Biography
Bonnie Levinson is a multi-disciplinary artist, working in mixed media, photography and painting. Her mixed media and painting work develop intuitively, reacting first to the medium-to color, form, texture, mark making. As it evolves, she begins to respond to the surprises and questions that the work poses. Sometimes she reacts to the colors, light, smells and textures of a particular place, other times to the imaginary and the spirit of the unknowable. Sometimes she uses photography as a sketch tool and artifact in the collage process.
The poetry of the ordinary continues to inspire her photography. The photographs have a painterly quality often playing with perception of reality.
Her career spans more than three decades in the arts with cultural institutions. She served as Deputy Director at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in charge of External Affairs including marketing, development, communications and visitor services. Her years in New York were enhanced by her long tenure at the New York Public Library as Vice President for Development.
Her firm BONNIE LEVINSON ARTS MANAGEMENT (BLAM!) worked with cultural organizations, creating public programming and consulting in development, marketing and strategic planning. BLAM! also worked with individuals bringing art into their lives through active looking, aesthetic education and the joy of collecting.
She acted as the Curatorial and Cultural Consultant for the Visual Arts at Federal Hall National Memorial in NYC, part of the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy. Curating large scale art installations and exhibitions that illustrate how debate defends democracy.
In addition, she directed and co-curated an arts education and Artist Residency program commissioning artists to create public art for the campus at the Making Waves Academy, a charter school in Richmond, CA.
She earned a BA cum laude from Kenyon College and a Masters of Arts in Teaching Museum Education from George Washington University. Upon graduation from Kenyon, she received a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellowship, an independent year abroad studying pottery as an expressive form reflecting national character. That year prepared her for her career in museums. During her graduate studies she received an NEA travel grant for photography documenting the eight northern pueblo Indians for the Festival of American Folklife for the Smithsonian in Washington DC.
She is a founding Board member of the Oxbow School in Napa, CA, and served on the Boards of the San Francisco Art Institute, the Kenyon Review and the Gund Gallery of Kenyon College as well as Arttable,Inc,. The Hudson River Museum of Westchester, National Society of Fundraising Executives, and the Mamaroneck Council for the Arts
In the Studio with Keys to Light 60" x72" Mixed Media
At Arts Warehouse Marketplace
Outside Arts Warehouse
In the Studio with You Are Not Alone, 48" x60" on exhibit at the BRIC Innovation Center, Boca Raton, FL 2023
Metanoia- Solo Exhibition at Roxbury Abbey 2023
Eureka, a 17th century Dutch Canal House installed in the rotunda of Federal Hall, artist Brian Tolle Summer 2018 hall/https://www.nps.gov/articles/eureka-sculpture.htm
Mel Ziegler's Installation "A Living Thing: Flag Exchange" in the rotunda of Federal Hall National Memorial, Summer 2017 https://federalhall.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/events-2017-flag-exchange-essay2.pdf
Beautiful mosaic designed and executed by Rigo for the Making Waves Academy resulting from work with the students.