Bonnie Collura’s multi-media sculptures, figurative textiles, and outdoor works have contributed to the dialogue of contemporary sculpture for over twenty years in exhibitions spanning the United States, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, and India. Reviews of her work can be seen in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Art Forum, Art in America, Art News, Art Net, Flash Art, BOMB magazine, Beautiful Decay, Tema Celeste, Sculpture Magazine, and numerous print and on-line publications. Holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Virginia Commonwealth University (1994) and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University (1996), her work and research platform has been acknowledged with several grants and honors, including a 1997 Emerging Artist Award from the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, a 2005 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a 2010 MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and six research grants from Penn State University.
Toggling a rigorous studio practice with a dedicated teaching career has led to an investment of art’s purpose through a younger generation in the classroom. This engagement has brought countless interactions which have enriched her life immeasurably. In 2021, she was the recipient of a prestigious Outstanding Educator Award from the International Sculpture Center.
Currently, Collura is a Full Professor of Art (Sculpture) at Penn State University teaching in the School of Visual Arts, College of Arts and Architecture. Prior to her appointment at Penn State she taught at Yale University, Columbia University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Rhode Island School of Design, Tyler School of Art, University of the Arts, and Parsons The New School for Design. She lives and works in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania with her husband, Matthew J. Olson, and their extraordinary cat, Louise Bourgeois.
Artist Statement
What does it mean when things merge? Heavily invested in making, my sculptures don’t only represent a figural fusion, they coax forth a collapse; conceal; reveal; rupture. When the key turns in the studio door, I become part director, part fabricator, and part weird scientist.
Slip sliding between these roles, I work from a patch-work of signifiers, physical material, and cultural references questioning hierarchies presumed in art history, pop culture, politics and consumerism. Each angle of my three dimensional work has a job to do: to pose questions and offer conclusions while a body turns in space. When this occurs, the viewer becomes essential in the gap between parts, as they collaborate to the production of meaning.
To effectively capture circulation around a sculpture, emotional connectedness is key. Cast and sewn elements are imbedded into finitely crafted surfaces to get a form that is simultaneously relatable and alien. Using the figure as a sculptural platform is purposeful, as it allows me to probe into constructs of a larger body (cultural, commercial, political, spiritual) while morphing between the statuary and the systemic.