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MFA THESIS EXHIBITION II OPENS APRIL 9


Lincoln, Neb.-The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Art and Art History Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition II opens April 9 and continues through April 18 at the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery in Richards Hall on the UNL city campus.

The exhibitions includes work by MFA candidates Wendy Bantam, Jennifer Brant, Xiaomiao Wang and Rhonda Willers. A reception will be held April 13 from 5-7 p.m. in the gallery. Special gallery hours for the MFA Thesis Exhibitions are Monday-Friday, noon to 4pm.

Wendy Bantam's exhibition is entitled "The Pixie, the Demon, and the Unsuspecting Love Innocent" featuring etchings and new works in oil.


Bantam is the recipient of the Kimmel Fellowship at UNL. She received her BFA in painting at the University of Kansas. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney and the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden. She has also been in exhibitions overseen by the Carnegie Museum of Art and completed a residency in Bali, Indonesia, where she studied Balinese painting. She has been an Artist in the Schools and Communities with the Nebraska Arts Council for 10 years.

Jenni Lynn Brant's exhibition is "Beautiful Objects." Aesthetically, Brant's ceramic work is focused on the creation of forms influenced by the aesthetics of historical Persian pottery and organic forms such as the body and botanicals. She is the assistant director of the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery. Her recent exhibitions include "CollaboratioNE" at the UMC Gallery in Boulder, Colo. in 2007.

Brant is the recipient of a Hixson-Lied Fellowship at UNL. She received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.


Willers' thesis exhibition is entitled "Precious Space." She will be including pieces of her sculptural ceramic vessels (both wall and floor pieces), as well as graphite drawings and mixed-media pieces.

Willers is also the recipient of a Kimmel Fellowship at UNL. She also served as President of the Clay Club in 2005-06 and was a student docent at Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery in 2005-06. She is a member of Visual Artists in Practice, an organization of graduate students in the Department of Art and Art History. She received her BFA in ceramics with a minor in black and white photography from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

Information on the thesis exhibition of Xiaomiao Wang was not available at press time.

For more information, call the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery at (402) 472-5025.