Sketch: Contemporary Artists in Conversation with Emily Grace Hanks
October 25, 2023-December 6, 2023
Doris Ulmann Galleries, Berea College
“The Berea College Art Collection is home to over 250 artworks by Emily Grace Hanks (American, 1886-1962), an artist, educator, and inventor who specialized in observational drawing, painting, and illustration. Though Hanks or her work isn’t well-known today, her career was extremely multifaceted and provides an excellent case study of the pathways that were available to aspiring women artists during this era. In the summer of 2023, Sara Olshansky and Esther Sitver, two artists from the region who also specialize in observational modes of drawing and painting, were invited to the Doris Ulmann Galleries as part of an extended artist residency. Working alongside the Galleries team, Olsansky and Sitver studied Hanks’ work and archival materials housed in the BCAC and created a series of artworks in response to what they found. The resulting artworks – and the exhibition as a whole – explore the connections that can be made between artists across time and raise questions about what it means to leave an artistic “legacy.” What can we find when we look to the past? What can an archive reveal… and what does it leave obscured? And how can we fill in the gaps?”
-Kelsey Malone, Curator, Doris Ulmann Galleries and Berea College Art Collection
Above is a selection of works by Emily Grace Hanks referenced in Olshansky’s body of work for Sketch, courtesy of Berea College and the Doris Ulmann Collection.
