Current Exhibitions
Women Working with Clay
May 30 – July 21, 2024
In conjunction with the annual Women Working with Clay Symposium held each summer at Hollins University, the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum presents an exhibition of work by these well-known artists in the world of contemporary ceramics: program director Dara Hartman; presenters Hona Leigh Knudsen, Joanne Seongweon Lee, Aysha Peltz, Lydia Thompson, and Christina A. West; guest speaker Christa Assad; and founding director Donna Polseno. Founded in 2011, this symposium was created to honor the great accomplishments of women ceramic artists today. It explores the connections of the long history of women in cultures all over the world as vessel makers, artists, and artisans.
Julie Benbassat: Illustrations
June 13 – July 28, 2024
Julie Benbassat’s inspiring illustrations combine observational drawings of nature and everyday objects with imagination and fantasy. This exhibition of Benbassat’s work emphasizes process, and includes concept work, original drawings and paintings and digital prints. On view are story boards and ideation scripts; imagined character, object, and place concept drawings; and original works paired with final digitized images.
Benbassat is an illustrator and painter based in Philadelphia, PA. A 2019 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she specializes in editorial illustrations and children’s publishing. Benbassat employs a range of mediums, from traditional to digital, often blending them to create eccentric works that are both fantastical and natural. Her artwork has been included in exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Her latest project, illustrating There’s That Sun Again by MK Smith Despres, will be released in fall 2024.
IMAGE: Julie Benbassat, Cover spread for The Book from Far Away, 2023. Digital print. Courtesy of the artist.
Dance Lab: Melissa Miller
June 13-30, 2024
Each summer, the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum partners with the Hollins University M.F.A. Dance program to host selected student graduate dance thesis presentations in the Main Gallery, melding live dance, performance, and visual art. This summer, the museum presents the work of one graduating student. Melissa Miller is an artist working in movement, writing, and installation based in St Louis, Missouri. Holy Body / Monstrous Body: The Life and Practices of Saint Catherine of Siena is the story of a body caught in the cross hairs of religious dogma, male dominance, and violent misogyny and the ways in which that body behaved and succumbed.
IMAGE: Courtesy of the artist.
Expanding Narratives: Conversations with the Collection
currently available online
Faculty members from across academic divisions have collaborated with museum staff to select works from the collection that investigate key course concepts and provide extended access to the individual works of art. Participating departments include art history, biology, classics, English, gender and women studies, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and studio art.
Unveiling the Past: Reckoning with Our History of Enslavement at Hollins
currently available online
In spring 2020, students in the Cultural Property, Rights and Museum course began working on an exhibit, Unveiling the Past: Reckoning with Our History of Enslavement at Hollins University, in conjunction with members of the Hollins University Working Group on Slavery and Its Contemporary Legacies. The exhibit examines objects and images held by the University Archives in the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University. Material researched by students are on display in this virtual exhibit. Those working on this exhibit wanted to create a public space to reckon with our Hollins past and give a forum to those who were not given a voice, name, space, or attention in the past. It is the goal of this exhibit to show the lasting effects slavery has had, and continues to have, here; and, to recognize that Hollins continues to benefit from a history of enslavement.
Exploring Visual and Conceptual Space: Student Selections from the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum
currently available online
Using selected works from the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum’s permanent collection, student curators put theory into practice in this virtual exhibit which is the culmination of the spring class, “Behind the Scenes: Principles and Practice.” As part of the class, students collaborate and share responsibility for conceptualizing, researching, designing, and interpreting a cohesive exhibition. Each student selected two works that spoke to them based on academic, personal, and aesthetic interests. The exhibit features works created by well-known artists Giovanni Battista Piranesi, John James Audubon, Käthe Kollwitz, Paul Klee, Salvador Dalí, and Andy Warhol, as well as works by Hedley Fitton, Jean Lurçat, Paule Gobillard, Eudora Welty, and others.
When placed together, these works form an image of the Eleanor D. Wilson collection as a small but artistically and historically rich collection – especially when seen through the eyes of Hollins student curators Madelyn Farrow, Faith Herrington, Sylvia Lane, Mairwen Minson, Kaiya Ortiz, Valerie Sargeant, and Maddie Zanie.