In Their Element(s): Women Artists Across Media, Exhibition Curated by Student, Opens at Fairfield University Art Museum

The Fairfield University Art Museum announces an exhibition, primarily of recent acquisitions featuring more than 50 artworks by women artists. On view from April 21 to July 15, 2023.

Fairfield University Art Museum is pleased to present In Their Element(s): Women Artists Across Media, curated by Phoebe Charpentier, Fairfield University ’23 and on view from April 21 to July 15, 2023.

This exhibition — the first in the museum’s history to have been fully developed and curated by an undergraduate student — features more than 50 contemporary artworks by women artists, with an emphasis on works created with unusual techniques or media.

Among the works drawn from the museum’s own collection are photographs by Laurie Simmons, Bea Nettles, and Donna Ferrato, sculpture by Linda Stein and Elaine Cameron-Weir, and prints by Althea-Murphy Price, Maya Freelon, and Sonya Clarke. This exhibition marks the museum’s first collaboration with the Westport Public Art Collections (WestPAC) which kindly lent 7 works, including sculptures by Niki Ketchman and Nina Bentley.

Phoebe Charpentier explained, “I conceived this exhibition as a way to focus on a lot of the museum’s recent acquisitions of work by women artists. I also wanted to shine a light on their contributions to certain traditional media such as oil and acrylic, together with less common materials such as plaster, aluminum, and ceramic.” She noted that the exhibition includes local artists, feminist artists, and twentieth-century artists working in and around New York City.

Fairfield University Art Museum Executive Director Carey Weber, who served as the curatorial adviser for the exhibition, added, “Over the last three years, the museum has devoted significant effort to acquiring more works by women, particularly women of color. We’re delighted to have the opportunity to display so many of these recent acquisitions to the public!”

The exhibition will be in Fairfield University Art Museum’s Bellarmine Hall Galleries, and accessible through the museum’s website as both a video tour and a 3-D virtual tour.

The museum has organized complementary public programs to accompany the exhibition, beginning with an opening night lecture by curator Phoebe Charpentier on April 20.

About the Curator

Phoebe Charpentier will graduate from Fairfield University in May 2023. She is a triple major in Art History, English, and Anthropology/Sociology. She was a member of the Museum Exhibition Seminar’s 1st cohort and was involved in the curation of Into the Kress Vaults: Women in Sacred Renaissance Painting (Fairfield University Art Museum, September 16 – December 17, 2022). Charpentier plans to continue her studies in Art History in graduate school.

About the Westport Public Art Collections

The Westport Public Art Collections (WestPAC) is a cultural asset of the town of Westport, with over 1,800 works of art in a broad range of media—paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints, illustrations, cartoons, photographs, sculptures and murals— by notable American artists, giants of the international art world, and important artists who established their homes and studios in the Westport-Weston community. It is displayed throughout Westport's school and town buildings.

Planned Exhibition Programming:

Thursday, April 20, 5 p.m.
Opening Lecture: In Their Element(s)
Exhibition Curator Phoebe Charpentier ’23
Bellarmine Hall, Diffley Board Room (This talk will be recorded but no livestream will be available.)
Thursday, April 20, 6-8 p.m.
Opening Reception: In Their Element(s) Bellarmine Hall Galleries and Great Hall
Wednesday, May 3, 2023, 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. Spring Drawing Party
Bellarmine Hall, Museum Classroom
Thursday, May 4, 2023, 11 a.m. - 11:30 a.m., Virtual 12:00-12:30 p.m. Art in Focus: Ethel Fisher, “Room on East 89th Street” Bellarmine Hall Galleries and thequicklive.com
Tuesday, June 6, 5-6 p.m.
Lecture: “Women of the Westport Public Art Collections” with Kathie Bennewitz, Executive Director, Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center, and Town Curator, Westport Public Art Collections, and Ive Covaci, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, Fairfield University, and Committee Chair, Westport Public Art Collections

Caption: Ethel Fisher, Room on East 89th Street, 1965. Oil on linen. Gift of Margaret Fisher, 2022, © Estate of Ethel Fisher Kott.

To learn more about the Fairfield University Art Museum, please visit www.fairfield.edu/museum.