*To read Press Release on the Rockford Art Museum website, please click HERE.

FEB 7–MAY 25, 2020 | ROCKFORD ART MUSEUMSPONSORED BY SMITH CHARITABLE FOUNDATION, COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS + ROCKFORD AREA ARTS COUNCIL

This 15-week major exhibition features Derrick Buisch and Laurie Hogin who use color, imagery, narrative, and symbols to stimulate our senses and challenge our perceptions. Vibrating lines morph into playful symbols of pop culture and brilliant color combinations provide jolts of electric energy in paintings. Meant to be visually engaging and potentially unnerving, Buisch combines evocative imagery with moments of uneasy hilarity. Hogin creates beautiful yet bizarre apocalyptic landscapes and allegorical animal portraits saturated in brilliant color and imbued with elaborate narratives reflecting pop culture and the human experience. Deeply concerned by the social and political issues in our contemporary culture, her dazzling yet disturbing narrative allegories portray the disastrous effects of drug abuse, altered food sources, over-consumerism and misguided political and economic forces.

Also featured in this dynamic exhibition is a custom-designed playlist and reading list of the artists’ favorite music and books, as well as related programming.

Derrick Buisch received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and his MFA from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. A professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison since 1997, he has exhibited regionally and nationally. Buisch is represented in several public and private collections, including Rockford Art Museum.

Laurie Hogin received her BFA from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Now Associate Director and Director of Graduate Studies at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she has exhibited across the country and around the world. Laurie Hogin is represented in numerous public and private collections, including the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa; Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois; Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso, Indiana; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and Rockford Art Museum.