An Invitational Group Exhibition curated by Karissa Johnson from the Museum of Nebraska Art

Seven artists with Nebraska connections have been selected for “Loosely Assembled,” an invitational exhibition of assembled objects on display November 2-25.

Karissa Johnson, curator at the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA) and WallSpace-LNK founder and artist Michael Farrell curated and designed the exhibition highlighting a range of Nebraska artists committed to assemblage artwork in order to bring renewed attention to the artform.

Works by Jeanelle Myers, now of Sag Harbor, NY; Jo Nelson, Hastings; John Spence, Jeff Chadwick, Liz Shea, and Michael Farrell of Lincoln; and the late Mott-ly (Lee Tisdale) of Lincoln and Kansas City will be featured. 

Connected by their Nebraska roots, the artists bring widely divergent experiences to their mixed media creations. Jeanelle Myers has been collecting things, many from the natural world, and turning them into art for 35 years. Jo Nelson’s artistic journey took her to New York City and Florida where she refined her interest in Asian objects. Liz Shea began her artistic career as a textile designer and has worked for decades as an art educator and public art advocate. Architect Jeff Chadwick has covertly constructed boxed assemblages for 30 years and is exhibiting them publicly for the first time. John Spence is a Lincoln photographer and filmmaker who began making assemblages exclusively in 2017. Michael Farrell has been creating assembled objects and other artistic works since the late 1960s. Mott-ly, the only deceased artist in the show, grew up in Lincoln and studied at the Kansas City Art Institute. His assemblage work often sought beauty and humor in the face of living with chronic pain and illness. It has not previously been on public display in Lincoln.

“What I really appreciate about assemblage work, and it’s something that is demonstrated by each of the seven artists included, is the requirement of the viewer to really look and engage with the artwork to find out what it’s about,” says Karissa Johnson, co-curator of the exhibition. “I hope this show draws in visitors who are open, curious, and not afraid to ask questions.”

The artists are unified by their creative impulses to assemble objects in complex and enigmatic works that convey beauty, mystery, tragedy, faith, joy, and whimsy.  Co-curator Farrell observed, “this show brings together an unusual group of artists and never-before exhibited assemblage work. It will be talked about in our community for a long time.”

October 5 – 28

Painter Robin Smith is returning to Lincoln with a new exhibition October 5-28 at WallSpace-LNK. “Still Life and Landscapes” features forty works. In some, common objects and materials are juxtaposed in intriguing ways that bring the “still” things to life. Powerful scenes and skies from Nebraska’s Pine Ridge landscape offer a compelling, different view of Smith’s painting prowess.

A First Friday reception for the artist is on October 6 from 5-8 p.m. at the gallery.

The still life works are part of a series “connected by motif,” Smith notes. “Currently I employ medium sized canvasses (40 x 30 inches) with objects in the middle of the picture plane on a table.” His scenic views reflect a lifetime of personal experience.  “Growing up on Cape Cod gave me a sense of the vastness of the landscape. The influence of the light and landscape is exacerbated by my surroundings in Western Nebraska.”

A former Chadron State College faculty member, Smith studied painting at the Skowhegan School and the University of Massachusetts before studying in the MFA program at UN-L. He went on to earn a doctorate in visual ethnography from Arizona State. He also plays a mean banjo.

Robin Smith’s work has been shown at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney, the Sheldon Museum of Art and other regional museums and galleries. His paintings are part of many private collections and are held by MONA and Sheldon.

The paintings are available for viewing and purchase Thursday-Saturday, 12-5 or by appointment by emailing dr_robinsmith@hotmail.com.

A unique photography exhibit featuring both the above-ground and below-ground beauty and diversity of our Nebraska prairies and plains is on view
from August 31 – September 30.

Opens Thursday August 31 at noon.

Fri. Sept 1 from noon to 8pm
with a reception beginning at 5pm.

Otherwise Th-Sat, Noon to 5pm during September.

The variety, strangeness and beauty of nematodes, microscopic worms present in all habitats on the planet, are featured in electron micrographs created at UN-L. Color images of above-ground prairie landscapes are paired with images of these below-ground creatures.

Dr. Tom Powers, Becky Higgins, Kris Powers, Dr. Peter Mullin, Ethan Freese & Tracy Tucker are among those contributing to the exhibition.
Viewers will learn more about research into some of the 5 million species of nematodes and their impact on plants and animal life.

Images are available for purchase at various sizes and prices.

Views include Lincoln’s Pioneers Park, the Lancaster County Prairie Corridor, Nine-Mile Prairie, Spring Creek Audubon Center near Denton, Wachiska Audubon’s Tim Knott Prairie by Omaha, Willa Cather Prairie in Red Cloud, the Switzer Ranch, Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge and the Alkaline Lakes in the western Nebraska Sandhills.

“No Words,” an exhibition of landscape photographs by Roger Bruhn will be the final August pop-up show at WallSpace-LNK. A Fourth Friday opening reception with refreshments will run from 4:00-8:00 p.m. August 25. Saturday August 26^th hours will be 12:00-5:00 p.m. 

Bruhn notes, “Most photography today is focused more on ideas than the pleasure of the visual. I have nothing against ideas. But when it comes to a visual art like photography, I want my work to please the eye. Life is a desire, not a meaning. These photographs are about seeing, not about ideas.” Indeed, both the color and the black and white images made between 1968 and 2023 in this exhibit focus on places both near and far that transcend their subject matter.

Viewers will share the photographer’s sense of discovery in landscapes throughout the American West. “I don’t really search out my subject matter, Bruhn said. 

“I just wait, and it finds me.”

“No Words” images are available for viewing and purchase Friday, August 25 from 4:00-8:00 p.m. and Saturday, August 26 from 12:00-5:00 p.m. More information at wallspace-lnk.com or on Facebook. 

This exhibition (two days only – Aug 11 & 12) is drawn from a portfolio of over 100 archival gelatin silver prints of old barns and farmhouses made by Michael Farrell in a project spanning the years 1998 to 2006. In this ongoing exploration of the southeast Nebraska countryside the photographer and his partner Lynne Ireland traveled thousands of miles of county roads, exposed many hundreds of sheets of 4×5 or 5×7 film, and noted the locations of hundreds of abandoned farm buildings.

“Requiem for the Home Place,” a selection of traditional gelatin silver photographic prints, matted and framed, will be on display and available for purchase August 11 and 12 at WallSpace-LNK. Signed and framed as well as unframed original prints are available for purchase at a significant discount both days. 

“Photography is about memory, loss and desire. These photographs are about worlds and lives no longer viable but whose ashes and bones still lie above the surface reminding us of what once was.” – from the essay by Michael Farrell accompanying the 2006 exhibition. See both the prints and the essay at WallSpace-LNK on August 11, noon to 8 (reception at 4pm to close) & Aug. 12, noon to 5pm.