McDonough Museum announces five exhibitions to open spring semester

The McDonough Museum of Art has announced five exhibitions that will open their spring 2024 schedule beginning Friday, January 19 and running through Saturday, March 2. The museum will feature exhibits by artists Roberley Bell, Jonathon Brewer, Lauren Semivan, Posters Without Borders, and new Emerging Artist Morgan Bukovec.

Drawing from the world around her, Bell’s work is inspired by the scrutiny of nature and the built environment. She has been exhibited internationally, including in Istanbul, Sweden, and Russia. Bell has also been the recipient of numerous fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, earned a Pollock Krasner Fellowship, and was a Senior Scholar Fulbright in Turkey. She lives and runs a studio in Massachusetts. Bell’s exhibition is titled “Always, and the lake."

Brewer is an electroacoustic musician, audio engineer, and composer living in Ohio. His work is inspired by quantum physics, consciousness, chaos theory, and sociology and builds on the vision of music that is self-evident without relying on overused formulas. His exhibit is titled “Quemar Las Naves.”

Semivan’s most recent work has been created using an early twentieth-century large-format view camera. She tries to capture the convergence of the physical world and the interior world that is hidden within all things. Semivan’s work is featured in permanent collections at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, The Wriston Art Galleries at Lawrence University, and The Elton John Photography Collection. Her exhibit is titled “A Map Both Distant and Concrete.”

Posters Without Borders began in 2013 as an international invitational poster exhibition on the subject of immigration, which was organized by Erin Wright, professor of art at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; Antonio Castro, associate professor of art at the University of Texas at El Paso; and Eric Boelts of Brain Bolts Design in Boulder, Colorado. Building on the success of their first exhibition, the organizers mount new exhibitions every two years on other important social subjects. The McDonough Museum of Art will show selections from original and past exhibitions, including 2015’s “Right to Decide,” which covers voting rights and fair elections; 2017’s “Action/Reaction/Interaction,” which covers social and political events; 2019’s “Future Now!,” a collaborative exhibit with the U.N. on sustainable development; and “Civilitas,” which asserts that more civility is needed in the world.

Bukovec is a mixed media artist, educator, and collector from Cleveland, Ohio. Her work investigates the ways in which art builds empathy through storytelling, and she works with found objects from collages, textiles, and installations. She was most recently awarded a 2024 Emerging Artist Solo Exhibition at The McDonough Museum of Art, and she will be showcasing “are you on the menu,” which displays remarks, commands, and questions Bukovec heard from men while working in the service industry.

An opening reception for all of the exhibitions will be held January 19 from 5 – 7 PM at the museum. The exhibitions and reception are free and open to the public. The museum is open 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM Tuesday through Saturday.