Art called Steampunk that has influenced everything from product design to fashion to fine art will be on display at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum’s this spring. This design movement features a neo-vintage twist on 19th century industrialized looks and Victorian decorative motifs. Steampunk: Nature & Machine, will open on April 25th with a reception from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm and runs until June 15th. This is the first exhibit dedicated to Steampunk art in Fairfield County.
According to IBM’s "Social Sentiment Index", which measures what’s trending on social networks and blogs, 2013 is set to be the year Steampunk surges as a mass-market aesthetic. The Museum’s exhibit will feature art by renowned Steampunk artists, Bruce Rosenbaum, Leslie Mueller and Katie Shima and co-curated by Rosenbaum and Museum trustee Gail Ingis-Claus.
Bruce Rosenbaum has been dubbed the Steampunk evangelist and guru by Wired Magazine. His artwork has been on exhibition consistently throughout the Northeastern United States, including the Charles River Museum of Industry, Wooster Street Social Club, The Mark Twain House and Shelburne Museum. Rosenbaum has collaborated with many well-known and emerging Steampunk artists and created the unofficial Steampunk artists guild Steampuffin. His design business and home, a retro-future refurbished house, have been featured in Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, CNN, Huffington Post, NPR and on MTV, A&E, Discovery and HGTV. Rosenbaum lives in Sharon, Massachusetts.
Leslie Mueller is an award-winning art director and artist. She is represented in private and corporate collections throughout the United States, Asia, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Africa, Japan and Germany. Mueller’s artwork has been published in House Beautiful, Elle Decor, Southern Living, Manhattan Arts Int’l and Art Business News magazines and is part of the United States “Art in the Embassies” program. Mueller began her studies at the age of thirteen at the Art Institute of Chicago. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of Fine Arts in Dallas, Texas. She is a resident of Greenwich, Connecticut.
Katie Shima is an artist and architectural designer based in New York City. She has had exhibitions, installations, and performances at the Charles Bank Gallery, Bridge Gallery, Devotion Gallery, Clocktower Gallery, Barnard College, The Tank, SoHo 20, among others. Shima is a founding member of the electronic noise art group Loud Objects. Residencies with the Loud Objects include Art On Air in New York and Det Jyske Kunstakademi in Aarhus, Denmark. She is currently working as an architectural designer at Situ Studio. Shima received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia College and a Master’s in Architecture from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.
The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum’s 2013 cultural and educational programs are made possible by generous funding from the LMMM Distinguished Benefactors: The Xerox Foundation, Klaff’s, Mrs. Cynthia C. Brown and The Maurice Goodman Foundation. The Museum’s Education Program is made possible in part by a generous donation from AT&T.
Tours for the museum and exhibit are offered Wednesdays through Sundays, at noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., and 3 p.m. Admittance is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and $6 for children. Children under 8 are admitted free.
