This exhibition features the most recent work from Penelope Jencks’ traveling retrospective organized by the Boston University School of Visual Arts. Her series of eight 10-foot-tall plaster figures, presented alongside her intimate bronze, plaster, and terracotta sculptures, are the culmination of a distinguished 40-year career. A member of the National Academy of Design and the Royal British Society of Sculptors, Jencks’ numerous awards include a National Endowment of the Arts Commendation for Design Excellence. Her celebrated public commissions include her monumental sculpture of Eleanor Roosevelt for Riverside Park in New York. A 47-page color catalog accompanies the exhibition.

Ron Tarver’s photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally and are in many distinguished collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., and the State Museum in Harrisburg, Pa. Tarver has earned numerous awards, grants, and fellowships, including a 2001 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Geographic Magazine, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His work is represented by the Sande Webster Gallery, Philadelphia. Tarver has been a staff photographer at The Philadelphia Inquirer since 1983.

Bill Freeland’s exhibition features recent sculptures and drawings together with signature works from his more than 50-year career. In his work, Freeland offers metaphors to reorient the viewer to nature, environment, and the basic rituals of living. His sculpture can be seen as a re-evaluation of the 19th century processes of bending wood and working with stone and steel. Freeland divides his time between Chester County, Pa., and County Mayo, Ireland. He has had numerous one-person exhibitions at distinguished venues including the Royal Hibernian Academy of Art, Dublin; Taylor Galleries, Dublin; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Delaware Art Museum; Oscarsson-Siegeltuch Gallery, New York; Touchstone Gallery, New York; and Dolan/Maxwell Gallery, New York.

Lecture: “Wonder, Transformation and the Nature of Artifice”, Jan. 25, 4:30 p.m.

Gallery Reception: 5:30–7 p.m.

In her mixed-media List Gallery installation, Sue Johnson examines the interrelationships between history, science, art, and identity. The exhibition presents highlights from her ongoing body of work: an The Alternative Encyclopedia. Through “reorganizing” our perception of the world, she explores the nature of picture making and the role of the artist in the production of knowledge and memory.

Concurrent McCabe Library Exhibition by Sue Johnson:

Cabinet of Wonders: Sources and Resources

McCabe Library will present Johnson’s artist’s books and drawings together with selections from her personal collection of prints, books, and ephemera as well as archival materials from McCabe Library’s collections.

Currently, the Steven Muller Distinguished Professor of the Arts and chair of the Art and Art History Department at St. Mary’s College in Maryland, Johnson has mounted more than 30 solo exhibitions and garnered numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Painting and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship. A color catalog will accompany the exhibition.

Two Voices features Ananian’s narrative sequence of paintings in casein (a milk-based medium). A split-screen device is used within each painting to suggest separateness, isolation, and simultaneous endeavor. Seldom used in figurative painting today, narrative sequences investigate chronology and simultaneity while maintaining one of the most primary qualities of painting: the distillation of a moment for closer examination. In contrast to conventional painting methods where contrasts in value create the illusion of space, casein’s limited value range tends to compress volume and depth. Such spatial tension contributes to his portrayal of psychologically intense characters and dilemmas. Ananian is an associate professor of painting and drawing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a frequent exhibitor in Philadelphia, having shown at Fan Gallery, Gross McCleaf Gallery, St. Joseph’s University, and The Pennsylvania Academy Fine Arts Museum.