WEST BEND, WISCONSIN – The Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA) presents Handmade Paper Stories on view Friday, March 4 through Sunday, May 15, 2022, at its satellite gallery MOWA | DTN located inside Saint Kate—The Arts Hotel in downtown Milwaukee. Handmade Paper Stories features contemporary works by four Madison-based fiber artists: Hannah O’Hare Bennett, Mary Hark, Henry Obeng, and Maria Amalia Wood. An exhibition celebration party will be held Friday, April 8 from 5:00 to 7:00 at the MOWA | DTN gallery.
“While these four artists employ traditional papermaking techniques, they transcend the conventional with their sublime expressions of color and texture,” said Anwar Floyd-Pruitt, exhibition curator and MOWA curatorial engagement fellow. “Their handmade paper itself is kind of a visual poetry.”
Hannah O’Hare Bennett’s and Mary Hark’s papermaking practices developed out of their long careers in agriculture and textiles, respectively. They seek to showcase the endless potential for creative expression rooted in the medium itself.
Maria Amalia Wood’s and Henry Obeng’s autobiographical narratives are composed of and embedded in handmade paper, expanding the medium’s utilitarian legacy beyond the surface alone.
The museum’s satellite gallery MOWA | DTN is located inside Saint Kate—The Arts Hotel in the cultural district of downtown Milwaukee. MOWA | DTN is open to the public daily during lobby hours, 7:00am–Midnight.
ARTIST BIOS
Hannah O’Hare Bennett
Hannah O’Hare Bennett is an artist living in Madison, Wisconsin. Common themes in her fiber-based work include landscape, earth, deep time, narrative poetry and materiality. She holds a BFA in printmaking from the University of Kansas and an MFA in Textile Design from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In the years between undergrad and graduate school, she worked in food systems and organic agriculture, a career that informs her current work.
Mary Hark
Proprietor of HARK! Handmade Paper, Mary Hark is a fiber/mixed media artist, Professor of Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin¬–Madison, and a passionate advocate for sustainable papermaking in Ghana, West Africa.
Henry Obeng
Ghana-born Henry Obeng’s passion for hand papermaking led him to do his graduate work in Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Making use of hand papermaking and photographic processes, his work explores ideas informed by the natural world and his observations and experiences as an international person moving between cultures.
Maria Amalia Wood
A native of Honduras, Maria Amalia maintains a studio in Middleton, Wisconsin. With a creative process that embraces a personal and socially engaged art practice, her work delves into the complexities of a life lived between Central America and the Midwestern United States.
IMAGE CREDITS: Maria Amalia Wood, Hojas Del Otoño, 2017