Confluence of Earth and Mind Exhibition at The Martin Museum of Art

The Martin Museum of Art at Baylor University will feature Confluence of Earth & Mind from January 17 through February 26. Confluence brings together the sculptural work inspired by nature of two prominent Texan women. Sherry Owens brings new life to discarded crepe myrtle branches in dense nest-like forms. Sharon Kopriva offers immersive installations that grow out of the surroundings to portray faith and spirituality.

Sherry Owens, a native Texan, lives and works in Dallas. She received a BFA from Southern Methodist University in 1972, the Moss/Chumley North Texas Artist Award in 1999, was the West Texas Triangle artist in 2010 with a comprehensive survey at five west Texas museums, and received the Artist/Craftsman Award from the AIA Dallas in 2014. She is a former president of the Texas Sculpture Association, has served on various art boards and was a co-founder of the Emergency Artists’ Support League. Her work has been shown throughout Texas and the southwest and internationally in Peru, Greece, Turkey and India. She recently had a show at Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum in San Antonio and has completed a large public art project for the Love Field Modernization Program at Love Field Airport in Dallas and a sculpture for Ben E. Keith Company in Dallas. Her work is in many private and corporate collections. Owens is known for her meticulous crepe myrtle sculptures, as well as large outdoor works in bronze and steel. Informed by observations in nature, she constructs nest-like objects using twigs and branches to create both dense, chaotic forms and open drawings in space.

Sharon Kopriva, a Texas native, currently works in Houston, Texas, and Hope, Idaho. She earned her MFA in painting from the University of Houston in 1981. Since her inauguration with the Fresh Paint exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 1985, Kopriva has exhibited internationally including at The Menil Collection, Houston, The Ogden Museum, New Orleans, and The National Museum of Peru in Lima. For more than thirty years, Sharon has combined two and three-dimensional media often with fusions of papier-mâché and found objects. Her career has taken her through investigations of pre-Columbian cultures in Peru, examination of her Catholic faith and, more recently, inspiration by the spiritual forests of the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

The Martin Museum of Art will host a reception on Thursday, February 2, from 5:30 to 7pm. Artists Sherry Owens and Sharon Kopriva will give a gallery talk about the work and exhibition. Light refreshments will be served. The event is free and open to the public.

The Martin Museum of Art is located in the Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center on the Baylor University campus. Admission and events are free and open to the public. Museum hours are Tuesday-Friday: 10am-6pm, Saturday: 10am-4pm, and Sunday: 1-4pm. The museum is closed on Mondays, during Baylor University holidays, and between exhibitions. For more information, please call 254-710-1867 or visit the museum website at www.baylor.edu/martinmuseum