Nona Jean Hulsey Art Gallery — Exhibitions

Connect: Collect 5

May 15 – Sept. 1, 2023

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In our fifth year of this annual printmaking show, our curatorial team were the creators this time, with the installation of a site specific, ephemeral work in the Norick Art Center for the summer. This team of artist friends, Alexa Goetzinger, Emma Difani, and Virginia Sitzes created and installed an environmental and ephemeral print-made sculpture in the gallery. Connect: Collect is a national print exchange for artists working with traditional, analogue processes which annually seeks to connect printmakers across great distances. Each of the 30 printmakers in the yearly exchange are selected through application, by the project organizers, to create a unique edition of prints. Read more on the Connect: Collect website here.

“Dystopian Hope”

March 13 - May 5, 2023

Featuring the work of three artists: Virginia Wagner, Sarah FitzSimons and Kyle Larson

Curator and gallery director Heather Lunsford said the show strives to illustrate the ties between the artist’s view, the writer’s voice and the filmmaker’s perspective in the current climate of political upheaval, unprecedented weather events and deadly viruses. “Dystopian works ask ‘What if humanity cannot be rescued from its worst impulses?’” Lunsford said. “In this way, dystopian themes allow us to engage with and face the most difficult environmental, social and political issues in our times and grant us the permission to be scared and unsure, mortal and flawed. But there is a hopefulness in dystopian storytelling and art —showing us that it is possible to fight back against systems of wealth and power with compassion or empathy and help dismantle oppression and abuse.” Dystopia translates as “bad place” from ancient Greek, with the traditional interpretation of dystopian art forms as bleak warnings of the dangers of totalitarianism and how it leads to disaster. In many dystopian works, the viewer is presented with brutality or immoral circumstances that tend to offer an exaggeration of humanity’s fears. Dystopian narratives allow their creators to take threads of current reality and push them to their limit — apocalyptic climate change, coup, nuclear war, etc.

Art-o-Mat - Clark Whittington

Jan. 9 - March 3, 2023

Featuring art-making stations and approximately 300 works from the Art-o-Mat/Artists in Cellophane repertoire on the gallery walls.

Artist Clark Whittington installed his art in the summer of 1997 at a local cafe in Winston-Salem, NC. Alongside paintings, he used a recently-retired cigarette machine to create the first Art-o-Mat, an original art vending machine, to sell his black and white photographs mounted on blocks for $1 each.

Positive engagement led to the machine staying longer than the show and Artists in Cellophane artist collective was formed to keep the project running. Now, as the sponsoring organization of more than 100 active machines in various locations throughout the world, the mission of AIC is to encourage art consumption by the innovative combination of art and commerce. AIC believes that art should be progressive, yet personal and approachable.

Oct. 6 through Nov. 30, 2022

Jan. 10 through April 1, 2022

Jan. 4 through Feb. 22, 2022

Oct. 21 through Dec. 3, 2021

May 10 through Aug. 6, 2021

March 1 through April 16, 2021

Jan. 28 through Feb. 22, 2021

Jan. 6 through Feb. 19, 2021

Oct. 21 through Dec. 3, 2020

Featuring a video projection light installation by Chad Mount - “Meadow Rhythms“ with a grant from the Kirkpatrick Family Foundation (in partnership with Bright Golden Haze, Oklahoma Contemporary)

Undisclosed Image • Brenda Biondo / Carol Golemboski / Meggan Gould / Martin Venezky / Ariel Wilson / Curated by Andy Mattern

March 9 through April 9, 2020

This exhibition features five contemporary artists whose work questions and extends photography in surprising ways. The exhibition’s title is a nod to the influential book The Edge of Vision by Lyle Rexer, which presents numerous artists working at the boundaries of lens-based practices. In this time of ubiquitous images and familiar pictures, these artists find novel pathways to meaning through invention, play, and subversion of the medium’s long held conventions.

Ocean Object • Sarah Fitzsimons • Feb. 12 through March 6, 2020

Jan. 7 through Feb. 7, 2020

5 p.m., Dec. 5, 2019

Regarding the Discarded • A Site-Specific Installation by Carrie Dickason • Sept. 15 through Oct. 17, 2019

Regarding the Discarded is a site-specific installation, evolving between September 15 - October 17 at the Nona Jean Hulsey Gallery of Art. Over the course of the month-long project, Carrie Dickason will work and engage with students of OKCU, in weaving locally scavenged and collected materials into a large, suspended, sculptural tapestry. Students are invited to bring materials that they’ve found or collected, to be physically incorporated into the project. Weekly workshops will include fundamental textile processes that will be employed in the construction (and could be incorporated into student’s own future works), as well as conversations about the interconnectivity between consumerism and ecological systems. The resulting installation will reflect the shared efforts of the students and community of Oklahoma City University.

Exhibit open July 8 through Sept. 6, 2019

Opening reception 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 9