Stewart Gallery will show works from the Murder of Crows a seven-year project that was finished in 2022 by artist Stephanie Wilde.
Murder of Crows 2015 - 2022
Murder of Crows is a body of work that speaks to the polarization of race, religion, and political views with a visual subtext of the historical pattern of prejudice. The title is an emblematic reference to flock behavior, herding and the mob mentality that
so often accompanies such actions. The issue of race has been imprinted on America from the original indigenous population to slavery, freedom and beyond. Our culture has justified the history of others, those unlike us, as being inferior; a prejudice that has impacted human development on both parts of the divide and now has reached a tipping point. The extremes are visible in the racial bias in the economy, income, crime, and the prison population. Religion, as well as race, has been brought into our political world to divide and judge, rather than being a personal navigational journey. It has given select groups political power and has turned our society into a they,them, or us culture.
Stephanie Wilde 2015
Over four decades artist Stephanie Wilde has created works of art that tell stories of our shared humanity, individual dignity, and the imperiled environment. In creating bodies of work on such themes, she is a seeker of rarefied moments in which the visual arts transfigure facts, figures, and political rhetoric, making of them universal statements that appeal to the senses, emotion, and logic. Wilde has been nationally honored for this vision, recognized as an artist who consistently weds intellect to material mastery. To date her work has been supported by a host of grants and fellowships, including multiple awards from the Idaho Commission on the Arts (National Endowment for the Arts), the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. This professional recognition and its attendant financial support sustain the seriousness and quality of Wilde’s endeavors—especially for series that span years, of creation.
Murder of Crows Essay
