Exhibition: January 14–March 8, 2022
Gallery hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 12–4PM. Closed Sunday & Monday
Artist Lecture: Friday, January 14, 5PM,
Fine Arts 015 and on Facebook Live
Opening Reception: Friday, January 14, 6–8PM, Grunwald Gallery
The Grunwald Gallery of Art is pleased to present Andrea Ventura: Vanitas, an exhibit of paintings by Italian artist Andrea Ventura. Ventura works as both an artist and illustrator, and this exhibition will highlight both modes of image making. The exhibit will contain several of the portrait illustrations of which Ventura is widely known, along with still life paintings and other tableaux works that Ventura exhibits in galleries and museums in Europe. A public lecture is scheduled for Friday, January 14, 5pm in FA 015. The artist will be an Artist in Residence at the Collins Living and Learning Center at Indiana University in Spring 2022 where he will teach an Illustration class.
The title of Artist / Illustrator was more common in the past than it is today, however a distinguished list of artists historically worked in both professions including Honoré Daumier, Édouard Manet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paula Rego. It is an apt moniker to describe the life and work of Andrea Ventura. Mr. Ventura’s striking, graphically strong work routinely gazes back at us from the pages of prominent publications in Europe and North America including the New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, Italian Vogue, Der Spiegel and La Republica.
Vanitas is a still-life symbolic work of art showing the transience of life to remind the viewer of their mortality. The combined exhibit of these portrait illustrations with still-life paintings addresses the definition of vanitas from two perspectives, creating an exhibit that speaks of creating work for public consumption through published illustrations and alternatively, paintings that are created and displayed for more traditional galleries and museums.
The exhibit will highlight both illustrative work and work created for exhibit. This exhibit and the programs that will accompany it will be an opportunity to address the relevance of contemporary painting in the age of commercial reproduction. Students are interested in how they might effectively use their artistic practice to make a reasonable living, and the integration of commercial work into a viable artistic practice is relevant to all artists and creative practitioners. The workshop will allow for one-on one instruction and professional practice discussions, showing the significance of a creative output that can be both practical and visually arresting.
Exhibition Sponsors:
The exhibition was made possible by the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design and the College Arts and Humanities Institute at Indiana University.