The Goldmark Cultural Center’s John H. Milde Gallery is proud to present Freeway, an exhibition featuring drawing and sculptural works by Hugh DeWitte and Julie Libersat.
The exhibition is on display in the Goldmark Cultural Center’s John H. Milde Gallery from 22 April, 2023 to 19 May, 2023. An opening reception for the exhibition will be held on Saturday, 22 April, from 12 to 5 pm, during the Spring Art Walk at the Goldmark Cultural Center.
About the Exhibition
The great coliseums and aqueducts that stretched across Europe evidenced Roman power and preeminence. What are our architectural markers? A global symbol of our age is the highway.
Most industrialized people have used and can relate to the interstate. They have become a metaphor for modern life’s hum, with all its achievements and struggles. Massive interchanges tower over huge swaths of land routing cars and trucks across a worldwide network of travel and transportation. But if we look more closely at them, as art, they are complex, ever moving objects. These roads emote emotions.
Road rage when delayed. Anticipation and adventure. Curiosity and exploration. Striving and advancement. Struggle, compulsion. When viewing their construction, strength, complexity, and composition.
Ultimately - Highways reflect our humanity.
About the Artists
Hugh DeWitte
Hugh graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and resides in Dallas, Texas. He lives near the High Five Interchange; the tallest highway overpass in the world, where the inspiration for his current work began.
Hugh has a professional career as a graphic designer working at Robert A. Wilson & Associates, Corporate Communications firm located in Dallas, TX, and is now launching a professional fine art chapter, with his studio having opened in May 2022.
His fine art exploration has occurred over the course of many years including varied printmaking, metal sculpture and fine art commissions.
Hugh’s drawings and paintings use long, expressive strokes and primal mark making to explore the energy, concurrency, and beauty of what he calls “highway scapes.”
His spontaneous and free-form improvisational style incorporates the flowing lines seen in modern highways to create an atmosphere of strength and curiosity.
Julie Libersat
Julie Libersat is an intermedia artist and assistant professor of art and design at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX, TX. Born in Kerala, India and raised in Philadelphia PA, Libersat received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2003. She earned an MFA in New Media in 2016 as well as a Masters in Art Education in 2017, both from the University of North Texas.
Libersat has exhibited artwork in the US and abroad including shows at the Dallas Contemporary Museum, School 33 in Baltimore, The Center for Art and Culture in France, Currents International New Media Festival, Paseo Taos and Museo de la Cuidad de Mexico. She has received a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, the 2014 CADD FUNd grant and the Velma and Davis Dozier Travel Grant from the Dallas Museum of Art. Her work has been reviewed in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and Sculpture Magazine online.
Libersat's research has been published in Studies in Art Education, the publication of the National Art Education Association and has an upcoming chapter publication in an edited volume, "Pedagogical Propositions: Playful Walking with A/r/tography." Libersat is a co-PI on a Humanities Connections grant from the National Endowment for Humanities at Texas Woman's University. Quakertown Stories is an interdisciplinary and experiential learning initiative that aims to integrate the history of Quakertown, a historic freedom colony, into courses at TWU.