Waldron Arts Center announces new exhibitions in each of its galleries

BLOOMINGTON – The Waldron Arts Center announces new exhibitions in each of its galleries. The exhibitions will be on display beginning with an opening reception on Friday, November 3, until Sunday, December 17. There will be an additional reception during the First Friday event on December 1. 

The Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest and the Resilience of the Indigenous People of Brazil presented by Terre Haute-based artist, Alexandra McNichols-Torroledo, consists of a series of silver gelatin photos printed from large-scale, 4×5 inch negatives.

The photos detail the experiences of the Mura people of Itaparana as they live to resist deforestation and protect their homes in the Brazilian Amazon. McNichols-Torroledo traveled to Brazil from 2019 to 2021 to work with this community, engaging the Mura people with her artistic practice.  The photos will be accompanied by a video installation and a series of photographs made by members of the Mura community using drones to capture the destruction enacted as part of the mega-projects currently underway in the Amazon.

In the Educational Gallery, the Indiana University Prison Arts Initiative presents its exhibit, Away From Here. The IUPAI is the first Indiana University-sponsored prison education program. The group consists of current and former IU graduate students and aims to administer 16-week, college-level classes in correctional facilities. Away From Here is the culmination of a visual-arts-focused class, consisting of 15-20 students at Putnamville Correctional Facility in Putnam, Indiana. 

The exhibit displays 23 images, taken by participating IU graduate, Zachary Kaufman, showing inmates’ sketchbook pages and writings about their work.  Though this work is inherently personal, IUPAI must hold to regulations that require no faces or full names of inmates to be displayed. What results are images that encourage the viewer to recognize each artist’s individuality while retaining relative anonymity.

Whimsy & Wonder is the inaugural visual arts show for Bloomington-based illustrator, Bobby Ayala Perez, though Perez has had time on the Waldron stage as a cast member in Constellation’s Holmes and Watson. The exhibit includes several series of paintings, each as playful and colorful as the last. The exhibit has a sense of the joyful surreal, allowing viewers to experience a sense of delight.