By ADDIE TRAMMELL
On February 7 at 5 p.m., the Beloit Art Center’s February gallery showcased the work of three artists: Kathy Piccone, Katura Bell, and Pam Pier. Each artist had vastly different styles and utilized different mediums, making the showcase enjoyable and diverse.
While Kathy Piccone works primarily in oil paint, her display includes drawings and metal prints. Her paintings range from medium to extra large, with the largest showcasing majestic horses. She explains, “My sister had Arabian horses … and we used to go to horse shows all over the country.”
She also has many portraits of Native American people. “I was married to a Native American Lakota Indian,” she tells me, “So I learned a lot of his traditions.” One of her pieces, titled “Silenced no More,” features a young Lakota girl with a shadowy hand over her mouth. In the description of the painting, she explains that “thousands [Indigenous women and children] go missing every year with very little fanfare or resources to find them.”
She cites the organization Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls or MMIWG as a group that “seeks to educate the public, facilitate finding those who have gone missing, [and] expand resources on tribal lands.” Piccone used to own a gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico and still shows art there. Although she moves between Santa Fe, Arizona, and Beloit, she was born and raised here.
Her childhood inspired Katura Bell’s mixed-media showcase. “I recently started experimenting with hardware store materials,” she says. Her macaroni sculpture was made with a wire frame covered with paper mache and plaster, after which she added a clay child version of herself to the noodle. The showcase also emphasizes nature through the use of texture.
The wall paintings stick out through various means, including paper and textured paint. Her exhibition also included free coloring pages of her work to take.
This is Bell’s first solo showcase at the age of 20, but some of her pieces have been on show before. In the summer, one of her sculptures of two children in a patch of grass will be displayed in Madison. She adds to her pieces between showcases, saying, “There’s always more to do with sculptures, so I feel like I’m never done.”
Pam Pier could not be interviewed, but her work speaks for itself. Her art consists mainly of ceramics and paintings. There are porcelain pitchers and vases with delicate flowers painted on them, some of which appear almost like watercolors. The paintings are primarily portraits with a pastel and white color scheme similar to the porcelain pieces.
2025 marks the Beloit Art Center’s 25th anniversary, and there are talks of a more significant showcase later in the year to celebrate. The art will be on display throughout the entire month, and it could be worth checking out if you have the time!
Featured image: Beloit Art Center gallery showcase photo; Addie Trammell’27
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