The William Benton Museum of Art held an opening reception on Thursday, Sept. 4, to mark the openings of three new exhibitions: “Fate and Magic: The Art of Maureen McCabe,” “Clouds: A Combination of Fluid Dynamics” and “Encounters with the Collection: Exploring America.” Three life section writers teamed up to attend the event.
Fate and Magic: The Art of Maureen McCabe
Connecticut’s Maureen McCabe is hard to define beyond an enigma and a talented artist with esoteric interests. Over her six-decades-long career, she has proven that the life of the artist is to see beauty in what some people would find weird. McCabe normalizes this so-called weirdness in her artistic world and this is exemplified by The Benton Museum of Art’s curated exhibit, “Fate and Magic,” with some of her many works.
There are dozens of art pieces from McCabe, with a range in mediums, such as a few paintings, lots of assemblages and found materials spanning as far back as from the 19th century and mixed media.
Many of the pieces had blurbs giving extra context about the history and lore behind the pieces. However, with an artist like McCabe who revels in mysteriousness and is reluctant to explain her work, the audience is allowed to make their own interpretations freely.
One of these blurbs starts with, “Fear of getting pregnant. The Vietnam War draft. A car crash. These potentially life-altering events are addressed in McCabe’s earliest assemblages, which pose questions that are fundamental to the artist’s oeuvre: Do we have control over our fates or the power to shape our destinies? The choices here are stark, with life-or-death consequences.”
Some works included a tribute to esoteric religions, magic texts, Ancient Greek characters such as the enchantress Circe, tarot cards, astrological symbols, a bloodied stocking, pinball machines and proscenium stages with mixed media dancers on them.
Other artists who made works for her were also featured, such as photographer Tod Gangler, who made a portrait of McCabe surrounded by astrological symbols. She loved the piece so much it became her official picture on the College Yearbook, despite others’ protests at how “unprofessional” it was. This shows McCabe’s authenticity and integrity outweighing professionalism.
Benton Curator and Academic Liaison Amanda Douberley said that McCabe approached the museum with a request to have a curated exhibit. “Her proposal was really great. Her work has a really wide appeal. We thought that it would be accessible to lots of audiences, especially students.” She continued, “Sometimes for different exhibits there’s so many different artists.” Having a central artist to work with in a curation typically makes it easier to select art pieces with similar themes judging on the same mind working on them.
Douberley also said, “What’s interesting about a show like this is that you’re seeing the works that are most important to her,” referring to how McCabe was involved in the curation process along with supplying some of the art from her studio.
“One thing about Maureen’s work is that there are multiple layers of meaning and she still doesn’t explain everything,” she said. “It’s not about knowing.”
McCabe will be giving a talk at the Benton on Nov. 1.
Clouds: A Collaboration with Fluid Dynamics
Nestled in-between exhibitions exploring America’s 250th anniversary and Maureen McCabe stood an exhibition of contemporary cloud photography titled “Clouds: A Collaboration with Fluid Dynamics.” This exhibition is in collaboration with UConn’s College of Engineering and Dr. George Matheou, who, according to Benton’s Executive Director, Nancy Stula, came to the Benton with the idea for this exhibition. It features a contribution from Matheou and pieces from other artists and photographers, including Michael Light, Sebastião Salgado, Helen Glazer, Kate Cordsen and more.
Matheou’s contribution to the Benton was a large eddy simulation of cumulus clouds. According to the description given for the video, a large source of uncertainty in climate models is cloud modelling. A large eddy simulation is currently the best technique to produce reliable and accurate projections, improving climate forecasting and one’s understanding of fluid dynamics and atmospheric science.
Keston Sun, a third-semester molecular and cellular biology major, said his favorite part of the exhibit was this simulation. After looking at it for a bit, he “thought it was a real video, but it turns out it’s a computer simulation… it’s just incredible.”
There were also fans of other pieces of the Clouds exhibit. There was work by Michael Light, who worked with NASA to archive historical photos from early Apollo missions in the late 1990s. Showcased at the Benton were four photos from this project, one of which is of astronaut Edward Wolfe over the Gulf of Mexico.
Jada Vercosa, a graduate student in engineering education, enjoyed the interesting motion of the photo, saying that “When I look at it, I feel dizzy, and it’s an interesting static image that has an emotion to it.”
Next to the four light images of space stood four black-and-white images of the lush Amazonian rainforest, by Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. One that caught people’s eye was a scene of an intense rain cloud over Serra do Divisor National Park.
Avery Nielsen-Webb, a graduate student studying Fine Art, first knew of Salgado’s politically charged images of diamond mines, but he liked this softer side of Salgado. He said, “There’s a lot that’s different from his other politically-motivated work… but these are amazing images to see.”
However, according to another observer, Alex Carabetta, a recent graduate of UConn diagnostic sciences, still saw some political undertones with this image. She thought the shape of the cloud made it “look like a bomb going off. It’s kind of crazy to think that this is real.”
As a final aside, I’ll share this remark from Vercosa: more people should “go to the Benton, it’s cool and there are a lot of things to look at.”
Encounters with the Collection: Exploring America at 250
Upon entering the display rooms featured at the William Benton Museum of Art, visitors are immediately immersed into a threshold of American ideals and history with the “Encounters with the Collection: Exploring America at 250” exhibit.
The exhibition is composed of a collection of pieces owned by the Benton, pieced together for the statewide (or nationwide) celebration of the quincentennial anniversary of independence in the United States, coming up in July 2026.
“We have definitely built our whole American identity off of independence and freedom,” said Ella McLaren, a 2025 biology graduate from the University of Connecticut. “It is always important to go back to that; how can we try to be a free nation when we say we are?”
Landscape paintings, portraits, photographs and statue artifacts can all be found within this exhibition.
The Curator of the Benton Museum and Academic Liaison, Amanda Douberley, explained that she and her colleagues wanted to present a wide range of mediums to capture each century of America.
The goal of the exhibition was to represent America within the three aspects of “place, identity and ideals.” Each of these subcategories spoke to audiences in different ways.
The landscape paintings, representing “place,” stuck out to third-semester political science and sociology student, Kayla DeLuca, in particular.
“I think [the landscapes] are a refreshing perspective, especially living in New England — it’s very urban — I have never been to these areas of America before,” DeLuca said. “These are from the 1800s or so and it just seems like this was a more peaceful time in terms of the nature.”
Other students, like Alexandra Stevens, a third-semester nursing major, enjoyed more politically charged pieces, like the painting, titled “The Political Arena” by Jack Levine. The piece is an oil painting from 1955.
“It was really interesting how they brought to life the saying (or metaphor) of the political arena,” Stevens said. “I thought the art style and the representation of the time period was very well done.”
Douberley also pointed out two pieces relating to identity that she was drawn to. Both pieces were created by indigenous artists.
The first, “Louisiana” by Sarah Sense, uses basket weaving and photographs to represent her half-native, half-white identity, which she describes as being both the “Cowboy and the Indian Princess.”
The second piece Douberley recalled was, “I AM A RAINBOW TOO,” by Jeffrey Gibson. This work uses lyrics and poetry combined with geometrics and color to represent Gibson’s views of his queer and indigenous identities.
Both pieces are on display at the Benton Museum for the first time. Douberley explained that she was very excited to finally share them with the community.
“Encounters with the Collection: Exploring America at 250” revisits and depicts the history of the United States for better or for worse, leaving it up to audiences to reflect on the meaning of democracy today.
“[Democracy] is not just a type of government, but we are celebrating hopes and dreams for a better future when we stand by each other,” Vaibhavi Annu, a third-semester environmental engineering major, said.
Featured photo credit.