ON GOING EXHIBITS
Nevena Prijic
Voyager
Ongoing
Howard G. and Esther Freeman Hall (320)
Nevena Prijic (Serbian, born 1985) has been commissioned to create a monumental painting directly on the walls of the Worcester Art Museum. Located within a twenty-foot-tall blind archway, Voyager is inspired by speculative possibilities suggested by the portal-like space.
Prijic creates enigmatic and dynamic paintings that blend abstraction and figuration. Though futuristic in overall aesthetic, Voyager has an ancient reference at its center inspired by artifacts of the Neolithic Vinca culture of present-day Serbia, the artist’s homeland. A standing figure is obscured as it metamorphosizes into a variety of animate forms: plants, animals, and machines. Prijic’s biomorphic form suggests a similarity between species and systems as well as the transformative power of evolution.
Prijic earned BFA and MFA degrees in painting from The University of Novi Sad, Academy of Fine Arts, Serbia. Her work has recently been exhibited at M+B Gallery (Los Angeles), Hesse Flatow (New York City), Bozomag (Los Angeles), and Public Gallery (London). Prijic lives and works in Los Angeles.
Contemporary art installations in common spaces at WAM are supported by the Fletcher Foundation, Larry and Marla Curtis, the Don and Mary Melville Contemporary Art Fund, the John M. Nelson Fund, and Marlene and David Persky.
Rachel Gloria Adams and Ryan Adams
The More I Wonder, The More I Love
Ongoing
Rachel Gloria Adams and Ryan Adams have transformed the Worcester Art Museum’s Salisbury Hall with a vibrant new mural. The artists blended their distinct styles—Ryan’s signature “gem” lettering and Rachel’s quilting-inspired abstraction—into a dynamic geometric design that envelops the space. Line drawings with iconography alluding to their family punctuate the mural, as if embroidered on an heirloom patchwork quilt, creating moments that reward close looking and contemplation.
The title, The More I Wonder, The More I Love, features prominently in the mural and embodies the core sentiment behind the work, which is inspired by the artists’ young daughters. Having each grown up as one of few Black children in predominantly white environments, the artists reflect, “the stereotypical expectations of what was expected from you as a young Black man/woman created these invisible boundaries around us that restricted us from partaking in certain activities and seeing ourselves as capable of doing anything we dreamed of. We are trying our best to show our girls a world outside of those invisible barriers, when they are free to wonder and explore all that life can offer.”
The title is inspired by a quote from the novel The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker: “I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love.” Alluding to curiosity as a path to empathy, the mural’s titleis an apt invitation to open-mindedness as visitors travel through the space and into the Museum’s galleries filled with art from around the world and across millennia.
Contemporary art installations in common spaces at WAM are supported by the Fletcher Foundation, Larry and Marla Curtis, the Don and Mary Melville Contemporary Art Fund, the John M. Nelson Fund, and Marlene and David Persky.
Medieval Chapter House
Ongoing
Pause for a moment of peace and seclusion inside a Benedictine priory from medieval France. This chapter house once served as a meeting room for monks, and the Gothic stone arches, stained glass windows, and grand fireplace inspire a quiet awe to this day. Originally built in the 12th century and in use until the French Revolution, the chapter house was moved stone-by-stone and rebuilt inside the Worcester Art Museum in 1933.