Butler Art Instructor’s Work Featured at Wichita Art Museum | Butler Community College

We use cookies to give you the best experience and to help improve our website. How we use cookies.

Apply
Give
APPLY GIVE

Butler Art Instructor’s Work Featured at Wichita Art Museum

Rachel Curtis' painting The Architect
Published: Monday, April 22nd, 2024

Exhibition of Curtis’ paintings runs through October.

Paintings by Butler Community College art instructor Rachel (Foster) Curtis are now on display at the Wichita Art Museum (WAM), in a solo exhibition of her work titled Dissolution. Presented as part of WAM’s Regional Creatives Exhibition Series, the collection can be seen through October 27, 2024.

From the exhibition description on the Wichita Art Museum website:

Rachel Curtis’s figurative paintings in Dissolution represent a progression through a 14-year period, from chaos to stagnation and eventual dissolution. The artworks in this exhibition capture moments in time—some as static as family photos and others in a dynamic series of figures that simulate an event as it unfolds.

With its opening earlier this month, Curtis is glad to finally have Dissolution out in the world. “[As] my first solo museum exhibit, I’m very excited to share my work with my community.”

Curtis involved her Butler students throughout the process, from building the canvas supports to preparing the paintings for delivery. “They were especially interested to see the whole process come to fruition,” she said. “I think seeing the exhibit installed gave them a unique opportunity to experience what it’s like to be a working artist.”

Arts, Digital Media and Communications Dean Valerie Haring is proud of Curtis and her fellow Butler art instructors, Kevin Kelly and Trisha Coates, whose work has also been featured in recent exhibitions. “The level of work these three are making is putting BCC Visual Arts on the map,” Haring said. “They are walking the walk and talking the talk in terms of modeling professional practices for our students.”

The Regional Creatives Exhibition Series is dedicated to exhibiting art by local artists. The program is a partnership between WAM and Harvester Arts, a local nonprofit art organization fostering opportunities for Wichita creatives. As a featured artist in the series, Curtis will take part in an Artist Talk at WAM on May 1, 2024, at 10:30am. Tickets are $2 for the general public and free for WAM members.

Additional exhibitions featuring artwork by Butler art instructors:

  • CENTERED: From the Reuben Saunders Gallery [featuring Trisha Coates, Rachel (Foster) Curtis and Kevin Kelly] - 1516 Gallery (Omaha, NE) - through May 26