The Allen County Museum opened its first temporary exhibition of the year, Mirror Mirror, on January 11, 2024. Mirror Mirror combines the work of fourteen female artists whose work surrounds the complexities of their identities as artists, women, and, in some cases, mothers, wives, and daughters. The exhibition, which has been traveling since October 2022, is curated by the Director of the Allen County Museum, Dr. Christine Fowler Shearer.

The museum is launching a temporary exhibition schedule in 2024. Each year, the museum will have three changing exhibitions in its temporary gallery space on a range of themes and subjects. We are looking forward to engaging in new conversations and programs with these exhibits.

Mirror Mirror focuses on artists and works that discuss the complexities of being a woman as well as so many other identities. Some works, like Jessica Gardner’s Mommy Wars, will show honest, real-life experiences of being a artist and a mother. In contrast, others, like Jessica Calderwood’s Public Private, are more metaphorical illustrations of the dualities of womanhood. It is an exhibition that may mirror any viewer’s experiences, regardless of gender identity.

The fourteen artists tell a wide variety of stories on this topic through an equally diverse number of mediums. Artists and their mediums include Erin Holscher Almazan, printmaking; Julie Blackmon, photography; Alicia Brown, painting; Jessica Calderwood, ceramics; Kristen Cliffel, ceramics; Rebecca Cross, textiles; Lalla Essaydi, photography; Jessica Gardner, ceramics; Marcella Hackbardt, photography; Mabi Ponce de Leon, mixed media; Bellamy Printz, printmaking; Stephanie Rond, mixed media; Margo Selski, painting; and Babette Wainwright, ceramics.

Dr. Fowler Shearer has spent the last twenty years advocating for and highlighting non-mainstream artists and regions in her exibitions and art historical writing. In 2010, she founded her own company, Fowler Artistic, to curate exhibitions with diversity in mind for museums, non-profits, collectors, and artists. She curated Mirror Mirror in 2020 before becoming the Director of the Allen County Museum in 2023.

The museum is excited to start holding temporary exhibitions more frequently and having the opportunity to share stories the permanent collection cannot tell. In addition, having changing exhibitions encourages visitors to come back and learn about something new several times a year.

The Allen County Museum is excited to start 2024 with such a compelling and rich exhibition. Mirror Mirror will be open from January 11 through March 23, 2024. A lecture about the exhibition will be held by Dr. Christine Fowler Shearer on January 28, 2024, as a part of the museum’s annual meeting. Likewise, another lecture surrounding the exhibition will be held on February 24, 2024, by Nannette Macienjunes, Director Emeritus of the Columbus Museum of Art. Allen County Museum would like to thank its partner, the Ohio Arts Council, for a grant that helped make Mirror Mirror possible.