Vacuum

Melissa Cooke's eight drawings on display at the Museum of Wisconsin Art (MWA) may send a shiver down the viewer's spine, but the exquisite graphite renderings also invite a closer look. Cooke juxtaposes technical elegance with terrifying images in the "Vacuum" series on display in MWA's One From Wisconsin gallery (through July 10). Large-scale graphite drawings depict the artist's head covered with a plastic bag, her mouth open as she gasps for breath. Tortured expressions invoke horror and, for some viewers, revulsion in these provocative paintings. For Cooke, who graduated from UW-Madison's MFA program in May, the show marks her premiere solo exhibition in a museum.