Kohl Gallery at Washington College will kick off the 2017-18 academic year with a one-person show featuring interdisciplinary artist and faculty member Julie Wills. Opening on September 14 with a public reception from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., Wishes Are Horses will run through October 22. The exhibition will feature collage, installation, and a range of work in three dimensions. Wills is scheduled to deliver a talk in the gallery on September 26 at 4:30 p.m.
Wills, an assistant professor of studio art at Washington College, works in the expanded field of sculpture, including installation, collage, works on paper, performance, video, and site-specific practices. She holds an MFA from the University of Colorado, and an MA in art criticism from the University of Montana. Wills is a 2017 recipient of a Denbo Fellowship and residency from Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, and she has been an artist-in-residence at the Jentel Foundation, PLAYA, and the Hambidge Center, among others. Recent solo exhibits of Wills’ works have been presented at the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, Virginia, and at Hillyer Art Space in Washington, D.C. In addition to her individual studio practice, Wills has worked since 2004 as one of four members of The Bridge Club collaborative.
The exhibition’s title cuts to the heart of much of the artist’s current practice. As Wills puts it, “Wishes Are Horses adapts the wistful phrase ‘If wishes were horses…’ to instead suggest that wishing might really offer movement or transcendence. My current sculptures and collages are inspired by the tools of desire: wishes, hopes, effort and intention. These works offer me a means of exploring current conditions and activating hope for an unrealized but longed-for future.” Wills’ engagement with desire is facilitated by her chosen materials, all rich with metaphorical or associative meanings. The candles, cloth, twine, words, and wood deployed—to name but a few of her materials—draw us into a material poetry dedicated to mining our more abstract lived experiences, and the conflicts that surface therein.
Kohl Gallery is located on the first floor of the Gibson Center for the Arts at Washington College. It is open Monday through Wednesday,1 to 6 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, please email: [email protected].
This show is funded in part by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.
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