HSU Gallery to Feature Denton Artist

The Hardin-Simmons University Art Department is hosting an exhibit of paintings by visiting Denton artist Elaine Pawlowicz, October 2-28, 2017.

Elaine Pawlowicz received her BFA from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and her MFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1993. She continued to live and work as an artist in Chicago for 15 years until moving back to Dallas with her husband and two children now ages 11 and 13. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. In 2005 she completed an installation of 12 large scale paintings commissioned by the City of Chicago for Oriole Park Library. She has been awarded several artist residencies in Wyoming, Montana, Newfoundland, Iceland, New Zealand, Portugal, Kentucky and Ireland. Pawlowicz has taught college level art for almost two decades including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Dayton, and currently serves as an Associate Professor of Art at University of North Texas. Her paintings are speckled with tiny characters that are swallowed up by neon color fields. The style is a type of magical realism. The space is flat with an idiosyncratic perspective. These highly personalized narratives are slightly ambiguous and peculiarly lighthearted.

Pawlowicz describes her recent work as being a collection of experiments with multiple metaphors for the meaning of “green.”

“These artworks emerge from a nursery of flora and fauna that are cultivated from observation and reinterpreted into imagination. The space is flat and the figurations exist in neon color fields. This birthplace of images explores mutation, global climate change, the sublime, youth and beauty, protection and emotional disaster. I paint my ideas using intuitive, compositional processes that yield unconventional results. The forms are always developing as I trim and shape them as Edward Scissorhands does, obsessively layering color only to delete it, finding meaning in the empty spaces and injecting a strangeness into the atmosphere that reflects the consequences of reality,” Pawlowicz said.

There will be a reception with the artist present on Saturday, October 28, 2017 from 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm (coinciding with HSU Homecoming events). The public is invited to attend this event. Regular gallery hours are 9:00 am -5:00 p.m., Monday – Thursday, Friday: 9 am – 2 pm; or by appointment (call 325-670-1246).

Learn more about the gallery at https://www.hsutx.edu/academics/cofa/artdepartment/irataylorgallery/