Mary Bero is to receive the 2023 Forward Art Prize
Read MoreMary Bero Receives 2023 Forward Art Prize Winner
RED WALLFLOWER, Mixed Fiber Media, 14 x 10”
Mary Bero Featured in Racine Art Museum's, "Fibers" Collection Spotlight
*To see more details on the Racine art Museum’s website, please click HERE
Fibers
One of the largest in the US, RAM's contemporary basket collection forms a major portion of its works of fiber art. A substantial gift from Karen Johnson Boyd helped RAM establish this comprehensive body of modern baskets. It represents at least 25 major artists who work with fibers, including Lillian Elliot, John McQueen, Leon Niehues and Kay Sekimachi. These artists used both natural and industrial materials to create the works in RAM's collection, in addition to techniques such as looping, knotting, and papermaking.
RAM is also seeking to document leading figures and techniques in the Art Fabric movement, incorporating tapestries, wall hangings, quilts, and wearable art in its collection.
Collection Spotlight - Mary Bero
Mary Bero To Be Featured In Two Exhibitions This Summer At The Racine Art Museum
The first exhibition, which is currently on display and will run until August 27, 2017 is called The Box Project: Uncommon Threads.
Taken from the Racine Art Museum website:
Organized by the Cotsen Foundation for Academic Research (CFAR) with RAM, this traveling exhibition presents works commissioned by Lloyd Cotsen between 2004 and 2013 together with 22 large-scale fiber art pieces on loan.
Combining the box project commissions—all works that fit within a 14 x 14 or 14 x 23 inch box—and large-scale works with interviews, material samples, maquettes, correspondence, and concept sketches, the exhibition offers insight about the artists and their processes. It showcases their exploration of material and concept, their willingness to push the definitions of fiber, and the dynamics of the collector/artist relationship.
MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
A related hardcover book titled The Box Project: Works from the Lloyd
Cotsen Collection is available now in the RAM Museum Store
EXHIBITION EVENTS
MEMBERS MATTER Special Tour and Reception Event
with RAM Executive Director and Curator of Collections Bruce W. Pepich
Thursday, July 27
5:30 - 8:00 pm, Tour at 6:30 pm
$20 admission, RAM members free
ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION
Masae Bamba, Jim Bassler, Mary Bero, Zane Berzina, N. Dash, Virginia Davis, Carson Fox, Shigeki Fukumoto, John Garrett, Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Helena Hernmarck, Agneta Hobin, Pat Hodson, Kiyomi Iwata, Gere Kavanaugh, Ai Kijima, Hideaki Kizaki, Lewis Knauss, Gerhardt Knodel, Naomi Kobayashi, Nancy Koenigsberg, Gyöngy Laky, Jun Mitsuhashi, Paola Moreno, Barbara Murak, Kyoko Nitta, Heidrun Schimmel, Cynthia Schira, Hisako Sekijima, Carol Shinn, Sherri Smith, Aune Taamal, Hadi Tabatabai, Koji Takaki, Richard Tuttle, Peter Weber
The second exhibition, which is also currently on display and will run through September 24, 2017 is called Small Gifts from Big Donors.
Taken from the Racine Art Museum website:
When opening boxes from donors, RAM staff have often expressed the time-honored phrase, “good things come in small packages.” Taking that saying at face value, this exhibition series focuses on the small-scale gifts of twelve significant donors to RAM’s collection. These supporters have given large numbers of artworks over the years. Thanks to their gifts combined with those from other donors, the museum now owns over 9,000 pieces, making it America’s largest contemporary craft collection.
The collectors honored in this exhibition series include Dale and Doug Anderson, Devra Breslow, Gail M. Brown, David and Jacqueline Charak, Camille and Alex Cook, Lloyd Cotsen, Robert W. Ebendorf and Aleta Braun, Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, Jane and Arthur Mason, Donna Moog, Donna Schneier and Leonard Goldberg, and Donald and Carol Wiiken.
Throughout 2017, selections from their gifts will be featured, with four donors represented at a time. Some have also given larger size and/or two-dimensional works that do not fit the parameters of the gallery space. This gallery was chosen to offer visitors an intimate viewing and to see “at a glance” what types of work have appealed to these collectors.
ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION
Junichi Arai, Mary Bero, Brother Thomas Bezanson, Rose Cabat, Kat Cole, Ramón Puig Cuyàs, Wouter Dam, Virginia Davis, Daniel DiCaprio, Robert W. Ebendorf, Teresa Faris, Elsa Bates Freund, Albrecht Greiner-Mai, Chris Heilman, David Hopper, David R. Huchthausen, Jack Ink, Nancy Koenigsberg, Zachery Lechtenberg, K. William LeQuier, Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, Rosemarie Lierke, Tara Locklear, Tom McGlauchlin, Harrison McIntosh, Gary Noffke, John Nygren, Bryan Petersen, Joyce Roessler, Michael F. Rohde, Jolanta Rudzka-Habisiak, Jo Anne Russo, Preston Singletary, Gizella Solti, Lisabeth Sterling, Lino Tagliapietra, J. Fred Woell and Jim Cotter, Beatrice Wood, and Laura Wood
You can learn more about seeing these exhibitions by clicking HERE.
Mary Bero's Work Included In Book Titled Artistry in Fiber
Mary Bero in Innovators and Legends through September 7, 2014
Mary Bero's work is in the nationally traveling exhibition INNOVATORS & LEGENDS: Generations in Textiles and Fibers. Organized by the Muskegon Museum of Art, Innovators and Legends explores the explosion of fiber as a fine arts movement during the latter half of the 20th century with over 75 works by 50 artists. The exhibition tells the story of the ongoing transformation of fiber arts from the functional and decorative to the innovative and experimental, and the creative potential of the wide array of diverse materials and techniques being used today. Contemporary themes such as narrative, identity, ecology, recycling, and political thought are explored, while continuing to draw upon the beauty and visual richness achieved through color, pattern, texture, and form.
The idea for the exhibition was conceived by Geary Jones, a Grand Rapids, Michigan based artist and teacher and has traveled to the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, New York, the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky and the University Art Museum of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. Currently at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, IA, Bero's work was featured on for the building's banner.
Read MoreMary Bero – “Stuffed Head, Breathing Space”
Mary Bero, a self-taught artist, is interested in combining multiple techniques to create her intricate work. “Stuffed Head, Breathing Space” made of silk, cotton, and polyfil is both painterly and sculptural. Like many of her works, this piece features an iconic face: the eyes stare out at the viewer and the face reflects her influence of masks in primitive art. A relatively large work for Bero, the image measures 8.5 x 5.25 inches. The face is covered in clouds and the “hair” looks like a rainbow of thread. Bero is constantly challenging herself to start a work in a new way, calling this her “neo-vision.” Always fresh, and never boring, close examination of the work of Mary Bero reveals her patience through countless tiny stitches in a dynamic arrangement.
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