Washington, D.C. – Approximately 60 inventive and compelling works in Transitory Patterns: Florida Women Artists at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) reflect exciting new artistic techniques and media while highlighting the distinctive artistry and landscape of Florida. The works, on view Oct. 15 through Dec. 19, 2004, were chosen by a jury of leading Florida curators and museum directors, in collaboration with guest curator Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz, from over 700 submissions to the Florida State Committee of NMWA.

“These artists have as their connection not just the state of Florida, but the extraordinary state of contemporary art today,” said NMWA Director Judy L. Larson. “The women’s museum is proud to exhibit such varied, exceptional works.”

The climate and environment of Florida have long been inspirations for artists. Dense, tangled woods and thickets serve as subjects for Lillian Garcia-Roig’s abstract landscape paintings. On her summer breaks from directing the M.F.A. program at Florida State University, Garcia-Roig travels the countryside looking for sites appropriate for her plein air style. In contrast, Victoria Gitman, who labels herself a minimalist painter, renders small-scale works of vintage beaded bags and necklaces realistically in oil on board.

For other artists, experimentation with traditional and new media is a prominent characteristic. Mernet Larson, a long-time faculty member at the University of South Florida, states that “the painted world must be artificial, obviously constructed,” a belief she puts on canvas with her elongated, geometric figures in such works as Walk on a Windy Day (2001). Travels throughout the Middle Ease inspired the series of large-scale dramatic Burqa paintings of Miami artist Lynne Golob Gelfman, an abstract colorist and painter with an acute sensitivity to surface and texture.

Photographer Francie Bishop Good includes her niece Carly in her digitally manipulated works. For example, in Carly Wax with Frida (2003), mingling with Frida Kahlo and Marilyn Monroe in a wax museum, Carly represents innocence in Good's exploration of the teenage obsession with celebrity.

Other artists represented in the exhibition are Carol Brown, Natalia Benedetti, Julie Davidow, Teresita Fernández, Naomi Fisher, Maria Martinez-Cañas, Beatriz Monteavaro, Jennifer Morgan, Vickie Pierre, Marisa Tellería-Díez, and Wendy Wischer.

Jurors for the exhibition were Bonnie Clearwater, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami; Lori Mertes, curator at the Miami Art Museum; Margaret Miller, director of the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum; Rena Minar, former director of the Mary Brogan Museum of Art & Science; and Sue Scott, adjunct curator at the Orlando Museum of Art. The Florida State Committee is chaired by Anna Schrieffer.

Transitory Patterns: Florida Women Artists was organized and funded by the Florida State Committee of NMWA. Guest curator Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz is an independent curator and public art advisor. Coordinating curator is Britta Konau, NMWA associate curator of modern and contemporary art. The exhibition will travel to the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Deland Museum of Art, and the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science in Tallahassee.

Admission to the museum during the time of the exhibition will be $5 for adults, $3 for students and visitors 60 and over, and free for NMWA members and youth 18 and under. A full-color catalogue will be available for sale online and in the Museum Shop.

About the women’s 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, 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 national and international committees. More than 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 37,500 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.