The Sordoni Art Gallery will present “Getting There,” an exhibition by the creative duo Andrew Ellis Johnson and Susanne Slavick, both faculty members from Carnegie Mellon University, from June 21 through Aug. 7, 2022. The show addresses timely themes surrounding peoples affected by migration due to war, famine, climate change, political repression, and social injustice.
The collection pairs ink and mixed media on paper works by Johnson, and oil and mixed media paintings on paper and panel by Slavick, with writings by novelists, poets, anthropologists and journalists who have informed their projects and whose words they have included or cited. Among them are Jenny Erpenbeck, Lev Golinkin, Eliza Griswold, Mohsin Hamid, Ali Johar, Maria Melendez Kelson, Jason De León, Blas Manuel de Luna, Suketu Mehta, Yasser Niksada, Prageeta Sharma, Warsan Shire, Wisława Szymborska, and Vu Tran.
The exhibition will open with a special presentation by the artists on Weds., June 22 at 6 p.m. via Zoom. To register, please email Melissa Carestia at melissa.carestia@wilkes.edu.
Andrew Ellis Johnson studied at SUNY Buffalo, completed his BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and earned an MFA in Art at Carnegie Mellon. In 2004, he joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University where he is now Associate Professor of Art.
Susanne Slavick is an artist, and recently retired professor and curator and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. She studied at Yale University, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and Tyler School of Art in Rome and Philadelphia.
The Sordoni Art Gallery is located at 141 S. Main. St. in Wilkes-Barre and shares space with the Karambelas Media and Communication Center. It is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays
through Fridays and 12 noon to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. The gallery follows the operating schedule of Wilkes and is closed on University holidays, breaks or due to inclement weather. For more information, visit www.wilkes.edu/sordoniartgallery.
