Rosemary Ollison: Know My Heart
August 15 - December 7, 2025
Rosemary Ollison, Cirles and Triangles, 2018; repurposed leather. Courtesy of Portrait Society Gallery.
Rosemary Ollison: Know My Heart features the complex textile oeuvre of Milwaukee-based artist Rosemary Ollison. In her eighties, Ollison has been making art in her home environment for thirty years. This exhibition will be Ollison’s first-ever solo museum exhibition. Accompanying the exhibit will be a fully illustrated catalog featuring her unpublished writings and scholarly essays by Dr. Sharbreon Plummer and Debra Brehmer.
Ollison collects glass, leather, bracelets, beads, bones, and jewelry and repurposes them into sculptural works of art. Working in senior housing does not prevent her from creating monumental leather wall tapestries or 15-foot hanging sculptures. Her work is all-encompassing. She has redesigned her small apartment with layers of pattern, duct-tape sculptures, curtains of beads and woven leather, improvisational quilts, and inventive drawings. She also makes her own clothing and is a prolific writer. Symbols of a celestial and biblical nature punctuate her free-flowing imagination. Rosemary Ollison: Know my heart will focus on Ollison’s rich fiber practice, including rugs, tapestries, wall hangings, quilts, garments, and beaded objects, among others.
Her works have also been featured at several venues, including the Lynden Sculpture Garden, Saint Kate—The Arts Hotel (where she was commissioned to design a room), the Racine Art Museum, and the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University in Milwaukee. Additional exhibitions include the UWM Union Gallery in Milwaukee, the Indianapolis Public Library, and Walker’s Point Center for the Arts.
Ollison's art is part of the collections at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, the Lynden Sculpture Garden, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, the Chipstone Foundation, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. In recognition of her artistry, she received a Mary L. Nohl Fellowship in 2018 and was named City of Milwaukee Artist of the Year in 2019.
Please join us for a conversation and book signing between Rosemary Ollison and Dr. Sharbreon Plummer on Saturday, September 13, from 1–3 PM. Register here.
Catalogs are now available for presale and can be picked up on September 13!
Generous support for Rosemary Ollison: Know My Heart and related programs is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, American Quilt Study Group, Wisconsin Arts Board with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Judy Hearst - Coldwell Banker Realty, Nirmal Raja, and Victoria Findlay Wolfe.
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