FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUNE 27, 2007
 
Queens and Vagabonds: Paintings by Gina Litherland to be shown at the
Haggerty Museum of Art
 
(Milwaukee, WI) – The Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University will present Queens and Vagabonds: Paintings by Gina Litherland, an exhibition of 17 oil paintings by Wisconsin artist Gina Litherland.  The exhibition will open on Thursday, July 26, 2007 with a 6 p.m. talk by the artist followed by a reception. The event is free and open to the public.
 
Queens and Vagabonds: Paintings by Gina Litherland features oil paintings on masonite ranging in size from 9 x 12 to 24 x 30 inches. Litherland employs traditional indirect oil painting techniques of building translucent layers of color in order to create a luminous, brilliant effect similar to those achieved by 15th century Sienese painters, combined with textural effects created by using various tools other than the paintbrush. These techniques allow Litherland to create a detailed, layered, and complex surface of images.
Born in Gary, Indiana, Gina Litherland has been active in the visual arts since the mid 1970s, exploring photography, performance, drawing and painting.  She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her paintings, drawings, and articles have been published worldwide in journals and periodicals associated with the international surrealist movement.  Her essay on the connections between creative activity and the natural world, Imagination & Wilderness, appears in “Surrealist Women: An International Anthology”(University of Texas Press.  Litherland’s most recent work was the subject of a museum exhibition at the James Watrous Gallery of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters in Madison in 2006, and a solo exhibition at Corbett vs. Dempsey Gallery in Chicago in 2007.  Litherland states:
I have always been interested in the interplay between myth, the natural world and the domain of dreams and memory. As a child, I spent many hours exploring natural wooded areas and empty lots inhabited by multitudes of insects and wildlife. This, along with a fervent interest in reading, particularly fairy tales, laid the foundation for my current investigations as an artist. Much of my work is inspired by folklore, myth, and literature reflected in my own personal preoccupations, specifically themes of desire, femaleness, the natural world, the human/animal boundary, children's games, ritual, intuition and memory.