Presently Absent: Paintings by Tom Berenz

February 9, 2015 - March 31, 2015

  • Reception: Thursday, Feb. 12, 6–8 p.m.; Gallery Talk at 7 p.m. by Tom Berenz.
  • Music by Parkland Guitar Ensemble
  • Additional Gallery Lectures:
    Thursday, Feb. 12 at 1:15 p.m. in the gallery

Image: Cake Flight, acrylic and enamel on canvas, 60" x 72", 2014Tom Berenz is an Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Berenz has an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MA from Northern Illinois University, and a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Berenz blurs the lines between realism and abstraction, beauty and horror, devastation and the sublime. He uses the disaster motif as a metaphor to create conversations about personal, sociopolitical, environmental and ideological issues. The choice of images is always changing, but always returns to a pile. His paintings depict the still after a disaster, the quiet resulting from devastation.


Image: Cake Flight, acrylic and enamel on canvas, 60" x 72", 2014