Current Exhibitions
Gina Louthian-Stanley is a multimedia artist, writer, and workshop instructor born and living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Louthian-Stanley has worked primarily as a printmaker since the late 1970s. In 2006, she began experimenting with encaustic techniques in which she juxtaposes transparent and opaque layers coupled with unique textures. Louthian-Stanley’s works represent physical and emotional sensations which carry the viewer into a narrative inspired by the natural world. She writes, “I pursued my childhood dream of becoming an artist, continuing as a student to earn my BA in Studio Art from Hollins University and my Masters from Radford University. While I love learning, I also want to help others reach their goals to find their creative voice.”
This exhibition and its related programs are sponsored in part by the city of Roanoke through the Roanoke Arts Commission.
Gina Louthian-Stanley, A Touch of Earth. Encaustic. Courtesy of the artist.
In 1958, the United States imposed an arms embargo on Cuba during an armed conflict between rebels led by Fidel Castro and the regime of Fulgencio Batista. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy expanded that embargo to block all trade between the United States and Cuba, with some exceptions for food and medicine. In the face of ongoing conflicts and global restrictions, Cubans have continued to use their creativity, imagination, and ingenuity in daily life and artistic endeavors. This attitude and quest for freedom for themselves and their country is apparent in each of the artists’ work whether they examine politics, fantastical contraptions, philosophical concerns, or human rights.
CUBA: Beyond Mambo and Rock ’n Roll provides an opportunity to learn about Cuba through the eyes of artists whose work speaks to their nation’s history, culture, and sociopolitical climate. Dr. Joseph Scarpaci (professor emeritus, Virginia Tech, and Director of the Center for the Study of Cuban Culture and Economy) has organized this exhibition to present work by Cuban artists Esterio Segura Mora, Ernesto J. Garcia Nodarse, and Ernesto R. Figueroa. These artists investigate aspects of control, freedom, and satire through the mediums of drawings, paintings, and sculpture. Also on view is Arte Templo by artists Isabel María Arche Martínez and Ramón Modesto Díaz Martín. The installation explores the symbolism and traditions of Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion based in Catholicism, Spiritism, and the Yoruba beliefs of West Africa.
This exhibition and its related programs are sponsored in part by the city of Roanoke through the Roanoke Arts Commission.
installation views of work by Esterio Segura, Ernesto Garcia, and René Figueroa
Brooklyn-based Matthias Neumann was trained as an architect in Stuttgart, Germany. Since 2015, he has been using common 2’ x 4’ lumber in an additive configuration to explore physical notions of form, space, and utility. This sculpture is part of the Roanoke Arts Commission's sixth “Art in Roanoke” (AIR) temporary sculpture exhibit titled New Life: Reimagining Roanoke. Most of the sculptures will be on view in Elmwood Park, but the city is also placing sculptures in outlying neighborhoods – the Hollins campus being one of those. More of the artist’s Basic sculptures can be seen on his website.
This exhibit is sponsored by the City of Roanoke through the Roanoke Arts Commission.
Matthias Neumann building Basics #50, 2021
Conversations with the Collection
Faculty members from across academic divisions have collaborated with museum staff to select works from the collection that investigate key course concepts and provide extended access to the individual works of art. Participating departments include art history, biology, classics, English, gender and women studies, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and studio art.
Tip Toland, And Now Her Own, 2019. Stoneware clay and mixed media. Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, 2020.001.
In spring 2020, students in the Cultural Property, Rights and Museum course began working on an exhibit, Unveiling the Past: Reckoning with Our History of Enslavement at Hollins University, in conjunction with members of the Hollins University Working Group on Slavery and Its Contemporary Legacies. The exhibit examines objects and images held by the University Archives in the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University. Material researched by students are on display in this virtual exhibit. Those working on this exhibit wanted to create a public space to reckon with our Hollins past and give a forum to those who were not given a voice, name, space, or attention in the past. It is the goal of this exhibit to show the lasting effects slavery has had, and continues to have, here; and, to recognize that Hollins continues to benefit from a history of enslavement.
Clement “Clem” Read Bolden (b. ≈ 1846, d. February 19, 1929). Courtesy of the University Archives in the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University.
Student Selections from the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum
Using selected works from the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum’s permanent collection, student curators put theory into practice in this virtual exhibit which is the culmination of the spring class, “Behind the Scenes: Principles and Practice.” As part of the class, students collaborate and share responsibility for conceptualizing, researching, designing, and interpreting a cohesive exhibition. Each student selected two works that spoke to them based on academic, personal, and aesthetic interests. The exhibit features works created by well-known artists Giovanni Battista Piranesi, John James Audubon, Käthe Kollwitz, Paul Klee, Salvador Dalí, and Andy Warhol, as well as works by Hedley Fitton, Jean Lurçat, Paule Gobillard, Eudora Welty, and others.
When placed together, these works form an image of the Eleanor D. Wilson collection as a small but artistically and historically rich collection – especially when seen through the eyes of Hollins student curators Madelyn Farrow, Faith Herrington, Sylvia Lane, Mairwen Minson, Kaiya Ortiz, Valerie Sargeant, and Maddie Zanie.
Henry Varnum Poor, Anne, c. 1940s. Oil on panel, 8.5 x 7” (framed). Art department acquisition, 1946. Courtesy of the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, 2005.283.
