Anemone presents an installation of paper and mixed media sculptures and drawings on mylar by former Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts resident-artist and Omaha artist, Leslie Iwai. The exhibition opens on Monday, May 3, 2010, at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City.

Iwai’s exhibition is “presented as a garden. Its materials are mylar, ink, concrete, peonies and daffodils.” It reflects her working process and the escape from a long winter she felt while creating the work on her “dining room table which became [a] garden plot” as seeds of inspiration took root. Her work is typically 3-dimensional and installation-based but new drawings are also on display in Anemone. The forms in the drawings feel organic, as do the paper sculptures. While working on the pieces for this exhibition, the word anemone came to Iwai’s mind. Looking up the meaning of the word, she found that the Greek root anemos referred to wind and Anemone was the name of the daughter of the winds in Greek mythology. “Along with the sea anemone, there are land anemones, or ‘wind flowers’, so named because it is believed that the wind causes them to bloom. As I longed for spring, I began to see it in the work.”

Leslie Iwai works as in artist in Omaha, Nebraska. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Nebraska Arts Council and a Community Arts Fellowship from the Bemis Contemporary Arts Center in Omaha. She has been an art instructor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the Joslyn Art Museum as well as being part of several regional public art commissions in recent years. In 2008, Iwai was a resident artist at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.

The public is invited to meet Leslie Iwai at a reception on Thursday, May 6, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Anemone will remain on exhibit through Thursday, June 17. Current Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts resident artists will have their visual arts studios open to visitors during the reception on Thursday, May 6, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.