My latest work presents room-sized installations of wearable structures activated with robotics and embedded with video. Extending from previous work in my Containers for the Self series, these situations further explore those psychologically and culturally based entanglements of image, language and space through which we try to locate our own identity.

In the installation Blind one enters the gallery and is confronted by a seven-foot high cave-like structure tracing its roots to a wheelchair accessible, camouflage hunting blind. Shining through a slit and projected on a nearby column is a video loop of my hand endlessly unzipping a zipper. Around this larger phallus-filled igloo several smaller motorized versions of the hunting blind circulate, helpfully dispensing Kleenex, vacuuming up and responding to remote control demands from viewers.

…We cannot help but be swept away by the slapstick spirit, checked by a note of dread and caution supplied by the hand in its endless Sisyphussian pursuit of the completed zip. Everything, and everyone (including, crucially, the artist herself) is caught in a permanent vicious cycle, a perverse closed loop of good will, bloodlust, vanity and pure brilliant stupidity. (Matt Freedman, Blind catalogue essay).

Earlier wearable structures, The Architecture of Migration and The Architecture of Fatigue explore the dualities of presence vs. absence and border issues relating to public/private, rural/urban, poverty/privilege, and life/death.

For the past thirty years, then, my practice has been concerned with social issues, found situations, and psychological narrative. From The 1976 All-American Glamour Kitty Pageant, to my 70’s and 80’s photo tableaux of cat-masked Isadora Duncans in the ruins of Greece and the bowling alleys and Laundromats of Iowa, to my twenty years of community-based public work in shelters and hospitals--my search is for some unspoken connection in these random collisions of objects, images, and voices.

janegilmor@yahoo.com
http://janegilmor.com

358 Trailridge Rd. S.E.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52403
(319) 365-6741

University of Iowa M.A.T. ‘71, M.A. ‘76, M.F.A. ‘77
Art Institute of Chicago, Iowa State University, B.S.,’69
Professor of Art, Mount Mercy College, Cedar Rapids, Ia 1974-present; Visiting Professor, Univ. of Iowa, 1988-89.

SOLO AND GROUP INVITATIONAL EXHIBITS
Ragdale 30, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, 2007
Boa Noite! Platforma Revolver, Lisbon, Portugal, ‘06
Int’l RR Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives NYC,’06
Blind solo/ AIR Gallery, NYC, Oct. ‘05
The Architecture of Fatigue, A.I.R., New York, ‘04
A Semester at Sea, Maharishi Univ. Fairfield, 2002
The Architecture of Migration, A.I.R., NYC, 2001
Slow Dip Steady Drip, Artemisia, Chicago, 2000
Chemo Pet #2, A.I.R. gallery, NYC, 1999
A Slow Steady Drip, installation A.I.R.NYC, 1998
Olson-Larsen Galleries, Des Moines, ‘89, ‘91, ’95,’98
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Oct. 1996
Bed Shoe Home, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, 1994
Home is Where, Bemis Ctr for Cont. Art, Omaha, 1993
Outside New York, A.I.R. Gallery, New York, Sept 1991
Mid-career Retrospective, Waterloo, IA, 1991
U of I Museum of Art, Faculty Exh., Iowa City, l988,’90
Des Moines Art Center, 93, 95, 98 Best in Sculp, 1988,’90
Artemisia Gallery, Chicago, solo, 1989
A.I.R., Gallery, New York, 1988,1990
Ten NEA Recipients, Minnesota Museum of Art, 1986-88
Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, 1988
Real Art Ways, solo, Hartford, CT 1988
Texas A&M University, 1987, 1990
Palazzo Vagnotti, U.G.A., Cortona, Italy, 1986
Caldonia State University Museum, Long Beach, CA ‘85
Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, New York, 1986
Ten Sculptors, Florida St. University, Tallahasse, 1986
Des Moines Art Center, Annual,‘75-96, Younker Awd, ‘77
N.A.M.E. Gallery, Chicago, solo, 1984
Louisiana World Exposition, New Orleans’84
Ten Women Artists, Conn. College, New London, 1 982
Wing Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 1982
Landfall Purchase Award, Appalachian State U., 1982
Animal Images, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Instit., Washington, D.C., traveling 1981-83.
Fashion Instit. of Technology Galleries, New York, 1980
Olbrick Gallery, Kassel, Germany, 1980
George Sand Gallery, Los Angeles, 1977
Young Americans 1977, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, traveling 1977-79

PUBLICATIONS AND REVIEWS
Where areYou From? Contemporary Portuguese Art,
co-curator, catalogue essay, Grinnell College, ‘08
Pioneer Feminists: Women Who Changed America,
B. Love, ed., Univ. of Illinois Press, 2006
Sculpture: Technique, Form, Content, Williams, Davis ‘04 Beautiful Necessity, Kay Turner, Thames & Hudson,’ 99
An Uncommon Vision: Des Moines Art Ctr, Hudson, ‘98
From Body to Being, Danoff, Des Moines Art Center ‘97
Iowa Architect, Three Iowa Masters, Leveton, ‘97
The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of
the 1970’s, ed. Broude and Gerrard, Abrams, 1995
New Art Examiner, “Iowa Artists”, J. Levin, Jan., 1994Sp.1994Tractor, Reviews, Hope Palmer, Fall, 1993
Des Moines Register, Eliot Nusbaum, Dec 19, 1993
OVERLAY: Contemporary Art and the Art of Pre-History, Lucy Lippard, Random House, 1983
The New Art Examiner, Jane Gilmor at N.A.M.E.”
N. Hamel, Vol. 12, No. 2, Nov 1984
The New York Times, reviews, Sun, May 18,1980, p. 16
Copenhagen Daily News,”Ms. Kitty..” J. Storm, 11/15, ‘77

GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS
Fulbright Senior Scholar, Evora Univ., Portugal, ‘03-04
NEA for WorkShift site activation, Iowa/Chicago,’02
Smithsonian S.O.S Grant for site restoration, 2001.
Banff Centre, Canada, Leighton Studios Residency, 2000
McKnight Interdisciplinary Artists Fellowship, 1997
NEA Diverse Visions Artist’s Project Grant, 1996
Iowa Arts Council Individual Artist Grant 1995
Delphina Foundation Fellow, London, U.K., 1994
Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, 1993
Faculty Development Grants: Mexico, India, Asia, ‘93-97
Tyrone Guthrie Centre Fellow, Newbliss, Ireland, 1992
Ragdale Foundation, Chicago, 1988, 1990
Virginia Center for the Arts Residency, Sweet Briar, 1989
MacDowell Colony Fellowship, New Hampshire, 1988
NEA Visual Artist’s Fellowship, 1986
Artist-in-Residence, UGA Program, Cortona, Italy, 1986

PUBLIC PROJECTS AND PER FORMANCES
Blind, Evora Univ. Portugal, 10, 2003, 7/2005
Work-Shift, site activations, Chicago/Iowa. 2002
Wisdom Pass, St. Paul History Center, 1998
Wisdom Pass, Health East Ctr, St. Paul, 1997
Bed/Head /Room, Univ. of Northern Iowa, 1996
Bed/Shoe/Home, Madge Phillips Ctr, Cedar Rapids ‘96
Windows, Univ. of IA. Hospitals, public art project, 1995
Home is Where? Bemis CCA, Omaha, 1993
C.S.P.S. Arts Center, Cedar Rapids, 1992, 94, ‘96
Windows, Davenport Museum, Parker Building, 1991
Hojo-Ken, Japan, installation/performance 1992
Temple of Apollo, Delphi, Greece, 1978, 1980, 1981
Temple of Karnak, Luxor, Egypt, 1978, 1981

COLLECTIONS
Bemis Center, Omaha/ Los Angeles County Museum,
Principal Financial Group, Los Angeles and Des Moines
American Medical Association, Chicago, John Neff, cur.
Betty Saar, Artist, Los Angeles/ Des Moines Art Center, Museum of Cont. Art, Osaka, Japan/Gracie Mansion, Art Dealer, New York/Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Newbliss, Ireland/ Salvatore Virgile Collection, Paris/
Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York