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On View

Passages: Tales of the Snow MigrantImage by Claudia Esslinger, Passages: Tales of the Snow Migrant (installation view)

Claudia Esslinger

Burton D. Morgan Gallery
September 3 – December 6, 2024

Artist Talk: September 10, 4 p.m.

Exploring the connection between migration and a changing climate, the dreamlike narrative of a character navigating a frozen but melting world appears in a projection. A simple kayak is her insufficient transportation. Skeletal boats hang above sandbags that hug the border walls as an animated life preserver floats around the room.

This work combines concerns about the ever-present climate emergency with a focus on the human cost of that devastation. Through it Esslinger hopes we will consider the human migrant driven by climate change with empathy and action. What can we do to address this increasingly urgent problem?

This project was prompted by two journeys taken by the artist. The first was to southern Chile, where the artist had the opportunity as an artist-in-residence to explore an ecological preserve and also fly over Cape Horn. Esslinger worked in the presence of ecologists and climatologists, who left southern Chile for expeditions to Antarctica. They spoke often about the melting glaciers that were causing water levels around the earth to rise. The other sojourn was a three month stay in Italy. Envisioning the migrant path through southern Italy into Europe was a daily reality, as migrants sold wares on the streets. Stories of deaths during crossings of the Mediterranean were prevalent in the news.

Performer Balinda Craig-Quijada is Professor of Dance at Kenyon College. Music is by Charlotte Malin, an independent composer based in Northampton, Massachusetts. Funding for this exhibition generously provided by the Julia Shoolroy Halloran Endowed Fund.

Learn More

Image: Claudia Esslinger, Passages: Tales of the Snow Migrant (installation view), 2024. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Avebury Road by MJ Sharp, Cornwall, UK, 2022. Our Disappearing Darkness: A Meditation on Losing the Night

MJ Sharp

Sussel Gallery
September 3 – December 6, 2024

Artist Talk: September 17, 4 p.m.

What have we lost by our disconnection from the deep enveloping nocturnal dark and the starry skies that fueled the world’s mythologies?

For most of human history, night was a profound experience, untouched by artificial light. Today, true darkness is a rare luxury. Light pollution obscures the stars and disrupts our own creaturely adaptation to night.

Photographer MJ Sharp delved into this question while exploring the prehistoric landscapes of Cornwall, England—a region known for its preservation of dark skies and a dense concentration of ancient stone structures. Archaeological evidence suggests these sites were visited at night or in the twilight of dusk and dawn.

Sharp’s images provoke us to rethink our relationship with light, encouraging us to step away from the ever-present glow of the modern world and rekindle our ancient bond with the night sky.

Funding for this exhibition generously provided by the Julia Shoolroy Halloran Endowed Fund.

Learn More

Image credit: MJ Sharp, Avebury Road, Cornwall, UK, 2022. Photograph courtesy of the artist.

2018-2024

2024

COLLECT: New Acquisitions

COLLECT: New AcquisitionsCOLLECT: New Acquisitions celebrates the generous contributions of donors to the Art Museum over the past five years. From the earliest years of the College, alumni and affiliates have supported its teaching and learning mission with gifts of art, artifacts, and funds. Donations comprise the greatest part of the Art Museum’s collection; each tells a story about the collectors, their interests, and their relationships to the college.

Purchases of artwork for the Art Museum have been rare throughout its history due to a lack of dedicated funds. The recent establishment of the Raymond Machesney Art Endowment has allowed us to explore new directions for the museum collection to grow. Over the past five years, new aquistions have been chosen to reflect critical contemporary ideas and social concerns such as justice, labor, and life during a global pandemic and to increase the representation of Black, Native American, and queer artists in the collection.

This semester, we invite our community to participate in conversation with us to select a new work for the collection and help us set priorities for future purchases.

Funding for this exhibition generously provided by the Muriel Koslow Art Exhibition Endowment. Many thanks to the Raymond Machesney Art Endowment, the Lauretta M. Dennis Endowed Art Fund, the Charlene Derge Sussel ’53 Revocable Trust, Thomas R. Ford, Terry Schupbach-Gordon and Toby Gordon, and John Szoke for their gifts of artwork.

2023

Mirror Mirror

Focusing on issues of identity as women, as artists, mothers, wives, daughters, and friends these contemporary artists embrace their personal experiences in socially significant ways. Sometimes the work directly mirrors their own struggles, and at other times presents new realities in which their full power can be expressed.

These images and narratives convey truths about the inner lives of women and the ways they exist and interact in the world. A language of icons and symbols communicate deeply personal mythologies that relate conflicting feelings about sexuality, domesticity, motherhood, and female strength and vulnerabilities.

The intimate aspects of these artworks make them strong, relevant, and important today.

Organized by Fowler Artistic LLC and the Springfield Museum of Art. Curated by Christine Fowler Shearer, PhD.

Exhibition design and installation by Doug McGlumphy, CW Art Museum Preparator & Collections Manager. Program support and design for promotional materials by Tracy Mathys, Administrative Coordinator.

Funding generously provided by the Muriel Koslow Art Exhibition Endowment.

Essential Matter

The artists in this exhibition have strategically sourced and transformed the materials from which their work was made.

In each case, the meaning of the artwork hinges on this process – none of them could be composed from wholly new materials. The works hint at or allude to the original purpose of their materials as their fundamental characteristics carry through into new creations.

These artworks and their makers grapple with deeply human and universal themes and issues – the ways that we relate to our built, designed, and inhabited environments; stewardship of the ecosystem; our relationships and communities; how we imagine, create, and invent; and the nature of art itself.

Many thanks to the artists who have lent their work to this exhibition: Doug McGlumphy, John Sabraw, and Petra Soesemann. 

Curated by Marianne Eileen Wardle, Director/Curator. Exhibition design and installation by Doug McGlumphy, CW Art Museum Preparator & Collections Manager. Installation assistance from Mike and Charlie McGlumphy, Jonah McGlumphy, Ollie Bream, and Noah Fox. Program support and design for promotional materials by Tracy Mathys, Administrative Coordinator. 

This exhibition was funded by The College of Wooster and is made possible by the generosity of donors to the College and Art Museum.

2022

Contained: The Art of Holding it Together

The College of Wooster Art Museum collection holds containers from around the globe spanning over 3500 years of human history. Nearly all were gifts to the college, marking relationships of trust and care.

Containers are objects that enable trade, hospitality, preservation, and nourishment. These vessels mark the traces of human interaction and most of those exhibited here show signs of use. They were made, handled, bought, sold, and given by human hands far from Wooster.

In short, they hold us together.

Contained Exhibit
Delicious Dishes

Delicious Dishes celebrates the everyday traditions that bind us to family, friends, and community, and the containers that make carrying them out possible. Many thanks to the 10 members of the College of Wooster community who entrusted us with their stories, recipes, and cherished containers. This project was conceived by Marianne Wardle in consultation with Jodi Robison and Tracy Mathys.

Tracy Mathys facilitated and implemented the project and created the layouts of text, images, and recipes. Installation by Doug McGlumphy.

View Stories and Recipes

Your Food is Fighting

May 14-30, 2022 | On Display Throughout Downtown Wooster

View Virtual Exhibit

2022 Senior I.S. Exhibition

Senior I.S. Studio Art Portfolios

Studio Art Class of 2022

Iván Akiri
Griffin Carnett
Sydney Clifton
Etta DeMartino
Maya McDonald
Catie Rogan
Patrick Wellman
Xiangjie Rebecca Wu

Painting Biathlon: Marina Mangubi

photo of an artist riding skis under an urban archPainter, printmaker, and installation artist Marina Mangubi explores sport as a medium of performance and social inquiry. Taking on the structure, limitations, and challenges of biathlon, a modern sport combining cross-country skiing and rifle target shooting, the artist investigates physical conditioning and limitations, the experience of traversing unique and challenging topography, artmaking in unpredictable circumstances, and a willingness to return to earlier states of curiosity and openness to the unexpected. A continuing project, the works in this exhibition spring from three artist residencies: Banff Centre, Canada (2015); Joshua Tree National Park, California (2016); and Siena Art Institute, Italy (2019).  In each locale, Mangubi structured a circuit for cross-country skis, snow or roller, broken by stations at which she stopped to paint or create digital drawings. The demands of endurance skiing and artmaking, while both requiring control of form, focus, and timing, were placed in opposition: the engagement of large muscle groups in expansive motion versus the fine motor skills underlying painting and drawing; a long view across a moving landscape versus the focus on a fixed spot; forward movement versus stillness.

The exhibition presents video documentation of the process, paintings and drawings done on site, and prints and paintings created subsequently. Additionally, an experimental community collaboration, which stems from the Breckenridge Creative Arts residency (2020), is planned.

Themes and questions that can be considered within the context of this exhibition include:

  • Experimentation, physical challenge, and the discipline of preparation
  • The relationships between sport and politics
  • Sport as an art form
  • The landscape as it is navigated, transformed, managed, and damaged by human intervention
  • Acquiring knowledge through movement (movement-mediated cognition)

Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project

a black and white image of three women wearing jingle dresses with their hands held up, reading At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, troubled by the toll of the pandemic on the world, and especially his Navajo community, the turmoil of racial and political difference, and economic challenges, photographer Eugene Tapahe dreamed of the peace and healing brought by the jingle dress dance on sacred lands. Intended as a healing practice, The Jingle Dress Project was launched and the group began their journey to heal the land and the people.

The images in this exhibition reflect an ongoing artistic collaboration and offer an opportunity to connect and process our experiences during the pandemic, to think about the land and our stewardship of the environment, to consider the contributions and practices of contemporary Native Americans, and to engage the power of healing and creativity.

The Jingle Dress Project includes photographer Eugene Tapahe; dancers Joanni Begay, Sunni Begay, Dion Tapahe, and Erin Tapahe; and logistics manager Sharon Tapahe. (Photographs courtesy Eugene Tapahe)

2021

About Face

Faces serve as the primary way we identify one another. They communicate individuality, heredity, emotions, and attitudes. This exhibition celebrates artistic interpretations of faces alongside current scientific understanding about the face’s unique relevance for human interaction. How do we recognize each other and how does that affect the way we forge relationships? How do we wordlessly communicate our innermost feelings, even when we may want to hide them? How do artists challenge us to rethink the way we see each other and ourselves?

The exhibition includes artworks over many centuries from around the world by Philip Akkerman, Ivan Albright, Anna Arnold, Félix Braquemond, Clarence Carter, Chuck Close, Audrey Flack, Arthur Heintzelman, Käthe Kollwitz, Henri Matisse, Michael Nachtrieb, Tom Phillips, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt van Rijn, Michael Rothenstein, William Paul Thomas, Stacy Lynn Waddell, and Andy Warhol, among others.

BEHOLDEN

A sensitive portraitist, William Paul Thomas creates images of people within his circle of friends and family, calling on the viewer to consider their essential humanity and inner emotional lives. The larger than life-size portraits convey honor, respect, and even reverence for everyday people, and act as a bridge for us to connect.

BEHOLDEN asks us to look closely and consider how much we owe one another.

2021

2020 will go down in history as a devastating year that included a raging pandemic, political unrest, and global demonstrations. While artists are currently writing the visual record of 2020, Turmoil and Activism looks back at how artists responded to the wars, changing environment, and racial/identity issues of their era. Artists represented in the exhibition include George Grosz, Francisco Jose Goya y Lucientes, Hung Liu, Kiki Smith, David Nash, Elizabeth Catlett, Lorna Simpson, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Francis Bacon, and Andy Warhol.

2020

  • Bridget Murphy Milligan Wonder Tales: The Imprint of Child’s Play

2019

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Tracy Cosgriff and students in the Spring 2019 History of Prints seminar in the Burton D. Morgan Gallery during the research phase of “Printing History: Observation, Imagination, and the Ephemeral.”

2018

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“Kim Julja, Dodu Jeju,” 2013 by Hyung S. Kim is one of the works in “The Ocean After Nature,” September 11-November 8, 2018 at the CWAM. Above: Hyung S. Kim (b. 1965, South Korea), “Kim Julja, Dodu Jeju,” 2013; Digital photograph on canvas; 90 1/2 h x 59 w (inches), Courtesy of the artist and ICI, New York.

  • Robyn O’Neil: WE, THE MASSES: About

2013-2017

2017

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January 17-March 10, 2017, :Alison Saar: “Breach.” Above: Alison Saar, “Breach,” 2016; wood, ceiling tin, found trunks, washtubs, and miscellaneous objects; 155 h x 60 w x 51 d (inches). Courtesy of the artist and L.A. Louver Gallery, Venice, CA.

2016

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One of the works in the CWAM’s Fall 2016 exhibition, “Dusk to Dusk,” Aristarkh Chernyshev’s “Knode” twists news headlines into a constant flow, referencing the endless news cycle that seems to feed on itself.

  • Dusk to Dusk: Unsettled, Unraveled, Unreal: Image Gallery
  • 2016 Studio Art Senior Independent Study Group Exhibition: Catalogue
  • PICTURE YOURSELF: Selfies, Cellphones, and the Digital Age: Brochure

2015

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Tom Thayer’s “Chorus of Voices,” from the Fall 2015 exhibition, “Archetypes, Puppets, & Power.”

  • Archetypes, Power, & Puppets:About | Brochure
  • Walter Zurko: Looking up to look down:  About
  • 2015 Studio Art Senior Independent Study Group Exhibition:
  • FREE PLAY: About | Artist bios

2014

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Willie Cole (American, b.1955), “With a Heart of Gold,” 2005-2006 (detail); Shoes, wood, screws, metal, and staples, 85 w x 16 h (inches), Courtesy of Alexander, and Bonin, New York, NY Willie Cole (American, b.1955), “With a Heart of Gold,” 2005-2006 (detail); Shoes, wood, screws, metal, and staples, 85 w x 16 h (inches), Courtesy of Alexander, and Bonin, New York, NY

2013

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Carrie Mae Weems, “I Looked and Looked to See What So Terrified You,” 2006, one of the works in Deborah Willis’s exhibition “Posing Beauty in African American Culture,” at the CWAM in January 2013.

2008-2012

2012

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Antti Laitinen’s “It’s My Island,” three-channel projection in the Burton D. Morgan Gallery.

https://youtu.be/AKzIOR7EJ9o

2011

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“Within the realm of possibilities,” 2011, by Alejandro Almanza Pereda.

2010

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Gallery view from “Chinese and Japanese Painting and Calligraphy.”

  • Chinese and Japanese Calligraphy and Painting: Announcement

2009

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Alison Elizabeth Taylor, “Room,” 2007-2008, (detail), 96 h x 120 w x 96 d (inches), from the Fall 2009 exhibition, “Alison Elizabeth Taylor.” “Room” is now in the collection of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas.

2008

2003-2007

2007

  • The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art: Works on Paper: Announcement | Student Response Essays
  • Selections from the AT&T Collection
  • Northeastern Waters
  • Ceramics: Selections form the Permanent Collection
  • Art of Africa: Objects from the Collection of Warren Robbins
  • Global Anxieties: Nine Perspectives on a Changing Planet: Brochure

2006

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Gallery view from Mel Kendrick’s solo exhibition at the CWAM in 2006.

  • Jim Campbell: Brochure
  • Hiraki Sawa: Brochure
  • Convergence 2006: A Regional Juried Exhibition
  • 2006 Five Colleges of Ohio Student Biennial
  • Mel Kendrick: Brochure

2005

2004

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Lorna Simpson, “Easy to Remember,” 2001, was part of a survey of Simpson’s work at the CWAM in 2004.

  • Lorna Simpson
  • Walter Zurko: hand/i/work
  • Marina Mangubi: Eight Board Feet
  • 2004 Studio Art Faculty Exhibition
  • The Possibilities of Prints
  • Radical Line: Innovation in Chinese Contemporary Painting

2003

  • Kate Budd: Honey
  • Irina Nakhova: When Will You Be Home?
  • Convergence 2003: Regional Juried Exhibition
  • 2003 Five Colleges of Ohio Student Biennial
  • WWII Posters from the Permanent Collection
1998-2002

2002

  • Ann Hamilton: tracing language
  • The Contemporary Landscape
  • Ken Aptekar: Painting Between the Lines 1990-2000
  • Hollis Sigler: Selections from the Breast Cancer Journal
  • Representations of Illness and Healing in African Art

2001

  • Russian Brass Icons
  • Marina Mangubi: Music on the Bones
  • Bridget Murphy: A Public Confession
  • Michael Mercil: promise
  • Pipo: AnOther Western
  • 2001 Five Colleges of Ohio Student Biennial
  • t(here): Holly Morrison
  • The Romance of Architecture: Prints from the John Taylor Arms Collection

2000

  • Claudia Bernardi: Frescoes on Paper
  • Walter Zurko: Work
  • Johnny Coleman: For Oshon, A Gathering of Brothers
  • Nanette Yannuzzi Macias: Drawings
  • Steel and Real Estate: Margaret Bourke-White and Corporate Culture in Cleveland

1999

  • Selections from the Chinese Collection

1998

  • French and British Etchings 1850-1900
  • Hung Liu: A Ten-Year Survey 1988-1998
  • Claudia Esslinger: Civil Divination