Allegories and Myths
University Museum presents a highly stylized art exhibit. Since the early 1970s, Audrey Ushenko has employed allegory and myth in her figure paintings in order to explore broad questions concerning the nature of knowledge, faith, belief, and mortality. Ushenko creates highly stylized, dramatic, and serial tableaux in which the artist's persona is a constant presence. Ushenko's mythological and allegorical "dramas" are typically staged in contemporary, often suburban, settings. The protagonists include for the most part herself, friends, and colleagues, who retain their individual characteristics but represent universal signifiers. Typically they are members of the academic or professional meritocracy, whom Ushenko treats with both compassion and irony.