solo exhibition
Whew, it’s a busy fall! My solo show Materiality has closed, and I’ve been hard at work with the aim of getting all the sold pieces from it into the hands of the buyers. Here are some photos of the exhibition and reception! I was very pleased with the show installation and flow, which was due to our amazing preparator Shannon Sargent. There was great community turnout for the reception - it was a fantastic event.
The below gallery of images is from my Phoenix Athens Gallery solo show!
Athenian Habitat by Shelby Prindaville
Exhibition dates: 15 – 22 July 2023 at Phoenix Athens Gallery, Asklipiou 89, Athens, Greece
Reception: Thursday 20 July 2023 19:00-22:00
I am really happy with this body of work; everything installed on the walls was created in five weeks, and I even managed to complete the piece displayed on a small easel in the front window before the reception.
I’ve been fortunate enough to receive Morningside University Ver Steeg and Morningside Experience Grant funding to support my research through my summer artist residencies at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine and Phoenix Athens these past couple of years - and now, I am exhibiting that artwork (as well as artwork from my Whiterock Conservancy residency, raku workshops, and general studio practice) in a solo show on campus in Eppley Art Gallery!
I titled this show Materiality because of the wide variety of media on exhibit; for artwork in this show, I dug my own wild clays, made my own ash glazes and saggar-fired plant vines onto pottery, built substrates out of recycled wood and concrete, worked atop unusual surfaces including antique ceramic tiles and papyrus, incorporated a wide range of veterinary materials, harvested natural cave pigment, and made use of scientific processes including chromatography and frontal polymerization.
Materiality is on display August 23-October 7, 2023. It’s open to the public on weekdays during business hours, which will be 8am-5pm once we have student workers begin their shifts, but until then it’ll be 8am-4pm. The show reception will be Wednesday, September 26th from 3-4pm - I’ll give a short artist talk, we’ll serve refreshments, and the event is free and open to the public!
Shelby Prindaville's Eppley Art Gallery Fall 2023 "Materiality" show poster.
As you can probably surmise, I tend to post a week or so after whatever it is I’m doing. It takes time to process photos, write up posts, title and measure artwork, and so forth. It’s also nice to space out new artwork posts, so that online viewers have time to appreciate each one! This means that though I’ve only published three finished pieces and covered three weeks here in blog entries so far, I’m actually part of the way through my fifth week and have finished six pieces of artwork with two more in progress… and my solo show is rapidly approaching.
Below are the show details and statement, for anyone who happens to be in Athens!
Shelby Prindaville is interested in the human role in shaping an ecological balance and creates art pieces centered on the beautiful fragility and resilience of the natural world. Her interdisciplinary art practice demonstrates the joy of contemplative engagement with nature as well as provides a taste of the sorrow a disconnect with nature can bring.
Shelby encountered each of the animal and plant species depicted in her paintings on Mount Lycabettus during a sequence of hikes undertaken throughout her residency, and drew additional inspiration from ancient Greek ruins; the Greek history of conquest, influence, and cultural fusion; urban construction materials; Athenian museums’ broken artifact presentations; a spotting scope’s field of view; the etymology and mythological background of the Eurasian sparrowhawk’s scientific name; and the law of conservation of energy.
While in residence at Phoenix Athens, Shelby has been working with new-to-her materials that have been locally or regionally sourced – concrete, broken segments of marble and paving stones – and in some cases, historically meaningful: papyrus and 19th century antique tiles. These materiality explorations and her desire to give her finished pieces their best chance of long-term archival stability have necessarily involved experimentation and occasional failure or redirection. She has visited two sandblasting facilities, used an angle grinder for the first and several subsequent times with a variety of different heads and attachments, tried out crackle paste, and limited herself to a color palette inspired by archaic natural pigments.
Shelby Prindaville is the Art Department Chair, Gallery Director, and Associate Professor of Art at Morningside University in Sioux City, Iowa, USA. Her studio practice combines her interests in the sciences and art. She has been selected as a World Wildlife Fund tour artist, was invited to be the first-ever artist in residence at a veterinary school in the United States, and has previously completed twelve other artist residencies. Her website artbyshelby.com displays her work across a wide variety of art disciplines including painting, mixed media, relief, sculpture, ceramics, and interactive installations.
I grew up in Concordia, Kansas, and attended high school at Concordia High School (CHS). Recently, CHS Career and Community Coordinator Brandt Hutchinson reached out and invited me to join their notable alumni speaker series called Pause PAWS.
I agreed as long as we arranged for an exhibition of my artwork at the same time; if I’m going to be speaking about my career as a professional artist, it is important to me that the audience has a chance to see my artwork firsthand. Brandt immediately coordinated with the Frank Carlson Library to host a solo show in the Frank Carlson Design Room.
The show installation, opening reception, and lecture are all coming up this week! Here’s the first piece of press about it, via NCK Today. As the article shares, “Shelby will be speaking to current Concordia High School students from 9 am to 9:30 am on Thursday, February 16th in the historic CHS Auditorium. The presentation will be live-streamed for the general public by Chris Stiles' high school video production team on their YouTube channel, USD 333 Media Productions.
The Frank Carlson Library will be hosting Shelby's art exhibit from February 17th to March 3rd. The public is welcome to meet the artist by attending the opening reception for the exhibit from 5 pm to 6 pm on Thursday, February 16th at the Frank Carlson Library.”
My Longview Farm House Art Gallery solo show in Town and Country, MO (a St. Louis suburb), is still up through November 17th! It is viewable during gallery hours, which are weekdays from 9am-4pm, and the address is 13525 Clayton Road, Town & Country, MO 63141. For those of you who can’t visit in person, here are some photos!
I also took a few photos while checking out the Gateway Arch (both from outside as well as from the inside at the top through the small windows) and the Missouri Botanical Garden with my good friend Susan Nelson!
I’m excited to share I have yet another solo show coming up very soon! Later this week, I will drive down to the St. Louis suburbs to install at Longview Farm House Art Gallery in Town & Country, MO. This show will run from October 6 - November 17, 2022. It will be viewable during gallery hours, which are weekdays from 9am-4pm.
The opening reception will be held at Longview Farm House Art Gallery on Thursday, October 6th from 4:30-7:30pm. The address is 13525 Clayton Road, Town & Country, MO 63141.
After I return, I’ll share some photos with you!
If you haven’t checked my solo show at Lauritzen Gardens (Omaha’s Botanical Center) out yet, you have a bit more than a week left to do so as it closes at the end of the business day on September 24th! If you plan to check it out, make sure to pick up an image list from the entry kiosk to reference while looking at the artwork as well as a rack card - both for my own artwork on the face, as well as the show info and future exhibition information on the back.
Here are some photos of the installation for those of you who aren’t able to see it in person!
Just a reminder that I will be installing my solo show at Lauritzen Gardens (Omaha’s botanical center) today, and you can see the show in person from August 17-September 24, 2022! I’ll publish some photos from my installation and of the exhibition itself in a subsequent post for those of you unable to visit in person.
Here are photos from my solo exhibition and opening reception at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, co-sponsored by the LSU School of Art! The reception was amazing; over 80 people attended and they were all very engaged throughout the evening. We began with a welcome speech delivered by LSU School of Veterinary Medicine Dean Oliver Garden, followed by speeches from LSU College of Art + Design Dean Alkis Tsolakis and LSU School of Art Director Rod Parker, and then my artist lecture!
By the end of the evening, 6 of the 8 paintings/relief/sculpture were sold (only Hosts and Singularity remain available), and 3 of the 13 ceramics were purchased in addition to countless prints and greeting cards. Through the course of the rest of the exhibition, 3 more ceramics sold along with additional prints and greeting cards. I was a little surprised at how popular the mosquito reproductions were as they sold out quite quickly, but I’ve since learned there’s a well-known joke that mosquitoes are the state bird of Louisiana!
In the slideshow, you’ll see that in addition to the artwork walls and reproduction sales table, I also had a display table of some of the veterinary materials - medicines, chemicals, stains, tools, bones - I used in each of the pieces of artwork!
The show poster and details have been released for my LSU School of Veterinary Medicine Artist in Residence exhibition, co-sponsored by the LSU School of Art! Here’s the LSU College of Art & Design’s event page for it, and below is a copy of the image and text.
Artist-in-Residence, LSU School of Veterinary Medicine
July 25, 2022 5:30-7:30 p.m.
LSU Vet Med Library
LSU School of Veterinary Medicine presents the art of Shelby Prindaville, and invites you to a lecture and reception featuring our inaugural Artist-in Residence. The lecture, exhibition opening, and artist’s reception will be at LSU Vet Med Library and is co-sponsored by LSU School of Art.
I’ll be exhibiting a solo show titled Conservation Conversations at Omaha’s Lauritzen Gardens botanical center from August 17 through September 24, 2022. Mark your calendars!
If you can believe it, this exhibition has been in the works since 2020 (I’ll give you one guess as to why it took a couple more years). Below are the front and back of a rack card from Lauritzen Gardens advertising their 2022 exhibition calendar (you can click in for more detail) - I was honored that they selected one of my paintings for the large facing image!
Well, Earth Day 2021 was quite eventful! I’ll do a separate post on the ART 225 Painting I project we took on earlier in the day, but this post is all about how my opening reception went for my Artist for the Earth solo show at The Block Gallery in downtown Sioux City.
First of all, I want to say a big thank you to the Morningside Art Department federal work study studio art assistants Devyn Reilly and Rachel Steinkamp for helping me to install the show. While I’ve installed many a show alone, it is so much nicer to have skilled help working alongside you! I also had Rachel take some nice shots of the show after we installed it, so I might add more to the blog later, but here are a few photos I took tonight.
The last photo in the grid is thanks to some of my lovely friends, who not only came out to support me at the reception but also gifted me with a bouquet of flowers and purchased artwork and reproductions. A bunch of wonderful colleagues, students, and community members also came through and many left with various pieces of artwork as well. It was a lovely evening!
I was invited to have a solo exhibition at The Block Gallery in downtown Sioux City, and since my work is ecologically-focused, gallery director Gia Emory and I agreed that opening the show on Earth Day 2021 seemed appropriate! I also went ahead and registered it with the Earth Day Network, which coordinates Artists for the Earth and thus gave me an easy show title to boot!
This show will not only display some of my 2D work, but will also include pieces of my ceramics! I’m quite excited about that, as this will be the first time ever that I’ll be exhibiting ceramic artwork.
The exhibition poster for my Artist for the Earth show at The Block Gallery!
I’m opening up the school year with a solo faculty exhibition, Contact, at Morningside College’s Eppley Art Gallery! If you’re in Sioux City and can safely visit, check out my poster below for all the pertinent details. I’ll show some gallery images later on for those of you who are further afield or unable to attend.
Sorry for the break in updates - I ended up being in several places without internet as I'll be discussing! Anyway, back to the journal...
It turned out Sunday ended up not being so good for Sella either, and I had gotten wrapped up in a painting, so I had another studio day. Then Monday was spent getting ready for the solo exhibition Noemi had arranged for me in La Casa Museo Orlando Hernandez (The Orlando Hernandez House Museum); we got the keys to the place from the local government and scoped it out, prepared the exhibition room, and got double-sided mounting tape to help secure my pieces to the walls. Tuesday evening was my opening, but that morning Noemi had arranged for me to visit the northern part of the island's recycling center for a tour as a part of a group (she had originally planned to come as well, but ended up needing to sit for state exams that day). I was a little skeptical of how interesting it would be and also had yet to install the artwork or shop for the reception refreshments, but Noemi said she thought it would take around an hour and really wanted me to go. So I went! It actually took three and a half hours, and only about half an hour of it was interesting (touring the actual facilities). The other three hours involved watching videos and protracted lectures and Q&As about the importance and minutiae of recycling - in my case, at least, preaching to the bored choir. But I got back with - just! - enough time to eat lunch, install my artwork, and run to SPAR to buy some refreshments. The reception went well, and then the rest of the week I babysat the exhibition (with no internet) and started some new pieces from within the exhibition itself - a sort of performance art in its own way! On Friday I did an artist lecture and a demo of QuickCure Clay, and then later on another exhibition opened up in an adjoining space, and their reception also flooded over into mine and I had a hopping second reception-of-sorts as well.
Over the weekend Noemi took me to the north to see the towns of Arucas and Gáldar, and we visited the Painted Cave museum, where we got a chance to glimpse aboriginal cave paintings from a carefully monitored chamber so as to attempt to preserve what's left of the paintings after severe degradation from tourists during the late 70's and 80's. Noemi also thought I should try paragliding, so she arranged for a friend to take me up in a tandem parachute! I'm up for new things, so I did it, and I'm glad I had the experience - but I didn't enjoy it very much. I get pretty motion sick, and the turning and swooping set it off quite strongly. I also got bored with it after the first few minutes - we just sort of looped back and forth over the same bit of land, and once I'd taken it in... the views were extremely similar to what you'd see out of an airplane, so it felt more normal than I would've thought. I love scuba diving, though, and I know that is not everyone's bag, so I'm still pleased I gave paragliding a go. On Sunday we visited the Maspalomas area so that I could see the sand dunes, which were beautiful, and I got a taste of the Maspalomas beach as well which is a tourist hotspot (it turns into Playa del Ingles, which is the most well known) and was absolutely crammed with people. I prefer the beach at Las Canteras in Las Palmas or in Arinaga, honestly. Then we went up to see Sella, finally, and her place was great! She runs a retreat center called EcoTara where groups with instructors book in to run yoga and other health and lifestyle retreats. We spent a lazy afternoon there, and the drives along the way both coming and going were spectacular as well.
Then we took my show down (the other exhibition in the adjoining space kindly babysat mine as well over the weekend), and I went down to Arinaga to rejoin Silviu, who had been busy scoping out opportunities for me to have a second exhibition down there, because he's just that lovely of a person. We spent the next day figuring out where I'd have the second show, and La Canela y Hierbabuena said they'd love to have me.
This Friday was my opening reception for my Goppert Gallery exhibition Finding Light. I will share a more comprehensive set of photos with you in a bit, but here's a teaser! The show is up through March 9th if you want to experience it firsthand.
