Artists and their guests are exploring the newest exhibit at The Arts Council of Southwest Indiana (ARTSWIN) in Evansville, called “Literally.”
ARTSWIN invited artists to create works inspired by a list of modern and classic pieces of literature. Suggested books include "The Lord of The Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien, "A Thousand Mornings: Poems by Mary Oliver,” “Green Eggs and Ham” by Dr. Seuss and dozens of others.
Gallery Director Andrea Adams has been told this is one of their best exhibits to date, possibly because people love books so much.
“It really shows through in the pieces that they created,” Adams said. “And I think that it really shows with audience participation coming in and seeing the exhibit because they want to see the visual representation of the books that they love as well.”
These were rendered in two dimensional works like paintings, photos and mixed-media, and even tiny intricate sculptures.
The pieces were juried by Your Brother’s Bookstore owners Sam and Adam Morris which with their own event, Adams said, created cross-traffic between the bookstore and the exhibit.
Ray Bradbury's “Fahrenheit 45” inspired Elizabeth Isaac to create the first-place piece of the exhibit — a sculpture of paper and mixed media. It’s a thick open book, but filled with its own little world of intricate figures of people, burned books, green space and remnants of a structure.
It looks like it can come alive.
Bethany Swartzentruber created a spinning mobile made of straws and fast food drink lids inspired by “Fast Food Nation.”
“We think that giving artists assignments like this exhibit with a specific book they have to make something from, really pulls them outside of their own heads and can kind of act as a muse for them to create something new,” said Adams. She said it’s the council’s job to inspire better art.
It seemed to work, because Adams received strong feedback from the exhibit.
“I've had artists and the audience alike. Both tell me that this is the best show they think that we've had all year, if not all of all time.”
About 200 attended the short reception to preview the 57 original pieces. More information is available at ARTSWIN.org.
The exhibit is up until May 25.
