CARBONDALE, Ill. — Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s University Museum is accepting applications for an upcoming exhibition showcasing the creations of women artists in the Southern Illinois region.
“Women’s Voices 4: Pushing Boundaries” will be on display Feb. 6 to May 10, 2024, in the museum’s North Hall Mitchell Gallery. The exhibition is open to all artists identifying as a female, who are over 16 years old and who live within one hour of Carbondale, said WM Weston Stoerger, the museum’s curator of exhibits.
Stoerger noted that “Women’s Voices” was born in 2020 out of the “need to create” with the annual exhibition highlighting the expressive thoughts of individual artists.
“The exhibition team hopes that ‘Women's Voices 4’ continues the tradition of showcasing the depth of artistic talent pervasive throughout Southern Illinois, and the myriad ways people have pursued artistic expression,” he said.
The deadline for entries is midnight Oct. 15. All media are accepted for submission but must be original works created by the artist who is submitting them. Application forms are available on the museum’s website.
University Museum will host several artist talks relating to the exhibition during the spring semester.
Mel Watkin, a 2022 recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, is the invitational juror. Her work has been shown nationally at Franklin Furnace Archives, New York; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis; the Addison/Ripley Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the American University Museum of Art, Washington, D.C., and Longue Vue House and Garden, New Orleans. In addition, the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago commissioned three map-based works, and Southern Illinois Healthcare Cancer Institute commissioned eight small works on paper.
Watkin graduated from Bennington College and earned an MFA from the University of Montana. Her curatorial positions include the Washington (D.C.) Project for the Arts and the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis.
As with all exhibitions, the artwork represents the viewpoints of its creators, not SIU. SIU complies with the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act and State Officials and Employees Ethics Act.
For more information, contact Stoerger at stoerger@siu.edu or 618-453-7411 or Teresa Fix, a guest curator, at teresafix@frontier.com.
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