Hillestad features stitched art of Tom Lundberg

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UNL's Robert Hillestad Gallery is opening a door to the magical stitched worlds of Tom Lundberg.

From July 12 to Sept. 3, the Hillestad Gallery is hosting the exhibition "Microcosms: The Stitched Textiles of Tom Lundberg." The artist will offer a free public talk at 5 p.m., Aug. 26 in the Home Economics Building. The talk precedes a gallery reception in honor of Lundberg.

Lundberg wryly subverts notions of this genteel pastime of embroidery by composing and painstakingly needling unpredictable, surreal, perverse or mystical dream states that serve as cautionary statements about our relationships with both the natural and the built universes we inhabit. That he manages on such a small scale to embrace many of the paradoxes and mysteries of life is nothing short of breathtaking.

Born in Belle Plaine, Iowa, Lundberg now lives in Fort Collins, Colo., where he is professor of art at Colorado State University. He earned his BFA degree in painting from the University of Iowa and his MFA in textiles from Indiana University. For more than three decades Lundberg has been exploring the world at the tip of a needle, confidently and persistently articulating private views into and through common objects, backyard corners, windows and rooms, and verdant landscapes. Disembodied legs and feet appear in the least likely places; stars shine and shoot, waters stream, matches, tools and barbed wire pose menacingly.

Viewers easily leave the real world behind as they're pulled into Lundberg's private and other-worldly microcosms.

Writing about this work, Sunita Patterson, former editor of Fiberarts magazine, said "...Lundberg's works speak to intuition as much as to reason. The representations are clear - the moon, a flip-flop (the Japanese zori), pruned branches - but their context is elusive. There is a hint of memory. A remnant of thought. A story almost told. Each work reflects an intriguing balance between the spoken and the unspoken. Seen on the wall or on the page, each work has a quiet depth, inviting continued reflection."

The exhibition, curated by Michael James, chair and Ardis James Professor in the Department of Textiles, Clothing and Design, is supported in part by funding provided by the Friends of the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery and by UNL's Departments of Textiles, Clothing and Design.

The gallery is on the second floor of the Home Economics Building. Hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday and by appointment. Admission is free. For more information, go to http://textilegallery.unl.edu or call 472-6370.

- Michael James, Textiles, Clothing and Design

More details at: http://go.unl.edu/8n7