TheaterWorks Hartford to Present THE FILING CABINET Gallery Exhibition
The group exhibition, curated by Paco Winebox, accompanies the world premiere of The Cannibals of McGower County this summer.
TheaterWorks Hartford has announced a gallery exhibition opening titled The Filing Cabinet, which features works from Miller Opie, Paul Wylenczek, Lauren Be Dear, Logan Ray Bishop, and Paco Winebox. This exhibition is in conjunction with the theater's world premiere production of The Cannibals of McGower County by Drew Larimore, directed by Jen Wineman. The exhibition is on view from July 30 - August 30, 2026. An opening reception will be held with the artists on Wednesday, August 5 from 6:30 - 7:30pm. Admission to the gallery is free.
This exhibition frames Hartford, Connecticut as a companion setting for the Southern Gothic tradition. Typically defined by decaying grandeur, morally compromised characters, and the suffocating weight of family history, the Southern Gothic is an American trope often used to symbolize a mythology cracking under its own weight. Northward, urban communities like Hartford can boast a parallel dis-ease, as history and heritage frame contemporary life.
Presented alongside TheaterWorks Hartford's production of The Cannibals of McGower County, the works gathered here trade swamp for stone walls, but keep the genre's central hunger intact: the sense that beneath every community, bile helps something much larger digest it.
About the Artists:
Miller Opie: Having collected natural objects all her life, Miller Opie's sculpture is inspired by the beauty found within organic materials. Opie combines animal bone with lead, copper, chain, and screws and occasionally includes wood and ceramic compounds. Her sculptures combine a sense of transformation with her brazen acceptance of mortality. Between 2009-2013 during a career designing products from jewelry to Martha Stewart craft kits and items for the home, Miller Opie underwent extensive surgeries to rebuild her jawbone after the discovery of multiple benign tumors in her mandible. Throughout, Opie joked that receiving surgery was her new hobby, replacing her creative pursuits with physical exams, operations, and recovery. This time spent gave Opie ample opportunity to consider the significance of bone as a material in life and in creation. Miller Opie's sculptures are infused with an appreciation for the cycle of life and celebrate the imperfections and perils that make it truly exquisite. To view her full bio, please visit her website.
Paul Wylenczek is a CT based visual artist and sculptor. Originally interested in both street photography and graphic design, Paul's work combines the documentation of the immediacy in everyday experiences and visual narrative through photography. While also being influenced by advertising, composition and color through his graphics background. For more information, please visit his Instagram page here.
Lauren Be Dear is an interdisciplinary artist based in Hartford working across installation, video, textile, sound, and performance. Her practice examines perception, mental illness, family systems, and inherited trauma through immersive environments that explore how identity is shaped by what is revealed, obscured, and carried across generations. Rooted in radical vulnerability, her work transforms lived experience into systems of layering, repetition, fragmentation, and controlled revelation. In 2023, she received the Emerging Recognition Award through the Artistic Fellowship Program from the Connecticut Office of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited at Real Art Ways, TheaterWorks Hartford, and CT State Community College Manchester. For more information, please visit her website.
Logan Ray Bishop is an artist-printmaker and educator working between Northampton, MA and New Haven, CT. Currently, they are a Printshop Technician at Yale University and have a home studio in Western Massachusetts. They've taught printmaking and drawing courses at the University of Connecticut, CT State Community College Manchester, and Holyoke Community College. They hold an MFA from the University of Connecticut and a BFA from the University of South Florida. For more information, please visit their website.
About the Curator:
Peter Albano is a Hartford based artist, curator, educator, and gallerist who works under the pseudonym Paco Winebox. After receiving his BFA, Albano spent 18 months spelunking Hartford's underground Park River and producing documentative/interpretive work mapping the river-way, under a project titled The Hog River Revival. Later, Albano became a resident muralist/sculpture artist at Wild Bill's Nostalgia in Middletown, CT. In 2021, Albano founded The Arts Industry and Loading Dock Gallery in West Hartford, eventually becoming the Visual Arts Manager at Real Art Ways in Hartford. Albano is a recipient of a 2014 Hartford Arts Catalyze Placemaking Grant, 2016 Regional Initiative Grant from the Shoreline Arts Alliance, and 2023 Artist Fellowship Grant from the city of Hartford. For more information, please visit his website.
About THE CANNIBALS OF MCGOWER COUNTY:
Welcome to McGower County, West Texas—a ghost town where the barbecue's gone cold, and the past is never really past. When two veteran salvagers poking through an abandoned restaurant encounter an unexpected stranger, old grudges, dark secrets, and outrageous humor collide. Equal parts Southern Gothic thriller and dark comedy, this world premiere introduces the unforgettable world of Drew Larimore's McGower County—a place where trouble is always just around the bend.
Performances are Tuesdays – Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays* – Sundays 2:30pm (*Saturday, Aug 1 – 7:30pm; *Saturday, Aug 29 – 4pm). Tickets are priced at $25 - $70 (fees not included). All tickets can be purchased online at twhartford.org or by calling the box office at 860.527.7838.
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