A Wartburg College exhibit opening Friday, Jan. 11, will feature artist Claire Stigliani’s exploration of the female identity through pop-culture figures set in mythological contexts.

The exhibit, “Everything Lovely,” will open at 5 p.m. in the Waldemar A. Schmidt Gallery of Bachman Fine Arts Center. A reception and gallery talk by Stigliani will follow from 6 to 8 p.m. Both events are open to the public.

A former Cedar Falls resident, Stigliani spent much of her childhood in Vienna, Austria, where German folk tales and portraits of Austrian royalty inspired her work. Her paintings often place pop-culture icons — such as model Kate Moss and actress Nicole Kidman — in fairy-tale settings.

Highly regarded as an up-and-coming artist, Stigliani teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned her master’s degree in fine arts. She formerly taught at the University of Missouri.

The Columbia Daily Tribune wrote, “Stigliani’s art frequently portrays fairy-tale characters caught in some mishap or uncertain context; women … exhibiting — or trying to resist — fox-like qualities; doe-eyed celebrities thriving or suffering. The female in each painting looks frozen in a story, caught in the attempt to find her own bit of happiness by whatever means might come to her.”

“There is a blueprint for a way to happiness for women, and it always revolves around being helpless and being rescued,” Stigliani said, “With the princess, only the prettiest girl wins. And the women with power are often evil, like stepmothers.”

She added, “I see supermodels and celebrities as embodying our modern-day fairy tales, mapping out ways toward happiness and archetypes for women.”

Milwaukee curator Dean Jensen has featured Stigliani’s work in his gallery.

“She works rather like a film director, mixing reality and the fabulous with past time and now time,” Jensen told Milwaukee Magazine. “Claire herself can be found in many of her paintings, but in the same settings, you might also see her imagined friends — Marie Antoinette, perhaps, but maybe also Rita Hayworth or Julie Andrews or Elle Macpherson.”

The exhibit will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily through Feb. 22.