and dialogs among artists and art-centered organizations and professionals.

Bridge Work’s annual exhibition series aims to generate the public exposure necessary for artists to successfully network and establish beneficial relationships within the larger contemporary art community. The emerging artists invited to participate in this project express the energy, commitment, and willingness to benefit from the resources and guidance provided by each region’s facilitators. A culminating group exhibition brings together a diverse group of artists who are dedicated to their practices and poised to fully engage the contemporary art world.

To be eligible for the Bridge Work program, artists may be graduates of an art program or be self-taught, and must reside in the Dane County area and be able to commit to a year-long program.

In 2021, ALL transformed Bridge Work Madison from a single year to a two-year program by accepting the first cohort of four artists. These artists will take part from Fall 2021 through Spring 2023, with Ben Orozco and Emily Rudolph exhibiting in January 2022, and Sharon Bjyrd and Sarah Stankey exhibiting in November/December 2022.

Bridge Work Madison is supported by Dane Arts.