Ingraham's 'Skins' to Be Shown at Hillestad Textiles Gallery

Lincoln, Neb., March 17, 2004 -- University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty member Elizabeth Ingraham is the featured artist March 24 through April 14 at UNL's Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery.

In her exhibition titled "Information, Memory and Desire: Skins by Liz Ingraham," the artist creates life-size figures from a wide range of materials, including velvet, black neoprene, wool crepe and gold mesh fabric, which are then embellished with vintage silver buttons, hooks and eyes, small gold bells and elaborate embroidery.

"Through a series of life-size, dimensional female skins, I am exploring how expectation, desire and convention - our own and others - form casings which shape our deepest selves and which become so familiar they seem like our own skin," Ingraham said.

She likened the skins to costumes and camouflage, saying that they describe emotional states, conceal and reveal identity. The works are tactile as well as visual and are designed to be touched and handled by the viewer - unzipped, unbuttoned, entered, read and rattled.

The artist will discuss her works at 5:30 p.m. March 26 during an opening reception scheduled for 5-6:30 p.m. The reception and the exhibit are free and open to the public. The Hillestad Textiles Gallery is in the Home Economic Building north of East Campus Loop on 35th Street. Gallery Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission is free. For more information call (402) 472-2911 or visit the gallery Web site.

Ingraham is an assistant professor of art and art history. In 2001, she received the Nebraska Arts Council's Distinguished Achievement Fellowship, its highest honor, and in 2003 won the Creativity in Motion Thatcher Hoffman Smith Prize in Creativity from the University of Oklahoma.

Ingraham earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado, master of fine arts degree from the University of California-Santa Barbara and juris doctor from the University of Denver. As a master's student, she was the first visual artist to be awarded a fellowship from the Institute of Interdisciplinary Humanities and was a studio assistant to the installation artist, Ann Hamilton. Before returning to school to train as a sculptor, she was an activist lawyer for Native American groups in Alaska and a participant in the sweeping social change resulting from the federal settlement of aboriginal land claims in that state.

CONTACT: Wendy Weiss, Director, Hillestad Textiles Gallery, (402) 472-6370