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Studio and Process

My work references and incorporates historic techniques such as gilding, silverpoint and painting on wood panels to explore the strong connection once held between organized religion and fine art to explore the themes of the sacred and revered.

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The Stone Path will be on view at Trout Museum of Art in Appleton WI from January 24 through May 18, 2025 as part of the exhibit “A Creative Place”.

About

Wisconsin artist, Theresa Abel, has been a professional studio artist since receiving a BFA from UW Madison in 1991 and now works in a variety of media including gilding, silverpoint and oil painting both on wood panels and works on paper. Abel spent the past five years on a large project titled, The Stone Path, in which she draws her visual vocabulary from medieval religious iconography to examine both the fiction and dogma of stories perpetuated by the Catholic Church. Abel is particularly interested in the role once held by the church of commissioning and housing works of art and sees the modern institutions which now assume this role as proxy for modern religion. In addition to exhibiting her paintings, Abel’s multi-faceted career includes curation and community involvement beginning as a founding member of the artist collective, Artbite, that exhibited for over a decade primarily in Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, with a mission to create more exhibition opportunities for visual artists. She is currently the owner, curator, and managing member at Abel Contemporary Gallery as well as guest curating and lecturing on professional art practices throughout the region.

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