Orlando Museum of Art Announces its 2016-2017 Season
My Friend: Eric Rohmann
August 6 – October 30, 2016
This exhibition will include drawings, paintings and prints of children’s book art by author-illustrator Eric Rohmann. Rohmann holds degrees in fine arts from Arizona State University and Illinois State University and currently lives in a suburb of Chicago. In addition to writing and illustrating children’s books, he has taught drawing and printmaking.
His artwork has been featured in various exhibitions and permanent collections throughout the country. Rohmann has created book jackets for a number of novels, including the cover for The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman. He won a Caldecott Honor award for Time Flies, and a Caldecott Medal award for My Friend Rabbit. Illustrations from those and ten other books are represented — including Bone Dog, Clara and Asha, and The Cinder-Eyed Cats — among over 70 finished artworks, sketches, storyboards, and process pieces. This exhibition was organized by the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature, Abilene, Texas.
The Conversation Continues: Highlights from James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett Collection
September 16, 2016 – January 1, 2017
For more than 40 years, James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett have been building an exceptional collection of contemporary art. It is a collection that not only represents many prominent artists of the period, but also reflects the collector’s passion for discovering new talent and making commitments to challenging work before it is critically proven. Their high regard for the artists they collect is often demonstrated by long personal friendships and a practice of collecting an artist’s work in depth over time.
Cottrell and Lovett began collecting seriously in the late 1970s. Important early acquisitions include paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring collected before these artists were widely recognized. Also included are early paintings from a body of work done in the late 1980s and early 90s by Debora Kass that helped to establish her career. Among other significant artists represented are David Hockney, Malcom Morley and Robert Mapplethorpe. Inspired by their friendship with French artist, Roland Flexner, Cottrell and Lovett have also collected works by leading contemporary European painters such as Miguel Barceló, Daniel Dezeuze and Noël Dolla.
The Encounter Series: Matthew Capaldo Paintings
September 16 – January 1, 2017
Matthew Capaldo’s figurative paintings present psychologically charged narratives of contemporary life, balancing a tension between flux and stillness, saturation and transparency. Using imaginative elements, personal photographs and stills adapted from film and popular media, his paintings depict scenes in which individuals or groups are engaged in situations that appear both mysterious and strangely familiar. His paintings explore the relationship of the self to others and the shifting nature of the individual both within and apart from society. Often the work is imbued with an underlying tone of reflection and nostalgia. “I’m referencing the past and external, seemingly unrelated images to reveal an internal landscape guided by personal symbolism,” explains the artist. Matthew Capaldo is a self-taught artist, based in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Boston University.
The Wyeths and American Artists in Maine: Selections from the Collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum
January 20 – April 23, 2017
As a source of inspiration, Maine has played an important role in American art and culture since the 19th century. It was particularly attractive to early American painters who interpreted the State’s vast wildernesses and rockbound coast as emblematic of the nation’s rugged independence and unique spiritual relationship with nature. The reverence for nature eloquently written about in Henry David Thoreau’s The Maine Woods found visual expression in the paintings of generations of artists who have worked in the State.
The Farnsworth Art Museum holds one of the foremost collections of painting by artists in Maine, including work by George Bellows, Robert Henri, Marsden Hartley, Childe Hassam, Fitz Henry Lane, Rockwell Kent and John Marin. The Museum also has an outstanding collection of paintings by three generations of the Wyeth family. This original exhibition organized for the Orlando Museum of Art in conjunction with the Farnsworth Art Museum celebrates the 100th anniversary of Andrew Wyeth’s birth.
The InFlux Series: Matthew Weinstein
March 10 – June 4, 2017
Based in New York, Matthew Weinstein is a visual artist with a diverse background in theater, acting, film, screenwriting, design and painting. He works extensively in 3D animation and transfers the technical and narrative concerns of this medium into his art. Using the most advanced technological graphics and a small-scale production community, his work approaches the visual quality of Pixar style animation. Weinstein describes his animations to be “culturally transgendered, existing between entertainment and art…that moment when the unreal becomes hyperreal but skips over reality on the way.” This exhibition will feature videos, paintings, drawings and sculpture. Weinstein has exhibited at the new Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Kunsthalle in Vienna, the Matisse Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Denver Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, as well as many international galleries.
Orlando Museum of Art Florida Prize in Contemporary Art 2017
May 26 – August 20, 2017
The Orlando Museum of Art will present the fourth exhibition of Orlando Museum of Art Florida Prize in Contemporary Art. This exhibition will feature 10 of the most progressive and exciting artists working in the State today. Additionally, one of these outstanding artists will be selected to receive a significant monetary award. The award and invitational exhibition recognizes the achievement and potential of these artists and encourages their continued innovation and creation of new work. With this initiative, the Orlando Museum of Art underscores its commitment to support talented emerging and mid-career artists, while celebrating the vibrant cultural life of Florida.
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