Natalia Rodriguez
Staff Writer
“She Opens the Door: Women Artists and Writers Shape Language and Space” art exhibit is on display at the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art.
The show highlights women’s contemporary artwork and how the pieces interact with each other.
The artists featured in the exhibition include Lisa Anne Auerbach, Ako Castuera, Adrian Culverson, Mercedes Dorame, Kari Gatzke, Emily Joyce, Amy Maloof, Maria Maea and Elana Mann.
The exhibit also features written responses to accompany the artwork by writers Genevieve Kaplan, Chloe Martinez, Cynthia Adam Prochaska, Prageeta Sharma, Cherene Sherrard-Johnson and Vickie Vertiz.
Exhibit curator Martinez, a religious studies professor at Claremont McKenna College, said she was curious to know the kind of artwork women artists in her area were working on and thinking about. She also wanted to know what it would look like if women writers wrote responses to the pieces.
“Many of the artworks deal with community and environment and connection in really interesting ways, and I think that the writings reflected that,” Martinez said.
“They’re really joyful for me to make,” said Culverson, an artist and adjunct professor of art at Citrus College. Three of Culverson’s pieces are in the show.
Culverson’s piece, “Horse,” focuses on form and abstraction with an emphasis on color – pinks and greens, that coat the miniature horses within a frame.
She said horses symbolize freedom to her, the idea of a horse running through a meadow. “Just kind of taking yourself wherever you’d like to go,” she said.
Mann’s piece, “Call to Arms,” is a sculpture in the shape of an arm with a cupped hand. At the center of the palm is a small hole, while the interior is hollow, and the upper arm opens up at the end into a much larger hole.
While the piece was initially modeled after antique hearing aids and intended to be an analog one, Mann said that witnessing someone use the piece as a megaphone inspired her to create another version.
“The sculpture is really about the resiliency of the human voice and of people rising up to descent, to speak up, to speak truth to power, to fight against censorship, to fight for freedom of speech,” Mann said. “That’s been the focus of the piece for the past ten years.”
Wintana Tsegaye, a junior legal studies major at the University of La Verne, attended the show Saturday during the monthly Claremont Art Walk said this piece’s message resonated with her.
“As a black, queer woman in America, I almost always feel like I’m silenced,” Tsegaye said. “I feel like resistance is to speak up and to kind of just be yourself.”
Another ULV student who attended the art walk, Amyah Smith, a junior political science major, enjoyed looking at Auerbach’s “Democracy, Autocracy, Theocracy,” a collection of three red and black wool pieces unraveling at the ends.
“I am a political science major, so I tend to see things through a different viewpoint, and I feel like it was pretty accurate,” Smith said. “It gave a physical example to how many of us could feel.”
“I hope that people who go to the exhibit might come away from it thinking about ways they want to make more art or look at more art or think about art in their own everyday lives in new ways,” Martinez said.
The Claremont Lewis Museum of Art, on First Street in Claremont, is open Thursday through Sunday.
The “She Opens the Door: Women Artists and Writers Shape Language and Space” exhibit runs until Mar. 22.
For more information, visit clmoa.org.
Natalia Rodriguez can be reached at natalia.rodriguez@laverne.edu.
Natalia Rodriguez is a senior creative writing and communications major. She is a member of ULV's The Blank Page Writer's Club and has served as a staff member for the school's literary magazine, Prism Review. She is currently arts editor and a staff photographer for the Campus Times and previously served as a staff writer.
Amore Mason is a junior photography major with a marketing minor, and a staff photographer for the Campus Times and La Verne Magazine.
