Exhibition of Artworks in Plaster and Gold on Display at OWU's Ross Museum

February 22, 2005

Delaware, Ohio -- The work of internationally known metalsmith Lisa Gralnick will be on display at Ohio Wesleyan University's Ross Art Museum from Feb. 27-April 10. Her exhibition, "The Gold Standard," showcases works made of plaster and gold.

"Gralnick is one of the major artists in our field," said Cynthia Cetlin, professor of fine arts at OWU. "She has a very expansive, very socially conscious vision of art."

"Gold, as an infinitely recyclable material, embodies both the potential for the noblest testaments to the history of civilization, and the disturbing ability to erase that same history," Gralnick writes in her artist statement. "The painful knowledge that gold fillings and teeth, collected by the Nazis from the mouths of concentration camp victims, have long since been melted down and reintroduced into the endless cycle of matter, and that pilfered golden antiquities, reincarnated into another form, have probably made it into the showcases of jewelry stores across the globe, suggest a material fraught with both moral ambiguity and a troubling but fascinating capacity for reinvention."
 
Gralnick will give a lecture Feb. 27 at 2 p.m. in room 312 of the R.W. Corns Building on OWU's campus. There is also a reception for the artist following the lecture. Both the lecture and reception are free and open to the public. Gralnick will be on campus for several days, and she will give a workshop in Cetlin's metals class.
 
Funding for the exhibition is provided by the Jarvis Stewart Lectureship Fund and the Marion Parson Alden Endowed Fund for Visiting Artists.
 
The Ross Art Museum is located at 60 S. Sandusky St., Delaware, Ohio. Hours are Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. and Sunday 1 - 5 p.m. The museum is closed on Monday and Saturday. It will also be closed March 5 - 13 for Ohio Wesleyan's spring break. For additional information, please contact the museum at 740-368-3606 or at ramuseum@owu.edu.