Overview
Distant Conversations: Ella Walker and Betty Woodman, is part of a new series of exhibitions at The Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH, that explore intergenerational dialogues and artistic conversations between practitioners who have not necessarily met in real life but whose work similarly resonates despite their differences.
The first installment of this series combines the work of British artist Ella Walker and American artist Betty Woodman, who use art-historical references in their work to revisit a male-dominated history of Western art and subvert its dominant narrative.
Distant Conversations: Ella Walker and Betty Woodman, is part of a new series of exhibitions at The Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH, that explore intergenerational dialogues and artistic conversations between practitioners who have not necessarily met in real life but whose work similarly resonates despite their differences.
The first installment of this series combines the work of British artist Ella Walker and American artist Betty Woodman, who use art-historical references in their work to revisit a male-dominated history of Western art and subvert its dominant narrative.
Ella Walker's monumental and yet evanescent canvases revisit the European medieval and Renaissance frescoes tradition, introducing the presence of women who defiantly challenge conventional representations of feminine in the arts and gently refuse to conform to the viewers' expectations. There is something slightly disturbing and uncanny in the posture, appearances, and actions of the women that animate Walker's images. Her paintings instantly evoke the crisp and almost surreal luminosity of Italian master Piero della Francesca and the clarity of the revolutionary proto-Renaissance painter Giotto, whose frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel (Padua, Italy) dating back to 1305 Walker directly references in the series of paintings entitled Theatre of Virtues and Vices that will be exhibited at the Currier. Walker's imagery, very much like Woodman's, collapses conventional readings of time. Both artists blend multiple styles to develop a visual language that becomes uniquely their own. The artistic dialogue between Walker and Woodman is recreated in the galleries by juxtaposing their work in a suggestive and poetic manner without rigid separations. The exhibition features a dozen artworks by each artist, including ceramics, installations, canvases, and works on paper.
