Pauly Friedman Art Gallery Highlights Women Artists in “Flashpoints: Material/Intent/Fused”

Pauly Friedman Art Gallery Highlights Women Artists in “Flashpoints: Material/Intent/Fused”

The Pauly Friedman Art Gallery at Misericordia University will exhibit “Flashpoints: Material/Intent/Fused” from February 3 to March 31, 2023. With a shared focus on the medium of encaustic, or pigmented hot wax, four women artists show how materials can take on new textures and shapes when fused with wax. This exhibition of paintings, assemblage, and installation pieces, is free to the public and appropriate for all ages.

“Flashpoints” Curator and artist Reni Gower was inspired by the similarities in geometric decorative patterns from around the globe, including motifs drawn from Islamic and Celtic traditions to create two grids of encaustic paintings. The thick arrangements of saturated colors invite meditation, as if looking at stained glass windows. Professor Gower retired from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018 and is a 2020 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant Recipient.

Artist Kristy Deetz draws from elements of Renaissance paintings to create the illusion of moving cloth. Combining these elements with digital technology, Deetz plays with the motif of drapery to represent a fluctuating state of “transformation” or “becoming.” Deetz is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

In the installation piece “Obscurely Relevant,” artist Jane Nodine’s more than one hundred individual found objects coated in wax invite the viewer for a closer look. Embellished with crocheted fiber and natural materials, the works appear malleable and organic yet mysterious. Nodine is University Gallery Director and Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of South Carolina Upstate.

Personal objects such as family letters and repurposed tea bags, when fused with wax, take on different structures and qualities in Daniella Woolf’s creations. The letters have been shredded and loosely woven to form transparent drapes that hold the secrets of the letters without revealing them. Woolf holds an M.A. in Textile Structures from University of California Los Angeles and has produced books and instructional courses on the encaustic processes.

On Thursday, March 16, at 6:00 p.m., in celebration of Women’s History Month, the public is invited to a free reception to meet Curator and Artist Reni Gower.

This exhibition and related programming was made possible with the support of the Sandra Dycewski Maffei Endowment Fund for the Modern Visual Arts.

Regular gallery hours are 12-7 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday and 12-5 p.m. Friday to Monday. Other times are available by appointment. The gallery is closed during university closings and holidays. Admission is always free to all. Please call or check the gallery website to confirm visit. To schedule a free tour or private appointment, or for more information, please contact the Gallery Director Lalaine Little, PhD, at (570) 674-8420 or email.