SPONSORED IN PART BY DEAN ALAN OLSON FOUNDATION + WOMEN’S ART BOARD

Chance Encounter explores paintings and photography by Julie Heffernan and Shelly Mosman. Both use opulent beauty and gritty detail to tell visual stories that disrupt one-sided histories of female figures that still exist today. The New Yorker described Heffernan’s work as “ironic rococo surrealism with a social-satirical twist,” while Mosman transforms her work into unexpected invitations for viewers to become the central figure in her narrative. 

Mosman’s recent projects include collaborating with Fashion Week Minnesota to help celebrate youth and the beauty of aging. She currently lives and works in Minneapolis. Heffernan is a professor of art at Montclair State University in New Jersey, where she has taught for more than 20 years; the Illinois native currently lives in New York. Both artists are represented in the Rockford Art Museum Permanent Collection.

Chance Encounter is organized by Rockford Art Museum Curator Carrie Johnson. This exhibition and its related educational programming are sponsored in part by the Dean Alan Olson Foundation and Women’s Art Board, and partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.