Rosemary Ollison: Know My Heart

August 15–December 7, 2025

Rosemary Ollison: Know my heart features the complex textile oeuvre of Milwaukee-based artist Rosemary Ollison. In her eighties, Ollison has been making art in her home environment for thirty years. This exhibition will be Ollison’s first-ever solo museum exhibition. Accompanying the exhibit will be a fully illustrated catalog featuring her unpublished writings and scholarly essays by Dr. Sharbreon Plummer and Debra Brehmer. 

Ollison is an exceptional self-taught artist and storyteller. Growing up in the segregated Jim Crow South, she spent her earliest years on a plantation in Arkansas. Living under conditions she describes as being one or two steps away from slavery, she eventually was able to leave the plantation at the age of sixteen. In 1996, while healing from an abusive marriage, Ollison began to make art spontaneously. For four years, she drew incessantly, creating over one thousand drawings. This unexpected outpouring of images and symbols she credits to her deeply felt Christianity and the passage in the Bible: “Search me, God, and know my heart.” 

She describes her art as a spiritual calling. Her work is often about healing and self-definition. When she speaks publicly, audiences relate to how she overcame her struggles to find her voice and renewed self-esteem. Her art also addresses her identity as a Black woman and celebrates themes of power, individuality, and the mystique of women.

Ollison collects glass, leather, bracelets, beads, bones, and jewelry and repurposes them into sculptural works of art. Working in senior housing does not prevent her from creating monumental leather wall tapestries or 15-foot hanging sculptures. Her work is all-encompassing. She has redesigned her small apartment with layers of pattern, duct-tape sculptures, curtains of beads and woven leather, improvisational quilts, and inventive drawings. She also makes her own clothing and is a prolific writer. Symbols of a celestial and biblical nature punctuate her free-flowing imagination.  Rosemary Ollison: Know my heart will focus on Ollison’s rich fiber practice, including rugs, tapestries, wall hangings, quilts, garments, and beaded objects, among others.