UW-Green Bay Lawton Gallery to present exhibition of works by artist Rininger
The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Lawton Gallery will present “The Heart is Mostly Made of Water: An exhibition of works by John Rininger,” from Thursday, March 6-Thursday, April 3 at the gallery in Theatre Hall on campus, 2420 Nicolet Drive.
The gallery will be closed March 17-22 for Spring Break.
The Rininger exhibition will kick off with an opening reception from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 6, an event that will include a 5 p.m. introduction to the exhibition by Lawton Gallery Curator Stephen Perkins. All Lawton Gallery events are free and open to the public.
The title of the exhibition, “The Heart is Mostly Made of Water” is the title of a 2005 Rininger work that brings together the themes of the heart and purity with the added element of water. The postcard-sized work features a self-portrait of the artist’s head in profile with eyes closed, and collaged inside this silhouette is a blustery seascape set with a fenced enclosure. The elements combine to create a haunting image of an interior landscape. The theme of water appears in a variety of Rininger’s works from his final years — he died in 2006 at age 45.
A mail and stamp artist with a dark sense of humor, Rininger worked in several genres. The Lawton Gallery exhibition includes “Catalyst Komics” a photocopied magazine collaboration; “Even paranoiacs can have enemies,” an early 1990s magazine collaboration; 20 undated artists’ books; John Rininger ephemera; and “The Scroll,” a 600-foot long, three-foot wide scroll of some 1,400 images transferred with solvents from black and white and color photocopies. Rininger’s contemporaries widely regard the piece as the artist’s masterwork.
Located in Room 230 of Theatre Hall, the Lawton Gallery is open from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday during fall and spring semesters. The gallery will be closed March 17-22 for Spring Break. All gallery events are free and open to the public.
For more information, contact Curator of Art Stephen Perkins at (920) 465-2916, via email at perkinss@uwgb.edu, or visit the Lawton Gallery website, www.uwgb.edu/lawton/. You can also find “Lawton Gallery” on Facebook.
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