Cynthia Willett
EDUCATION:
1984 Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT,
M.F.A.
1982 University of Louisville, KY, B.A.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
Anthracitic, A.I.R. Gallery, NYC
Sculpture & Drawings, 55 Mercer Street Gallery, NYC
Sculpture & Drawings, Morris Belnap Gallery, Louisville, KY
Drawings, Catherine Spalding University Gallery, Louisville, KY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITONS:
Poetry in Paint: Abstraction from the Collection Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, VA
Gravity/Levity, Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, VA
AQA Invitational, Chung Cheng Gallery, St. John’s University, NYC
Sculptors Thinking Drawings, Police Bldg, NYC
Drawing the Line, OIA Gallery, NYC
From Celestial to Earthly, (traveling) University Museum, La Crosse, WI-Paterson Museum, NJ
Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
Motion/Nine Women Artists, Broward Community College, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Regional Invitational, J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY
UNIVERSITY and CORPORATE COLLECTIONS:
Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA
Princeton University School of Architecture, Princeton, NJ
Indiana University Southeast, Clarksville, IN
University of Connecticut, New Haven, CT
Yale School of Art New Haven, Connecticut
University of Louisville Alumni Association, Louisville, KY
Louisville Gas & Electric Company, Louisville, KY
Capital Holding Corporation, Louisville, KY
Bochl, Stopher & Graves LLP, Louisville, KY
Stites & Harbison Law Firm, Louisville, KY
Samm’s Insurance Company, Somerset, KY
AWARDS:
Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant
Penny McCall Foundation Grant
Alice Kimball English Travel Fellowship
Yale Graduate Scholarship
About the drawings submitted:
This series of drawings originated in 1984 after I visited Cumberland Elkhorn Coal (at 950 Swan Street in Louisville, Kentucky) to gather coal for sculpture. It is a remarkably beautiful and evocative place. I have continued to reference the images from there, as well as from other coal sites over the years, in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Virginia and West Virginia.
The drawings here have the feel of the soft, airless environment and palpable gravity in a place that is weighted with mountains and mountains of coal. I dedicate all of my coal yard landscapes to my grandfather Giorgio, who mined coal in southern Illinois as a young immigrant.
