Rocks Paper Memory 2015

Wendy Artin Phrygian Cap, 2010, 103 x 130 cm, watercolor

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Rocks Paper Memory

Watercolor Paintings of Ancient Sculptures

Kelsey Museum, November 2015, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Writing by James Cogswell
Link to catalogue

I am happy to invite you to my upcoming museum exhibition,
Rocks, Paper, Memory: Wendy Artin's Watercolor Paintings of Ancient Sculptures, at the Kelsey Museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I will be present for a lively Conversation about art and emulation, with curator and museum Director Christopher Ratté, on Friday June 26th at 6 p.m. at the Stern

Auditorium, Museum of Art, 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor.
A Reception will follow at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 434 South State Street.

50 of my favorite watercolor paintings have been reunited for this exhibition: the full- scale, monochromatic Parthenon friezes; Maenads, Aphrodites, Actaeons and more from the Stone from Delphi project; my personal collection of Roman ruins; and figure paintings, large and small. There are also related objects from the Kelsey's collections: portraits, coins, and Aphrodites rising from the sea. The beautiful Arion Press book of Seamus Heaney's classical poetry, Stone from Delphi, will be on display. There will be a Sketch-a-Thon, a Poetry Contest, interactive iPads with a slideshow on the making of the paintings.

Wendy Artin, watercolor, 2013

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Preview of exhibition text:

“A couple of years ago I was speaking with the poet Jessica Fisher at the American Academy in

Rome, who said that she wanted to write about Rome but that so many people had written about Rome, she did not simply want to fall into their well-worn tracks. People have already written about the parasol pines, the ruins, she said.
"I said, what about nostalgia? Revisiting what you love, over and over again. There can never be enough pictures of the loved one: originality is not the point. Each new image is another moment of reliving that beautiful thing that is not present. The pictures, or poems, are like the key that you take

away with you instead of all of your weighty possessions.”