Museum of Northwest Art opens new art exhibits

Two exhibits open at the Museum of Northwest Art on First Street on Saturday, June 22, and run through Sept. 29.

“Joseph Gregory Rossano: Portraits of the Divine” is a compassionate tribute to nature. The distillation of decades-long engagement of the artist with the impact of human beings on the natural world, it offers a selection of large-scale sculptures, drawings and paintings from three of the artist’s ongoing series: “At the Top of Her Lungs,” “Whitewashed” and “Ivory”. By depicting a menagerie of animals whether endangered or already extinct, this art manifests, like sacred icons, the holiness of nature, the immanence of a divinity on the brink of disappearing who looks back at us.

“William Morris: Early Rituals,” presents a selection of works Morris crafted from the mid-1980s to early 1990s – a time when he experimented with innovative glassblowing techniques, ancient forms and dazzling surfaces while honing his poetic vision. These works are a prelude to the sculptural works of the following two decades, when he gained international acclaim as a glass artist.

Morris has blazed a trail in the American Studio Glass Movement for his unique ability to imbue his sculptures with a sense of alluring mystery, suspended time and ancestral oneness with the natural world.

Source: MoNA