August 8 | Lecture from 6 – 7pm, Doors open at 5:15pm for Reception | Purchase your tickets at bottom of the page
Join us for a presentation by art historian Dr. Abigail Susik about surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. Susik will provide an introductory overview of her life and work, especially focusing on Carrington’s pre-1960 work, and will share insight about the works included in The Magic World of Leonora Carrington. The presentation will begin at 6pm so come early to see the exhibition and enjoy light bites and beverages.
The Magic World of Leonora Carrington explores themes of metamorphosis, magic, and biblical allegory. She populates her compositions with hybrid creatures; human figures fused with mythical and imagined beasts suggest a confrontation between the material world and the world of dreams. Leonora Carrington, 1917 – 2011, was among the early European surrealists, and was a pioneer in her century-spanning explorations of the subconscious and her portrayal of imagery related to mystical experience.
Dr. Abigail Susik explores the intersection of international surrealism with anti-authoritarian protest cultures in her wide-ranging research on modern and contemporary art history and visual culture. Her purview of analysis spans from the mid-nineteenth to the late-twentieth centuries with a focus on European, North American, and Latin American cultural contexts and an emphasis on social art history and labor theory methodologies, gender and sexuality perspectives, and material culture histories. She is a founding board member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism, a joint editor for the Bloomsbury Transnational Surrealism Series, and serves as the Department Chair and Associate Professor of Art History at Willamette University.