Join Burlington City Arts and our exhibiting artists at the BCA Center for drinks and light refreshments on Friday, September 27 from 5-7 pm as we celebrate the opening of our 2024 Fall Exhibitions, "Passages: Identity, Memory, and Transformation" and "Between the Covers: Works by Jane Kent."
On the first floor, "Passages" includes a group of contemporary artists who embrace themes of journey and transformation. Featuring painting, sculpture, and installation, the exhibit examines each artist's unique drive to redefine themselves and transcend the world around them. While some artists claim agency as they assert personal or cultural identity, others create work that suggests the complexity of societal constructs or shared inequalities.
"Passages" is a visual investigation of how identity, memory, and transformation are conveyed through creative process and narrative, moving us toward a greater understanding of individual as well as collective experience. Artists include ArtLords, Leyla Faye, Stephen Hamilton, Michelle Im, and Michelle Samour.
Upstairs, explore "Between the Covers." Artist and educator Jane Kent is best known for her drawings, prints, and artist's books. Drawing is central to Kent's creative practice. Beginning with an everyday object – a clock, lamp, or mirror – the artist works through numerous and varied iterations as she uncovers odd and unforeseen worlds. For Kent, drawing is a means to create visual connections and to move from what is "imagined" to what is "made."
"Between the Covers" features artist's books, broadsheets, prints, and working drawings created by the artist in collaboration with six authors over the past 25 years. Here, Kent's artist's books are shown together with a selection of working drawings for the first time. Each project incorporates text written by a distinguished poet or writer: "Privacy," 1999 (Richard Ford); "The Orchid Thief Re-imagined," 2003 (Susan Orlean); "Skating," 2011 (Richard Ford); "Untitled," 2015 (Dorothea Grossman); "The Flaneur Tends a Well-Liked Summer Cocktail," 2019 (Major Jackson); and "Little Albert," 2023 (Joyce Carol Oates).
For "Between the Covers," Kent debuts working drawings for her current collaborative project with Major Jackson, "Why I Write Poetry," forthcoming from The Grenfell Press in 2025. Dividing her time between Burlington and New York City, Jane Kent is Professor of Studio Art, School of the Arts, at the University of Vermont.
The 2024 exhibition year is presented by Mascoma Bank. Fall exhibitions are supported in part by the Maslow Family Foundation. Hospitality sponsor, Lake Champlain Chocolates. Burlington City Arts is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council & the National Endowment for the Arts.
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