Athens, Ga. – Helen Klebesadel, a painter and women’s studies scholar, will exhibit her work, give public talks, teach classes in art and in women’s studies and meet with faculty and students as a Center for Humanities and Arts Visiting Artist, Feb. 7-11, at the University of Georgia.
Klebesadel uses rich, complex watercolors, layered with references to art history, myth, literary and social theories, cultural icons, folklore, and personal experience to explore questions of individual identity and cultural expectation. An accomplished artist and articulate explicator, she is recognized by both students and colleagues as an outstanding teacher.
Her exhibition, “Social Patterns: Paintings by Helen Klebesadel,” will run Feb. 7-25 at the Tate Student Center. Her public talks will include a conversation with students in the Brumby Hall Rotunda, titled “Using Art to Find Voice,” on Tuesday, Feb. 8, at 7 p.m.; the CHA Lecture “The Personal is Political: Art as Women’s Studies Research,” which takes place on Wednesday, Feb. 9 at 4:30 p.m. in 116 visual arts building; and the Women’s Studies Brown Bag Lunch, “Remember Feminist Artists: Using Art to Teach Women’s Studies,” which will be held in room 250 of the Student Learning Center on Friday, Feb. 11, at 12:10 p.m. The talks, approximately one hour in length, are free and open to all.
Klebesadel received an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M) in 1989 and a certification in women’s studies from UW-M in 1984. She is director of the Women’s Studies Consortium in the University of Wisconsin System and has just finished a three-year term as associate chair and visiting associate professor in the Women’s Studies Program at UW-M.
Her professional service includes participation as curator at Simpson College; awards juror on the selection committee of the board of directors of the National Women’s Studies Association (2002-2005); CitiArts commissioner for Madison, Wisc. (2002-2005); and board of directors and co-founder of Social Transformation through the Arts (STARTS) Program (2000).
Klebesadel was a Board member of the National Committee of the United States of America (NCUSA) to the International Artists Association (IAA) of UNESCO (1996-1999) and delegation leader to the historic NGO Forum 95 of the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women held in Beijing and Huairo, China.
Klebesadel’s awards include the Lysistrata Award, Wisconsin Women in the Arts (1991) and the Curator’s Award from the Museum of the National Arts Foundations, New York (1989). She has had numerous exhibitions, throughout the United States and abroad, including 25 solo exhibitions, 27 group exhibitions and 7 electronic exhibitions.