BRATTLEBORO
Brattleboro painter Dana Wigdor and Bennington sculptor and mixed media artist Sue Rees will each talk about their evolution as artists and show slides of their work on Thursday, Nov. 20, at 7:30 p.m. at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. Admission is $4, or $3 for BMAC members, seniors and students.

Both artists are represented in the Museum’s current exhibition “Spirited Women: Ten Vermont Artists,” on view in BMAC’s main gallery through Dec. 31.

Wigdor is an emerging artist who has recently begun showing in the Brattleboro area. Her paintings depict atmospheric landscapes in muted tones, inhabited by strange, mechanical-looking objects that seem to float in the air. The juxtaposition of clearly identifiable forms of nature with shapes that clearly do not belong in that natural setting can be disturbing, suggestive, whimsical and, above all, provocative.

Wigdor received a bachelor’s from the San Francisco Art Institute. Before moving to Brattleboro, she taught abstract painting and figure drawing to adults and senior citizens for several years. She has participated in group exhibitions in New York City, Germany and Russia. Patrons of Max’s Restaurant in West Brattleboro or of the Café Beyond at Collected Works Bookstore in downtown Brattleboro have had an opportunity to see her work in solo shows over the past two years.

Rees is an artist who often collaborates with composers, theater directors and choreographers. Educated in England and the United States, she holds a master’s in sculpture from Syracuse University. She has created and shown works throughout the U.S. and Europe and in such far-flung places as India, Mexico, Uganda and Australia.

Her many awards and fellowships include a Fulbright senior research grant, a New York dance and performance Bessie award for visual design, Vermont Arts Council grants and numerous international artist residencies. Since 1988, she has been a member of the visual and performing arts faculty at Bennington College.

Rees’ work encompasses sculpture, installation, theatrical design, video, sound and performance, and often incorporates several of these forms into truly “mixed media” works. About both her sculpture and her collaborations in the performing arts, she explains that “there are overriding themes consisting of architectural elements, animating inanimate objects, sound emitting from movement and by devices, the use of projected video and film, and a combination of found and constructed forms. In both cases, I am interested in redefining space, and the time of a space, by the placement of objects and their movement and their interaction.”

Wigdor and Rees both employ mechanical images or techniques to highlight the human qualities expressed in the art. Wigdor sees her "machine-like forms” as “comparatively alive, playing out small vignettes of human interaction,” while Rees says that her “use of mechanized objects refers to the human figure in an indirect manner without…being overtly figurative.”

The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center is located in Union station at the intersection of Main Street and Routes 119 and 142. The museum is wheelchair accessible, and an ASL interpreter for the hearing impaired will be provided if requested two weeks in advance. Parking is available in front of the museum, with additional parking evenings and weekends at the Marlboro College Technology Center next to the museum on Vernon Street.

Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 6p.m. Admission to the galleries is $3 for adults, $2 for seniors and students, and free for members and children 12 and under. Group tours may be arranged. For information, call (802) 257-0124 or visit www.brattleboromuseum.org. The museum’s 2003 season is supported in part by Entergy Vermont Yankee.

Diana Lischer-Goodband is a local poet, and regular columnist for the Brattleboro Reformer. She can be reached at dlischer@sover.net .