Improvised Structures: Recent Sculptural Works by Nicolas Darcourt & Elizabeth Catlett in the Hillstrom Museum of Art, Opening ReceptionFebruary 13, 2023 at 7–9 p.m.
Nicolas Darcourt teaches ceramics in the Art and Art History Department at Gustavus Adolphus College. His ceramic works use press-molded objects and hand-built shapes to focus on a mix of architectural ornament, exposed layers of earth, engineered forms, monument, and manufactured byproduct. These coalesce into accumulations which express abstract notions of the confluence of memory, geography, and society.
African American artist Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) is considered through recently acquired works and through new poetry by exhibition collaborator Philip Bryant, a faculty member in the African/African Diaspora Studies Program and the English Department of Gustavus Adolphus College. Catlett’s artworks and Bryant’s poetry are supplemented by paintings by Catlett’s contemporaries Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) and Eldzier Cortor (1916-2015), lent by the Art Bridges Foundation of Bentonville, Arkansas.