The James Watrous Gallery is dedicated to Wisconsin artists. Solo exhibits present a significant body of work by a single artist, while our curated shows often draw connections between art and other disciplines. We strive to create a welcoming environment that encourages engagement and inquiry.
Current Galleries
FRI, APR 15 – SUN, JUN 12
open THU – SAT 12 PM – 6 PM, SUN 12 PM – 5 PM
All ages
Opening Reception: FRI, APR 15, 6 PM – 8 PM
Thanks to our sponsors Madison Arts Commission and Dane Arts
The James Watrous Gallery welcomes a trio of exhibitions running April 15 – June 12: photographer Lois Bielefeld’s New Domesticity, painter Comfort Wasikhongo’s Bodies of Knowledge, and social artist Borealis’ Kinfabula. All three exhibits examine themes of home and body, individual and community. An opening reception will be held on April 15 from 6-8 pm.
New Domesticity
Lois Bielefeld has always been fascinated by people’s habits and personal spaces and what they reveal. Bielefeld’s portraits in New Domesticity are highly collaborative. They begin with an in-depth audio interview, and result in her subjects performing or acting out domesticity within their homes for the camera in elaborate curated scenes. Bielefeld is interested in the negotiation of the home space, how people are considering home and their roles within it, and the intersection between overarching cultural ideas and personal manifestations of home. Visitors can listen to edited versions of Bielefeld’s audio interviews in the gallery.
Bodies of Knowledge
Known for his dramatic, monumental paintings of bodybuilders, Madison artist Comfort Wasikhongo has recently turned his attention to portraits of Black intellectual leaders and individuals from his own community and personal history. Bodies of Knowledge will include several of Wasikhongo’s canvases depicting contemporary bodybuilders alongside portraits of Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and E. Franklin Frazier, and ambitious group portraits of friends and fellow students.
Kinfabula
Kinfabula is a queer little play set in a surreal domestic space from the near-future and not-so-distant past. Kinfabula is a flamboyant, site-responsive installation in which gallery guests are invited to perform their imagination, care, and criticality using scripts that have been only partially written. Kinfabula prompts viewers to consider: Who cannot be present at this site at this time, and why? Who has been dispossessed from this site in the past? How can reflections on absence, complicity, and kinship inform our understandings of the real places we inhabit and of our interrelated futures?
Free and open to the public, the James Watrous Gallery is located on Overture Center’s third floor. Gallery hours are 12-6pm Thursday-Saturday and 12-5pm on Sunday, or by appointment.
The Watrous Gallery is a program of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, a place to connect with experts and explore Wisconsin thought and culture. To learn more, visit wisconsinacademy.org.
