MONMOUTH, ILLINOIS (January 24, 2025) — A new member of Monmouth College's art faculty is featured in an exhibition that opened earlier this month in the school's Len G Everett Gallery.
Kristin Beaver's exhibition, titled "Wall to Table: Old and New Works," will be on display through February 21 in the gallery, which is on the upper level of Hewes Library. Beaver will speak about her work at 3:30PM, February 7, during her artist's reception. The exhibition, reception, and gallery talk are all free and open to the public.
Beaver paints portraits of people in cinematic poses, as well as occasional still-lifes, inspired by the evolution of fashion, photography, dream-states, and the history of painting. Dramatic lighting and color illuminate subjects in photo-shoot and candid environments, exposing different emotional atmospheres, attitudes, and personalities.
"My work has been influenced heavily by my surroundings and upbringing and the people with whom I am close, how viewers areWorks by new Monmouth College art faculty member Kristin Beaver now on display manipulated psychologically by figurative images of pop culture — old and new — and how we are affected by space, color, and nostalgia," said Beaver. "One of my favorite pastimes is mining for imagery that energetically speaks to me in form, color, or expression in the archives of my local university's library. It is a pleasure to unearth images from books and magazines unseen for decades and bring them to life again in the form of a painting."
The Macomb, Illinois, native earned a Bachelor's degree in painting and drawing from Western Illinois University in 2000, followed by an MFA in painting from Wayne State University in 2004. She was represented by the David Klein Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan, for ten years, and has shown her work throughout the United States and in Italy.
A recipient of the 2009 Kresge Artist Fellowship, Beaver taught at the College for Creative Studies and Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, for ten years. In 2013, she was granted a fellowship with The BAU Institute and went on an artist residency to Otranto, Italy, for a month. During that time, she worked in a private studio in a fifteenth-century castle and met her future husband in a tiny local restaurant. She now lives between the countryside of Puglia, Italy, and Illinois with their two children.
