Washington, D.C. - Louise Bourgeois, M. Jordan Tierney, and Kate Kern are among the 30 artists who interpret the many sources of sleeplessness in Insomnia: Landscapes of the Night, at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), March 10 through November 30, 2003. The 51 distinctive paintings, drawings, assemblages, and artists' books in the exhibition detail the artists' heart-pounding realms of nightmare, their yearning for the bliss of peaceful dreams, and other nocturnal meditations.

"The state of being asleep is a paradise...a paradise that I can never reach," says insomniac Louise Bourgeois, who revisits major themes from her life's work in her nighttime chronicles. On more than 220 scraps of paper, using blue, black, and red ballpoint pens, the artist kept a visual and verbal diary of her sleepless nights between November 1994 and June 1995, and again in 2000 and 2002. Insomnia (2000) features a young, bare-breasted woman with three pairs of wide-open eyes, a repetitive motif in Bourgeois's work, and Untitled (2002) depicts a clock frozen at 4 a.m.

For M. Jordan Tierney, four o'clock in the morning is the magical hour at which she finds inspiration. Her mixed-media assemblage Emprise at 4 a.m. (2001) portrays a pre-dawn voyage toward a new life. Its female figure facing the wind is, for the artist, "a symbol of bravery forging alone onward in the hours of the night." The figure rides under a blanket of stars made up of dominos, atop bedsprings, piano keys, and fishing floats that combine to give the effect of an uncomfortable, tempestuous night at sea.

Loneliness resulting from the death of a loved one can also disrupt a night's sleep. Widowed artist Mirella Bentivoglio's Cercare la chiave nel sogno (Search for a Key to a Dream, 1980) is a book sculpted from dark marble. Like a cold memorial tomb, it is locked -- the empty keyhole a symbol of the artist's eternal search for her lost love. Elisabetta Gut's Volo-Volume (Flight-Volume, 1980) also mourns the passing of a husband, embodying the artist's thwarted desire to escape from suffering and loneliness, with its poignant metaphor of a blackbird tethered to earth by a broken wing.

The desire for love is the theme of Bonnie Lee Holland's life-size installation Bedroom, Version III (1997-2000). An empty bed constructed of cardboard boxes, garbage bags, and discarded newspapers is covered by a quilt stitched with personal ads and articles on aging and relationships. The nightstand is created from a pile of romance novels.

In Kate Kern's amusing pop-up book Jump Shout Doubt (1990), the overwhelming demands of motherhood are evoked by a giant baby. It pops up in mimicry of a toddler's boundless energy while toys and utensils spread out in a fan-like page and add to the sense of large-scale mayhem.

Krystyna Wasserman, NMWA curator of book arts, is curator of the exhibition. During her research, she learned that many more women suffer from the syndrome than do men. Wasserman noted, "While Louise Bourgeois is the classic example of an obsessive insomniac, having published two volumes of drawings on the subject, most other artists in the show see their art simply as a therapeutic remedy for sleeplessness. After a night spent working on their creations, these women find that they can finally rest."

Admission to the museum during Insomnia: Landscapes of the Night is: March 10 - June 18, $8 general admission, $6 students and people age 60 and over, and free to NMWA members and youth under 18; June 19 - October 23, $5 general admission, $3 students and people age 60 and over, and free to NMWA members and youth under 18; October 24 - November 30, $8 general admission, $6 students and people age 60 and over, and free to NMWA members and youth under 18.

Insomnia: Landscapes of the Night is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, with funds provided by the NMWA Library Fellows and Lorraine Grace. A color catalogue will be available in the museum shop for $8.95. During the summer and fall, a film series will accompany the exhibition. Please call 202.783.7370 for more information, or check the museum's website at www.nmwa.org for a complete listing of programs and events.

About the museum

The National Museum of Women in the Arts, founded in 1981 and opened in 1987, is the only museum dedicated solely to celebrating the achievements of women in the visual, performing, and literary arts. Its permanent collection contains works by more than 800 artists, including Judith Leyster, Maria Sibylla Merian, Mary Cassatt, Camille Claudel, Georgia O'Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Elizabeth Catlett, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Magdalena Abakanowicz, and Louise Bourgeois. The museum also conducts multidisciplinary programs for diverse audiences, maintains a Library and Research Center, publishes a quarterly magazine, and has organized 27 state committees. Nearly 120,000 people visit the museum each year, including thousands of young people who come with schools and scouting groups. NMWA's national membership of nearly 40,000 is among the top ten percent of museum memberships nationwide. The museum is located at 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, in a landmark building near the White House. It is open Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. and Sunday noon - 5 p.m. For information call 202.783.5000 or visit the museum's website, www.nmwa.org.