Dittmar Gallery

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Dittmar Memorial Gallery, established in 1972, is a student-operated gallery that enlightens and challenges the Northwestern University community with the works of emerging and underrepresented artists from the Chicago area and the Midwest. The staff at Dittmar is dedicated to developing and fostering the Northwestern community’s awareness of the changing attitudes and trends in the art world. We invite artists who work in the contemporary vein, as well as artists who offer an alternative perspective that hinges on the periphery of the art world. In essence, our goal is to provide well-deserved exposure to those outside or on the margins of the mainstream art world.

Current Exhibit

Coalescence/Diaspora, Meredith Setser, March 29 – May 13

Coalescence! Such a luscious and descriptive word to describe a fusion, a cleaving, a union, a blending. It is a word that exemplifies my creative process in the construction of my felt installations. These works are typically composed of small fragments of printed information and patterns which are derived from many different sources, including biology and geology. These print fragments are melded into larger, unified pieces. These aggregations intuitively take forms that reference landscapes. They suggest biological commonalities shared by plants, animals, and humans.

Diaspora! Using this word in conjunction with coalescence causes a dichotomy to emerge. Dispersion, migration, even displacement are all definitions of this term. The works in this exhibition are still concerned with merger but also this notion of scattering. I question the various forces that bring things together but also cause them to move apart, a forced disconnect. These descriptive words can be applied to the spread of human cultures, the migration of animals, and many branches of science. In fact, these notions have become the essential tenets to popular theories of many branches of science, from geography/earth science and its notion of the Pangaea and continental drift, to astronomy and its Big Bang theory. As an artist, I find words like coalescence and diaspora visually seductive. The works in this exhibition are my attempts to illustrate these concepts filtered through my visual sensibilities and my materials.

2011 – 2012 Dittmar Gallery Exhibits