The Fort Collins Museum of Art, January - March 2025
Play Nice
Bonnie Lebesch’s Play Nice art exhibition in the Lynnette Jung-Springberg Gallery features an array of embroidered and needlepoint works, ranging from abstraction to gender roles in culture, and to the influence of her family history with guns. Lebesch is a Fort Collins visual artist. Her mixed media works are informed by her practices in mindfulness, intentional healing, and tai chi. Her abstract acrylic paintings and fiber works have been widely exhibited in national and local venues. Lebesch’s Gun Show solo exhibition was installed at the Loveland Museum or Art during the fall of 2020-21, and an artwork from this major series was chosen for the Arvada Center’s juried Art of the State in 2018.
The exhibition showcases artwork from three series that share an underlying theme of playing nice. This childhood admonishment influences Lebesch to create objects of beauty, even while tackling tough subjects like gun culture or women’s roles in society. Lebesch’s use of the domestic arts, primarily soft and fluffy materials, further underscores the cognitive dissonance experienced with these works.
