The Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro is pleased to announce the 46th presentation of Art on Paper. A time-honored museum tradition, the exhibition features artists who demonstrate the breadth of ways to deploy the humble medium of paper to extraordinary ends. From quiet observations amid quarantine, to surreal reflections on hybrid identities to probing inquiries into the historical roots of racism, the artworks in this year’s installation offer us compelling images and creative entry points into urgent conversations.

Juliette Bianco, the Anne and Ben Cone Memorial Endowed Director, notes that, “Art on Paper 46 presents an exciting opportunity to encounter innovations with paper as expressions of lived experience through the hands of twenty extraordinary artists. This year’s presentation also includes a number of artists with connections to UNC Greensboro and the community, reminding us of our participation in the creative forces that help shape how we see and engage with the world.”

In the work of Terry Berkowitz and Eric Hibit one finds responses to COVID-19. Berkowitz’s meditative, yet devastating Notes on the Plague consists of simple sheets of paper covered in rows of tally marks, each representing a life lost to the disease. In contrast, Hibit’s expressive ink paintings of floral blooms and textiles has a hopeful tenor. Made during the early months of lockdown, the artist turned to the flowers in his neighbor's garden and his own collection of pillow covers acquired on a residency in Morocco—all objects that offered beauty, uplift, and mental escape.

Fantasy surfaces throughout many of the show’s artworks. Robyn O’Neil’s vast, imagined worlds—each rendered laboriously with a simple mechanical pencil—transport us to spaces where we are reminded of nature’s vast power and our comparatively minor role as humans. Alternately, Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski’s vibrant, candy-colored painting offers a utopian, futuristic image in which a strong, Black female figure commands the space, her third eye looking up—ostensibly with the power to see beyond this natural world and into another.

Physicality emerges as yet another commonality among many of the artworks. Nate Lewis’s densely perforated and collaged image presents a seemingly medical view of the sculpted body of former North Carolina Governor Charles Aycock, a figure known both for his championing of education but also his White suprematism. Although emphatically material, Lewis’s work asks us to remember that history is rarely as straight forward or concrete as monuments suggest. May Tveit harnesses paper’s tactility in more abstracted references to the human form. Her configurations of stacked corrugated cardboard are sized roughly according to her body but take on an architectural presence.

The exhibition’s curator, Dr. Emily Stamey, notes that, “These are just a few of many rich themes in the show. No matter one’s interests, I think all visitors will find an artwork that sparks their curiosity or resonates on a personal level.” This year’s Art on Paper will remain on view through November 27, providing the opportunity to visit more than once and engage with the artworks over an extended period of time.

Art on Paper 2021 features work by the following artists: Eleanor Annand (Asheville, NC); Ivana Milojevic Beck, MFA ‘16 (Raleigh, NC); Terry Berkowitz (New York, NY); Julie Buffalohead (St. Paul, MN); Benjamin Degen (New York, NY); Alison Denyer (Salt Lake City, UT); Gonzalo Fuenmayor (Miami, FL); Harrison Haynes (Chapel Hill, NC); Eric Hibit (Ridgewood, NY); Ellen Lesperance (Portland, OR); Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski (New York, NY); Nate Lewis (New York, NY); Chieko Murasugi (Chapel Hill, NC); Carmen Neely, MFA ‘16 (Chicago, IL); Robyn O’Neil (Washington State); Sherrill Roland, BA ‘09, MFA ‘17 (Durham, NC); Julia Rooney (New York, NY); Leah Sobsey (Chapel Hill, NC); May Tveit (Lawrence, KS); Louis Watts (Burlington, KS).

This exhibition was organized by Dr. Emily Stamey, Curator of Exhibitions.

Image: Julia Rooney, paper (orange), 2018–19. Newspaper, tempera, acrylic, ink, and adhesives, 65 1/2 x 56 1/2 in. Courtesy of the artist. © Julia Rooney

Related Programs:

Curator Talk with Emily Stamey
Wednesday, Jul 28, 12-12:30pm, virtual event

A Conversation with Artist Nate Lewis
Tuesday, August 31, 4-5pm, virtual event
Nate Lewis describes his artwork as “driven by empathy and the desire to understand nuanced points of view.” Treating paper like a living organism rich with layers and complexities, the artist challenges us to see in a manner similar to how doctors use scans, tests, and samples to collectively understand an illness or injury. Join us as he talks about the newest work in his Monuments series, which applies this careful looking to the study of American history.

How Do I Look?: Looking at Art on Paper
Thursday, Sept 9, 4-4:45pm, virtual event
In what ways do our experiences and knowledge shape how we see? Join us as we invite experts from across diverse academic disciplines and professional fields to help us uncover new ways of seeing artworks at the Weatherspoon. This session will include faculty from the UNCG School of Music Andy Hudson (clarinet) and Annie Jeng (piano).

Panel Discussion with UNCG Alumni
Tuesday, Oct 5, 4-5pm, virtual event
UNC Greensboro alumni Ivana Beck, Carmen Neely, and Sherrill Roland. Moderated by Chris Cassidy, Director, School of Art, College of Visual and Performing Arts. Ivana Beck explores the tensions between stability and fragility within her immigrant family history. Carmen Neely investigates how collections—of things, memories, gestures—inform our identities. And Sherrill Roland reflects on community vulnerability and resilience as they relate to incarceration. These artists are as distinct in their approaches to art making as they are in their subjects, yet the three share a common bond: each one of them earned an MFA at UNC Greensboro. Join us as we welcome them back and learn about current work.

About the Weatherspoon Art Museum

Mission
The Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro acquires, preserves, exhibits, and interprets modern and contemporary art for the benefit of its multiple audiences, including university, community, regional, and beyond. Through these activities, the museum recognizes its paramount role of public service, and enriches the lives of diverse individuals by fostering an informed appreciation and understanding of the visual arts and their relationship to the world in which we live.

History
The Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro was founded by Gregory Ivy in 1941 and is the earliest of any art facilities within the UNC system. The museum was founded as a resource for the campus, community, and region and its early leadership developed an emphasis—maintained to this day—on presenting and acquiring modern and contemporary works of art. A 1950 bequest from the renowned collection of Claribel and Etta Cone, which included prints and bronzes by Henri Matisse and other works on paper by American and European modernists, helped to establish the Weatherspoon’s permanent collection. Other prescient acquisitions during Ivy’s tenure included a 1951 suspended mobile by Alexander Calder, Woman by Willem de Kooning, a pivotal work in the artist’s career that was purchased in 1954, and the first drawings by Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson to enter a museum collection.

In 1989, the museum moved into its present location in The Anne and Benjamin Cone Building designed by the architectural firm Mitchell/Giurgola. The museum has six galleries and a sculpture courtyard with over 17,000 square feet of exhibition space. The American Association of Museums accredited the Weatherspoon in 1995 and renewed its accreditation in 2005.

Collections + Exhibitions
The permanent collection of the Weatherspoon Art Museum is considered to be one of the foremost of its kind in the Southeast. It represents all major art movements from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Of the nearly 6,200 works in the collection are pieces by such prominent figures as Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Cindy Sherman, Al Held, Alex Katz, Henry Tanner, Louise Nevelson, Mark di Suvero, Deborah Butterfield, and Robert Rauschenberg. The museum regularly lends to major exhibitions nationally and internationally.

The Weatherspoon also is known for its adventurous and innovative exhibition program. Through a dynamic annual calendar of fifteen to eighteen exhibitions and a multi-disciplinary educational program for audiences of all ages, the museum provides an opportunity for audiences to consider artistic, cultural, and social issues of our time and enriches the life of our university, community, and region.

UNC Greensboro
UNC Greensboro, located in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina, is 1 of only 50 doctoral institutions recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for both higher research activity and community engagement. Founded in 1891 and one of the original three UNC system institutions, UNC Greensboro is one of the most diverse universities in the state with 20,000+ students, and 2,700+ faculty and staff members representing 90+ nationalities. With 17 Division I athletic teams, 85 undergraduate degrees in over 125 areas of study, as well as 74 master’s and 32 doctoral programs, UNC Greensboro is consistently recognized nationally among the top universities for academic excellence and value, with noted strengths in health and wellness, visual and performing arts, nursing, education, and more. For additional information, please visit uncg.edu and follow UNCG on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.


Weatherspoon Art Museum
UNC Greensboro
Spring Garden and Tate Streets, PO Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170, (336) 334-5770, weatherspoon@uncg.edu

For more information or press images, contact:
Loring Mortensen, (336) 256-1451, lamorten@uncg.edu