Alexey von Schlippe Gallery at UConn Avery Point
Deeply Rooted: The Tree of Life, March 30- April 30
Opening Reception March 30, 5:30-7:30pm
Beverly Penn Artist Talk, March 30, 6:30pm
The Alexey von Schlippe Gallery invites you to the opening reception for Deeply Rooted: The Tree of Life, an exhibition of artwork that engages with the tree of life as archetype and idea, celebrating trees as majestic and magical. The exhibition features work by Texas sculptor Beverly Penn and New York painter Katie DeGroot. It includes Indian tribal art; watercolors by Abel Rodriguez, an artist of the Columbian indigenous Nonuya community; an etching by celebrated Indian artist Gulam Mohammad Sheikh; and works by Connecticut artists including UConn Master of Fine Arts candidates. The exhibition presents artworks by seventeen artists in a variety of media including sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, and photography.
Beverly Penn, Professor Emerita at Texas State University creates delicate cast bronze sculptures of plant forms that reference taxonomic structures and the tension between the culturally contained and the wild. The artist is a recipient of numerous awards including a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, a Fulbright Fellowship in Barcelona Spain, and a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Bellagio, Italy. Penn's sculptures are in the collections of the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C. among many others.
Katie DeGroot is a painter interested in the abiding presence of trees as particular survivors and as members of a community. Her playful narrative paintings of lichen festooned tree branches emerge through her process of observational painting. The artist is the Director of the Summer Studio Art Program at Skidmore College. She is represented by Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY; Gut Gallery, Dallas, TX; and Gallery Gris, Hudson, NY.
The Alexey von Schlippe Gallery thanks John H. Bowles and Kathryn Myers for lending works from their collections for the exhibition. We also thank the School of Fine Arts and Global Affairs at the University of Connecticut for their support. The gallery is located on the University of Connecticut Avery Point campus,1084 Shennecossett Rd., on the second floor of the historic Branford House. The gallery is open Thursday-Sunday, noon to 4pm.
The exhibition is part of The Abrahamic Story of the Tree, a university wide series of lectures, exhibitions, and performances presented by UConn's Abrahamic Programs.
For more information, contact: Jeanne Ciravolo/ Art and Art History at jeanne.ciravolo@uconn.edu