The Merwin & Wakeley Galleries
Illinois Wesleyan University

November 10 - December 10, 2009
(galleries closed Thanksgiving Break 11/24-11/29 and on December 1st for A Day With Out Art)

Tuesday, November 10:
Burlesque Design Lecture: 4-5pm
OPENING RECEPTION FOR BOTH EXHIBITIONS: 5-6PM, in the galleries

THE MERWIN GALLERY

Burlesque of North America is a graphic design and screenprinting studio based in Minneapolis, MN. Formed from the ashes of Life Sucks Die graffiti magazine, a one-time band of lawless hooligans applied their skills which they honed while cutting-and-pasting together magazine spreads at Kinko's at 3AM and began creating album artwork, logos, t-shirt graphics, and concert posters for local rock groups, record labels, and concert venues. Several years later, Burlesque, lead by creative directors Wes Winship and Mike Davis, has designed and printed countless rock posters and album covers for The Arcade Fire, The Melvins, Phish, Rhymesayers, Diplo, Converge, MGMT, and others. Their work has been featured in Juxtapoz Magazine and Juxtapoz's "Poster Art" book, XLR8R Magazine, and in the final issue of Mass Appeal magazine. Burlesque has collaborated on several events and projects with Minneapolis' Walker Art Center and their own critically-acclaimed First Amendment Arts gallery has featured work from Shepard Fairey, Chris Ware, Jay Ryan, and many others.
The Screenprinted Work of Burlesque of North America focuses on the rock show posters and art prints which have been published, designed, and screenprinted at our studio. From ultrabright disco-inspired neon shapes to blacker-than-black heavy metal mayhem to early 20th century sideshow antiquities to mind-altering psychedelic swirls, Burlesque's artwork knows no single genre nor single influence.

THE WAKELEY GALLERY

Omne Vivum Ex Ovo
Jennifer Crescuillo

Jennifer Crescuillo  has been working with glass for the past seven years.  She enjoys working with a variety of techniques in glass such as blowing, casting, laminating, and cold working.  Most of her work focuses on natural themes of growth, reproduction, and the history if the planet. She has studied closely with master Czech engraver, Jiri Harcuba and spends her summers as a coordinator for Pilchuck Glass School outside Seattle, Washington. Jennifer  is currently in her third year of graduate school at Southern Illinois University.  She will receive her master’s degree in glass in the spring of 2010.  She received her bachelor’s degree from Bowling Green State University in her home state of Ohio.   

Her recent work explores the tradition of the Easter egg, recognizing it as the integration of many pagan and pre-Christian ideas in Christianity.  The egg is a symbol of fertility and the promise of spring after winter.  Many customs of egg giving and exchanging were practiced around springtime in celebration of new life.  These ideas were easily adapted to fit the Christian tradition of death and resurrection.  The variety of ideas that are represented by the Easter egg are displayed through its elaborate multicolored decoration.  In Christian tradition stripes have been used to indicate impure and deviant elements in society and art.  Those deviant elements were usually people and ideas other than Christianity. " I feel the Easter egg is a perfect example of the mixing of all past ideas and religious beliefs to generate the current ideology, while denying and accepting that origin at the same time."   

Merwin & Wakeley Galleries
Ames School of Art
Illinois Wesleyan University
6 Ames Plaza West
Bloomington, Illinois  61701
Gallery Information:309.556.3822

GALLERY HOURS: Monday-Friday: 12-4pm
Tuesday evening: 7-9pm
Saturday & Sunday: 1-4pm
ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.