Briar Cliff University Media Announcement

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Briar Cliff University is proud to announce “Timekeeper: Anachronism & Chrysalis,” an exhibit featuring a performance installation by artist Leslie Iwai of Omaha Neb., now through Friday, Jan. 22, in the Clausen Art Gallery in the Stark Student Center on campus.

Iwai will conduct 15-minute performances in the Clausen Art Gallery at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 13, at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 16, and at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 19. An artist lecture, performance and reception will be held at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 22, in the gallery. The performances and reception are free public events.

“Timekeeper: Anachronism & Chrysalis” juxtaposes both endings and beginnings by examining transformation and change as a tenuous and even precarious situation. Each of 24 sewn and suspended chrysalises delicately contain a hand-winding alarm clock. As the clocks wind down, Iwai functions as an outside compassionate and dispassionate intervener by winding the clocks intermittently throughout the room.

“This exhibit is an excellent example of installation art, which combines sculpture, sound, performance and the use of the entire gallery space,” said Nan Wilson, department chairperson and assistant professor of art at Briar Cliff University. “We are privileged to showcase Leslie’s unique work at Briar Cliff.”

A full-time artist, Iwai earned a competitive commission for her work Sounding Stones from the Omaha Public Art Commission in 2004. She was the first recipient of the Community Arts Fellowship from the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in 2005 and won an Individual Artist Fellowship award from the Nebraska Arts Council in 2007. In 2008, she completed a solo show titled Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum! at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney and was an Artist-in Residence at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City. In 2009, Iwai was a featured artist in the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Live Auction with her work Unfurl.

The Clausen Art Gallery is open to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The gallery is closed on weekends, with the exception of special events.

Briar Cliff University is a Catholic institution with an enrollment of more than 1,100 students from 28 states. Students are educated in the Franciscan tradition of excellence in the liberal arts and career preparation in an environment of care and compassion. For more information, please visit briarcliff.edu.