Nohr Gallery to feature alumna Van Bogaert's handwoven rugs, artwork

UW-Platteville's Harry and Laura Nohr Gallery is hosting an exhibit over the next month featuring handwoven rugs and artwork by alumna Donna Van Bogaert. 

Entitled "The Fiber Art of Donna Van Bogaert: Weaving Artist's Voice and Process," the exhibit opened to the public Tuesday and will run through Oct. 15. A reception with Van Bogaert is set for 3 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, at the gallery.

The exhibit features rugs Van Bogaert wove by hand using reclaimed and repurposed materials. Documents displayed near the rugs provide a deeper insight into the materials and offer a glimpse into the artist's thought process. For Van Bogaert, the fibers themselves carry tremendous meaning and connection to her upbringing.

“As a child, I watched my mother cut apart worn pajamas, salvaging the unworn portions of the fabric and then braiding them into working rugs for the kitchen floor. The transformation amazed me and sparked my fascination with the rug form,” said Van Bogaert. “The legacy wool my mother saved from family garments was used for the first rug I made and instilled an understanding that reclaimed textiles carried stories. In deconstructing garments for use in my pieces, I wonder about where these textiles have been and sometimes their stories come to me in poetry. In a sense, each new piece I create is a community of voices from the past with an opportunity to be revalued and remembered.”

The exhibit includes artwork that Van Bogaert created using a variety of media, including oil, pastel, watercolor, mosaic and graphite. The pieces demonstrate how the artist was inspired by the colors and emotional cues of her earlier pieces while creating her new series of rugs.

Van Bogaert graduated from UW-Platteville with a degree in art education in 1974 after studying painting, printmaking and graphics. She has served as an assistant program director at Northwestern University's Norris Center, where she managed the art gallery and craft studio program, and became the first in-house graphic artist at The Swiss Colony in Monroe, Wisconsin. 

She also directed the production department of a Madison commercial art studio and opened the Villa Lucci Studios for painting, mosaics, fabric arts and eco-sculpture in Mazomanie, Wisconsin, where she also teaches art classes and conducts creativity retreats. 

Van Bogaert is slated to give a free, hour-long talk at the gallery beginning at 2 p.m. on Sept. 29. She plans to discuss her process and passion for reclaimed materials, give advice to emerging artists and share how attending UW-Platteville gave her an edge in her career.

“After focusing most of my life on painting and design, textile work may seem a curious turn. In fact, it is a natural progression from my rural upbringing, where I developed an early love of hand sewing and textile design,” said Van Bogaert. “For me, no medium exists in isolation. Paintings inform rugs, mosaics suggest new structures, and textiles influence future paintings. The work moves in cycles, each piece carrying ideas into another form, just as reclaimed materials carry the traces of earlier lives into the new forms they become.”