Della Wells Observation Report

"Her Story, My Dreams: The Images of Della Wells," opened on February 6, 2018 at the Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago, IL through June 2, 2018 was very powerful. When one walked through the exhibition, which contained many collages and mixed media pieces, one visualized the story Wells told throughout the exhibition: abstract art that represents issues that address racial and gender studies African-American women faced. One should see this exhibit due to the message that Wells conveyed to her audience, as the exhibit was strong in its layout through the use of color and types of work, however, it fell short in its flow and use of didactic panels. Loyola University Museum of Art presented Wells' work in a clean, colorful manner.

This exhibit consisted of: 21 collages, 12 dolls, 5 ink on paper pieces, and 2 mixed media pieces. All of the collages the curator presented were not one-dimensional. The process that Wells used for making her collages three-dimensional was with different layers of pictures clipped or materials used, which allowed one to see the roughness that laid within each piece. In the mixed-media pieces, the viewer can see various objects, such as fabrics, cloths, buttons, etc. that were used to create the final image. Wells used real-life objects to incorporate into these two pieces, which gave the viewer a sense of human connection. The collages and mixed-media pieces made up the whole front room of the exhibit. Moreover, the small back room consisted of the ink on paper pieces and the dolls. All the ink on paper pieces in the back room were black ink on white paper. Wells' take away from these pieces is to look at them and have the viewer interpret them as they see them. Across from the ink on paper pieces were the dolls that are made out of various shapes and sizes. Each doll was painted to express different types of African-American women. Wells' types of works are thoroughly thought out for the space of this

This one panel, however, did not add enough explanation to the exhibit, since it did not allow the audience to get critical information that described the significance of Wells' work. It does provide background context but does not include the importance of Wells' inspiration. In order to gain a further insight of the meanings and explanations behind her work, the viewer needs to read The Lumanary provided at the front desk in order to get the critical information that added meaning and context to Wells' creativity. Furthermore, the use of didactic panels was not used efficiently for the pieces of artwork. When looking at any piece of art in this exhibit, the viewer will see that each didactic panel consists of the: title, year finished, type of media, and what collection it belongs to. This information is not crucial to the viewer to get the necessary information of putting the different subject matter into context. Wells wanted to tell a fairytale throughout her works, but it will be challenging for the audience to know who the people she depicted in her works are. When viewing the dolls, there was no didactic panel displayed. When asked about the dolls, the curator explained the dolls were title-less. This piece was critical to the back room, but it remained nameless, which only hurts Wells rather than helping her. The underuse of didactic panels only highlighted how much information was