Carnelian Art Gallery to host “Surrealism” exhibition

 Madison, Wisconsin, Sept. 29 – Carnelian Art Gallery, located at 221 King St., Suite 102, in downtown Madison, is pleased to announce its last art exhibition of the year, titled “Surrealism,” whose theme is centered around the weird, strange and bizarre. The art in this show takes on a dreamlike and uncanny quality. Some works are two-dimensional, while others are three-dimensional.

Participating artists include Kimberly Burnett, Rachael Hunter, Samantha Jane Mullen, Helen Klebesadel and Natalie Jo Wright.

Surrealism will kick off with an opening reception at 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 7, as part of Gallery Night. It is slated to be on display until the end of the year.

Organized by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Gallery Night “offers art lovers and art novices alike an opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of exhibitions, opening receptions, special events and demonstrations at venues throughout the city. During Gallery Night, dozens of venues open their doors to invite the public in to see and shop for original artwork,” according to MMoCA.

As always at Carnelian Art Gallery, admission on opening night is free and light refreshments will be served. And the first 25 visitors to Surrealism’s opening will receive a drink ticket good for one cocktail at Oz by Oz, the gallery’s friend and neighbor at 113 King St. Oz by Oz is known for its zodiac-themed drinks, as well as eclectic and artsy vibe and aesthetic.

At 6 p.m. on opening night, Burnett will conduct a live painting demonstration.

“I am honored to be showing my work at the Carnelian Art Gallery,” said Burnett. “I really enjoy hearing what people take away from my art, and Madison seems to be full of people who appreciate art.”

“I’m really looking forward to live painting and exhibiting in such a beautiful gallery in Madison. My hope is that I get to make new connections which will inspire my future art.”

Burnett is a self-taught artist from North Carolina. Her art is inspired by her childhood love of the old masters of Europe. She taught herself oil paints by studying books on their works and then copying her favorite masterpieces. Today, her works mostly feature lone figures in interior spaces and surreal landscapes with a focus on colors.

She has been painting full time since 2020, when she moved to Milwaukee. In Burnett’s free time, she enjoys gardening, hiking, baking, learning languages and searching for insects.

Surrealism is an exhibition that shines a light on the unconscious mind,” said Carnelian Art Gallery marketing director Emilie Heidemann. “And hopefully, this show will encourage gallery visitors to unlock and explore their respective imaginations, particularly the strange concepts and ideas they drum up sometimes.”

About the Artists

Wright was born in central Illinois in 1977. She received her undergraduate degree in fine arts from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 1999 and her graduate degree in fine arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008.

Her current series, “Four Eyed Cats in MidCentury Spaces,” grew out of memory, imagination and a lifelong love for mid-century design. Wright’s family (on her mother’s side) owned a furniture store for 50 years in the small town where she grew up. As a child, she spent countless hours wandering its rooms and paging through design catalogues. Years later, rediscovering those same books sparked this series.

The paintings combine nostalgia with playful surrealism: Wright’s two cats, depicted with a “four-eyed” twist, inhabit richly detailed interiors drawn from catalogues, memory, and her own home. Handmade “meat pillows” from an earlier body of work and vintage lamps from her collection collapse past and present, blurring the boundary between real and imagined environments. Originally conceived as an immersive installation, the series still carries that spirit—paintings that feel as though the spaces could spill off the wall and into the viewer’s world.

Wright currently works with water-soluble oils, a medium that has shifted her practice from large-scale portraiture toward finely detailed interiors. Her work reflects both a devotion to mid-century design and a desire to invite viewers into spaces that appear familiar at first glance, but reveal something more curious and uncanny the longer you look.

Klebesadel, who has a graduate degree in fine arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is a visual artist, born and raised in rural Wisconsin near Spring Green. Klebesadel is known for her watercolors focused on environmental and feminist woman-centered themes.

An artist, activist and educator for four decades, Klebesadel’s watercolors push the traditional boundaries in scale, content, and technique. Her paintings are exhibited nationally and internationally. They are also represented in numerous public and private art collections.

Klebesadel was previously a university educator for more than 30 years. Her contributions to the larger arts community included serving as a member of the Wisconsin Arts Board and as the national president of the Women’s Caucus for Art, the nation’s oldest organization of women artists and art historians.She maintains an art studio in Madison, where she continues to grow her artistic vision, build a creative community and support others to do the same by mentoring emerging artists.

Mullen is mostly a sculptor, sometimes a writer and always a curious creature who currently exists in Madison, Wisconsin. Self-taught, Mullen uses polymer clay, paper clay and various other mediums to create playful, yet shocking, narrative sculptures which focus on our connection to the land, society, childhood and monsters. Her work delves into the weird and the curious, the parts of ourselves we correct and mask and the perceived failures that act as building blocks for the walls we build between ourselves, our community and our planet. Each piece is a love letter to the panic attack, the shame shadowed, the glittering and tired, the imagination driven dragon seekers and monster lovers, the playful, hopeful, damned but kind.

Mullen strives to build a mythology within her work that invokes a magical realm in which we are all little monsters exploring the unknown together, inviting the beasts within like wolves to the fire and giving them a little treat.Hunter is a painter based in Madison, Wisconsin. Growing up in Minnesota as an only child, she spent much of her time alone playing make-believe. She continues this practice today by creating paintings that inhabit a world parallel to ours, entirely her own.

Her focus is on creating ambiguous and unsettling narratives that invite viewers to create their own meaning. She works primarily with vibrant oil, acrylic and Flashe paints on alternative surfaces. Wood planks found on the side of the road are intuitively carved into blobs, and bedsheets sourced from second-hand stores, friends, or even her own bed become her canvas.

A key influence in Hunter’s artistic journey is the legacy of the magical realists of the Midwest, such as Sylvia Fein and John Wilde. Like these artists, Rachael uses her paintings to explore and understand an increasingly horrifying reality. With fascism on the rise and a small group of people attempting to control every aspect of daily life, she paints to keep it together and find meaning in it all.

“We are so thrilled to showcase the works of these talented artists,” said Carnelian Art Gallery owner and head curator Evan Bradbury. “This show is all about allowing oneself to be weird and have fun.”