opening nov. 7: “weirder, wilder, witchier” | lori elliott-bartle
BENSON - Ming Toy Gallery is pleased to host "Weirder, Wilder, Witchier" by Lori Elliott-Bartle Nov. 7-29. The opening reception is Friday, Nov. 7, from 6:00 to 9:00pm at 6066 Maple Street in downtown Benson (right between Au Courant and Legend Comics and Coffee).
As a traveler who prefers driving on meandering back roads, Elliott-Bartle found her path into art making by taking the long way. She spent 15 years as a professional journalist and in higher education public relations before she began painting seriously. Art making has been her full-time professional focus since 2008.
“Weirder, Wilder, Witchier” is based on the seeds of a public art proposal Elliott-Bartle created last summer for a local library. It features a series of large-hinged wood panels that mimic the small accordion books filled with paintings and collages she’s created in recent years. Each page in the smaller books reads like a visual spell, wish or poem.
“I’ve always felt connected to nature’s rhythms, and that connection has deepened by hosting more native plants and animals in my small urban yard,” Elliott-Bartle said. “I read stories about ancient women’s knowledge and rituals. And when I make these small art books as meditations, I can contemplate multiple connections. I’ve scaled up those ideas, raising my visual voice with the linked panels. As I worked on layering the pigments, composing shapes and sculpting texture, the ideas bubbling up were looser, less literary, less literal and much weirder, wilder, and witchier than those presented in last summer’s proposal.”
Elliott-Bartle has shown artwork in Omaha cooperative and commercial galleries, has had work accepted into regional and national juried shows, including the Nebraska Biennial (2025, 2023, 2019 and 2017) and has work in private collections across the United States and in several countries. She has been awarded artist residencies at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City, Farwell House in Frederick, Illinois, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Cedar Point Biological Station.
“Weirder, Wilder, Witchier” is on display through Nov. 29. Gallery hours are Wednesday and Friday from 1:00 to 6:00pm, Thursday from 1:00 to 8:00pm, Saturday from 10:00am to 1:00pm and by appointment (call or text 402.681.1901)