April 29 – May 24, 2025
Gallery I
Anne Mondro
Tethered
April 29 – May 24, 2025
Reception: Thu, May 1, 6-8 pm
Tethered (Awe), woven wire
Ceres Gallery is pleased to present Tethered, an exhibition by artist Anne Mondro.
Tethered is a collection of woven wire sculptures that explore the complex and often conflicting emotions experienced by being a caregiver and care recipient simultaneously. Using visual metaphors, delicate wire sculptures reminiscent of human anatomy such as bronchial tubes or aortic valves joined together in imaginary configurations, Mondro references a new relationship between caregivers and care recipients. Knots have also been making their way into her designs as symbols of support and strength. Drawing from the artist’s personal experience, Tethered offers an insightful reflection of the vital role of caregiving and its profound impact upon healing.
Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Anne Mondro focuses on creating innovative arts programs for individuals with dementia and their caregivers alongside her active studio practice and teaching role. She has exhibited her work at national and international spaces, including the Powerhouse Museum of Science and Design, Sydney, and the International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago. Her commitment to integrating the arts in healthcare has resulted in exhibitions at numerous medical venues, including Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston; University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas; and University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, Iowa City.
Gallery I
Francine Perlman
Books I Travel With
April 29 – May 24, 2025
Reception: Thu, May 1, 6-8pm
Celebrating global organizations promoting education for woman and girls
This collection of works by Francine Perlman addresses profound contemporary challenges closest to her heart and mind, as well as those that express the sheer joy of art making.
Francine Perlman has been exhibiting sculpture, constructions/installations, and works on paper, especially monotypes, since 1985. In 2005, she began using newspapers sculpturally as representative of communities, expressing all aspects of a community’s political, cultural, and day-to-day lives. Perlman’s 2023 exhibition, Listen Closely, Palestinians Have a Seat at the Table, addressed Israeli policies in the West Bank, and incorporated newspapers in Hebrew and Arabic, in separate objects. In Books I Travel With, in Hear Us, Shalom, Salaam, she once again uses Hebrew and Arabic, only this time combined in a gesture of peaceful coexistence.
Perlman’s 2017 installation, Doors Open/Doors Close, spoke to the plight of women who have escaped domestic violence, only to find themselves in shelters, often with their children, losing community and property, and living in secrecy for their safety. Dreaming of Open Doors presents the dire predicament of homelessness, and dreams of spaciousness, choice, freedom, and opportunity.
In 2021, her show Then and Now presented abstract oil pastels, and pages from a book she contributed to a collaboration, Arc of the Viral Universe. The joy of artmaking is felt in all of Perlman’s work, whether narrative or abstract.
Perlman’s website is francineperlman.com.
Gallery II
Shirley Steele
Under Construction: Building Portraits
April 29 – May 24, 2025
Reception: Thu, May 1, 6-8pm
Ceres Gallery is pleased to present Under Construction: Building Portraits, an exhibition by artist
Shirley Steele.
Steele’s work for this exhibition is a video exploration of the process of building a human likeness. Or a human life. Incomplete, imperfect, chaotic, beautiful.
A sequence of videos is presented, each of which is a study in how successive marks coalesce into a portrait of a human face. Each face is different and imperfect, and each one is constructed one mark at a time. Sometimes the marks appear to lose direction or take a wrong turn or go off the screen entirely, but eventually a face emerges. Portraiture turns out to be a verb, not a noun.
The artist identified this process in the aftermath of personal loss and the necessity of reconstructing life. But in the process, she saw that everyone is under construction all the time. No one is complete. We are all adding pieces to our lives in real time in a process that is often confusing, unpredictable, and filled with mistakes. Eventually, though, a portrait emerges, though unfinished. The construction continues.
As a mixed-media artist, Shirley Steele works at the intersection of the humanist art tradition and new technology. As a research scientist at Bell Laboratories, Steele knew some of the early pioneers of computer art and came to recognize the creative potential of the new tools. In addition, she brought a scientific perspective to her traditional arts training at the Art Students League of New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Out of these different experiences came an ongoing curiosity about the space between traditional art and creative computation. Her artwork today is a continuing exploration of that space and its connection to individual lives.
Upcoming:
May 27 – June 21, 2025
Raising Women’s Voices 2025
Select Ceres Members
Nancy Quin
New Work