Brian Kjellenberg was the sculpture area technician for around fifteen years. Affectionately known to everyone as “Kj”, he was a retiree from his work as an aircraft engine mechanic at the 182 Airlift Wing National Guard base in Bartonville. After previously enrolling at Western Illinois University, he began to take sculpture and printmaking classes at Bradley. We were able to offer him the part time sculpture technician position at a point where there was an opening. Kj could fix anything, and enjoyed building tables, stools and cabinets. Kj opened the studio at 8 am on the days he drove in from Yates City and always had a pot of coffee brewing for everyone. He was prolific making sculptures out of a number of different materials. His energy and playful spirit kept the studio warm, and his handiwork, and some of his artwork, are daily reminders of him in the sculpture studio. We are very pleased to honor him with a solo exhibition and hope you are also warmed by his playful nostalgia.
Lisa Nelson Raabe is a collage artist who creates an emotional sense of place by using pigments, metal filings, glass, bits of nature and thread in combination with acrylic mediums to transform color and texture. Using both flexible and solid surfaces, the pieces hang in space or are mounted on the wall as images. The works exhibited in Sublime Idioms are investigations, questions and answers in search of a balance between the everyday and the substantive esoteric. I offer an internal world of presence seen and felt through a density of physical materials and structured line. My aim is to engender wonder and something beyond oneself as a tool to cultivate calm, self acceptance, joy and peace within a deeply receptive openness to the unexplained randomness of the everyday. As Thomas Merton is quoted, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
Finally, we’re back and able to present both our Gallery Exhibitions and our Visual Voices Guest Lecture Series in-person for the Fall 2021 semester and beyond.
And what better way to launch the new academic year than with an exhibition of Faculty, Adjunct and Emeritus art and design.
We’re really looking forward to welcoming our students back to campus with this first show. It is, quite rightly, a celebration after the past year of turmoil and uncertainty. However it also reflects the caution for our immediate future – Are we now truly entering post-pandemic… or is it simply a lull before another outbreak ‘storm’?
Here is the Fall 2021 semester line-up of exhibitions and Visual Voices guest lectures…
Gallery opening hours will typically be: Mon – Thur. 9am – 6:30pm. Fri. 9:30am – 4:30pm. Closed Weekends. However please call/contact our main office before hand: 309 677 2967/sjg@bradley.edu
The Department of Art and Design and Bradley University Galleries are proud to present our 2021 Student Portfolios. Please visit the exhibition websiteto view the work of our MFA, BFA, Photography and Graphic Design students.
View Virtual Exhibition: HERE View Exhibition Video: HERE
Because of Covid precautions, Bradley University Galleries are bringing exhibitions to the public virtually. However, the exhibitions themselves are very real! Director of University Galleries Erin Buczynski is staging all exhibitions in the gallery space, so that the artwork can be experienced as authentically as possible, though only through documentation. Unable to invite visitors to campus to view the artwork, curators Erin Buczynski and Hattie Lee devised an exhibition concept that responds to the limitations of this moment. Seen but not Felt fills the void left when visitors are not allowed in the gallery. The artwork inhabits the floor plane, stretching from wall to wall and up to windows.
The population that can actually view the artwork is an important one, the students in the Department of Art & Design. From the second floor gallery overlook, students have the ideal vantage point. The gallery skylights and floor-to-ceiling windows illuminate the collaged, undulating surfaces. What was a ground plane has become a picture plane filled with lush textures, objects, and imagery.
From curator Hattie Lee: Seen but Not Felt is an exhibition borne out of the impact Covid-19 has had on our society, which becomes reflected in our public spaces; empty galleries with paintings on the walls, but void of visitors to roam the floor and appreciate them, artwork seen through computer screens or windows without the physical space being activated by human presence to complement the artwork. What does it look like to create an exhibition of art pieces that are made to exist on the floor- a space usually open and maneuverable, but not available for usual function anymore? Seen but Not Felt is a collaboration of artists across multiple mediums, to create an installation in the Heuser Art Center Gallery that is designed to be seen from windows or on a screen. The space functions in a new way, just as we are all learning how to navigate space differently.Congratulations to participating artists: Heather Brammeier, Loreeta Brammeier, Erin Buczynski, Alexandra Dupont, Heather Ford, Nina Gospodin, Nichole Gronvold-Roller, Mie Kongo, Hattie Lee, Nicholas Nyland, Dylan Paschke, Lisa Nelson Raabe, Sydney Ryan, and Trish Williams.
Exhibition photos by University Photographer Evan Temchin. Video by Jake Anderson.
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Visit the virtual exhibition HERE View Video Walkthrough HERE
Paul Krainak’s new paintings plot fragments of industrial design, typography, and textile patterns in constructivist spaces. The images are post-vernacular, recognizing craft, outsider art, and regional architecture as aesthetically foundational.
Krainak is a painter and art writer who retired from Bradley University in 2020. He was Department Chair for ten years and the Founder and Director of the Inland Visual Studies Center for six. The Center was a collaborative project with the Sam Fox School of Art & Design at Washington University, St. Louis and the Department of Art at The Ohio State University in Columbus. He was awarded Professor Emeritus at Bradley in 2020.
Krainak has exhibited widely throughout the U.S. and internationally and lectured in numerous venues in the U.S., China, and Eastern Europe. He’s exhibited at Fassbender Gallery, N.A.M.E. Gallery, and the Hyde Park Art Center, in Chicago. He’s also shown at The Umbrella Factory, Nijmegen, Holland, Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA, and Semaphore, New York, NY. He is a former Associate Editor and Corresponding Editor of the New Art Examiner and ARTpapers. He’s contributed essays on contemporary art to numerous journals, exhibition catalogues and academic presses. These include the Kemper Museum of Art in St. Louis, The Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, Sculpture Magazine, Afterimage, and Indiana University Press.
Supplicant II, mixed media, 2017, courtesy of Tilt Gallery
Join us for an archive Visual Voices Lecture from March 2019, presented by our 2019 Bunn photographer Holly Roberts.
This lecture will be available for online viewing March 4th – 11th 2021.
From the artist: I work intuitively, painting an abstract image before applying bits and pieces of photographic fragments and other materials on the surface of the painting. What I am trying for is a painting that can stand alone but that won’t dominate the collage that is to follow. However, in large part, it is the painting that determines what is to follow; the colors, the movement, the essence of the paint.
Once I start forming the image, I select materials that speak to me. Most of what I use are photographs that I have taken and materials that I have either made or collected. These bits and pieces will provide the structure of the story as it unfolds, giving me the clues I need to understand where I’m headed. It’s much like following a trail of breadcrumbs through the forest; not knowing where I’m headed but trusting that I will, eventually, arrive. The collage works best when the pieced photos make up something that they aren’t about literally, but have a metaphorical or poetic connection, either through subject or texture.
The large concerns in my life are at the core of my work: the degradation of the environment, spiritual meaning in a world of polarized and extremist views, the stress and fear of aging, the daily fears and anxieties of being alive in the world today. My default subjects are usually awkward, sometimes threatening, and most often, a little lonely. My work is about the people, animals, and landscapes which inhabit my world, both urban and wild. As well, I have always had an ongoing fascination with portraiture, trying to capture an essence without being too literal. These collages allow me to continue to do what I have always done with my art; by processing the world through my eyes and my hands, I am able to make a greater sense of the confusion, the complexity, and the humor of the world around me.
This program has been made possible by the support of The Bunn Lectureship in Photography series. Endowed by a generous donation from Bradley alums, Jacob and Lorrie Bunn, for over 20 years The Bunn Lectureship in Photography has brought nationally and internationally recognized photographers to Bradley’s campus. With the goal of broadening and enriching students’ educational experience, this program supports exhibitions, lectures, and workshops where students benefit from direct interaction with professional photographers.
Special loan of the artwork “Being Saved” made possible by the generosity of John and Jeff Heintzman.
Exhibition installed and designed by Taylor Fawcett.
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
From the artist:
I work intuitively, painting an abstract image before applying bits and pieces of photographic fragments and other materials on the surface of the painting. What I am trying for is a painting that can stand alone but that won’t dominate the collage that is to follow. However, in large part, it is the painting that determines what is to follow; the colors, the movement, the essence of the paint.
Once I start forming the image, I select materials that speak to me. Most of what I use are photographs that I have taken and materials that I have either made or collected. These bits and pieces will provide the structure of the story as it unfolds, giving me the clues I need to understand where I’m headed. It’s much like following a trail of breadcrumbs through the forest; not knowing where I’m headed but trusting that I will, eventually, arrive. The collage works best when the pieced photos make up something that they aren’t about literally, but have a metaphorical or poetic connection, either through subject or texture.
The large concerns in my life are at the core of my work: the degradation of the environment, spiritual meaning in a world of polarized and extremist views, the stress and fear of aging, the daily fears and anxieties of being alive in the world today. My default subjects are usually awkward, sometimes threatening, and most often, a little lonely. My work is about the people, animals, and landscapes which inhabit my world, both urban and wild. As well, I have always had an ongoing fascination with portraiture, trying to capture an essence without being too literal.
These collages allow me to continue to do what I have always done with my art; by processing the world through my eyes and my hands, I am able to make a greater sense of the confusion, the complexity, and the humor of the world around me.
Join us for an archive Visual Voices Lecture from September 2019, presented by Justin Ahrens. Ahrens’s passion for life is rooted in his creative firm’s dedication to “making creative matter®.” For over 20 years now, Justin has led Rule29 in a commitment to smart business, great design and helping others think differently about the world around them. He is an author, teacher, creative director and self-proclaimed “do-gooder”. Through a collaborative approach in both strategy and design, Rule29’s culture is just as important as the work. This is particularly evident by Rule29’s involvement in numerous social causes, including substantial work in Africa. Rule29 has been recognized by major competitions and publications, including Fast Company, AIGA, Communication Arts, The Webby Awards, and many more. Ahrens has been a consistent voice for the design and business community in areas around social impact and work/life balance, which he has written and spoken about nationally and internationally. Justin recently served as an AIGA National Board Member focused on Design for Good and works within that community to help explore how we can all have the greatest path to impact.
Seeing Different, Design for Good We are all built to see the world differently. It’s one of our unique, innovative traits. We all say we want to be a part of changing the world, but how do we actually accomplish this and can we actually make a difference? This presentation will give you thoughts, prompts and examples on how you can use your gifts to See Different.
This lecture will be available for online viewing February 4th through 12pm CST on February 11th 2021. View lecture HERE.
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Normally visitors can observe our install process from the Heuser Art Center 2nd floor overlook. Since Covid-19 has disrupted normal gallery interactions, we are bringing the install to you.
“What Was, What Could Have Been” is a solo exhibition installed in Heuser Art Gallery and features 13 oil paintings by BU Affiliate Professor Jack Crouch. The following photos document the artwork layout and hanging process. Artwork installation by Jack Crouch and Taylor Fawcett. A virtual presentation of the finalized exhibition will be available soon.
