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Contemporary art gallery Atelier will present “Babes in Toyland” featuring works by Heidi Bailey, Sarah Hill and Melodie Provenzano from Nov. 6 through Dec. 23.
Atelier presents Babes in Toyland is a three-woman show for the holiday season. Featuring painting and bricolage, “Babes in Toyland” is a playful romp through the artistic practices of three women who reimagine and rework the everyday ephemera of life: comics, toys, collectibles and household objects, according to a provided news release. The exhibition examines people’s attachments to material objects, their sentimental value and the meaning people make with them.
Bailey is a Warsaw-based bricolage artist who creates irreverent and exuberant sculptural work from found objects and discarded collectibles. Her practice focuses on utilizing color, shape, space, texture and repetition. The artist notes, “as a painter paints, I ‘paint’ with objects and material.”
Bailey’s pieces in this show combine high heels, purses, porcelain doll heads and military figures to explore what the artists calls “the curious intersection of femininity, glamour and duty.” Citing her two grandmothers and her great-aunt as the original “babes” in her world, Bailey sees these pieces as both a tribute and a wink to these women: “Beneath the sparkles lies a quiet acknowledgement of the discipline and resilience required of women who were expected to do it all — and make it look easy,” she said.
Winona Lake-based painter Hill subverts the comic book in her large-scale, color-drenched canvases, giving top billing to the heroines. Historically, the women drawn in old comic books were created within the context of the male gaze. In contrast, Hill’s series is a statement on the conditions women find themselves experiencing at different phases of life. Works in the show like Buckle Up Buttercup and Ginny and Kitty Go Home originated with the artist’s desire to create a body of work that dazzled and inspired her own daughters.
According to Hill, “I wanted to rewrite these stereotypically presented images to reflect the female experience with truth and a little bit of humor.”
Nashville-based Provenzano is a realist painter who creates elegant compositions by mixing various popular culture items and objects. Her playful use of scale, color and composition forces us to reexamine familiar objects and environments. According to the artist, “In my still-lifes I arrange man-made objects into compositions that stimulate my imagination, tell stories and please my eye.”
Provenzano’s body of work in this show is anchored by a monumental grommeted unstretched canvas measuring an astounding 100 by 100 inches and titled “Zero Gravity Infinite Space.” In this massive work, a silver party hat commingles with bananas, fishing lures, angel figurines, a telescope and a Sophie the Giraffe teether. A series of smaller unframed paintings are similarly installed with integrated grommets and feature various compositions of giftwrapping bows, toy snakes, barware and tchotchkes.
Finally, a stunning pair of Provenzano’s oversized and immaculate bow paintings in red and white trumpet the arrival of the holiday season.
“Babes in Toyland” is the fourth exhibition in Atelier’s all-female program for 2026. According to Atelier owner and Director Sea Grandon, “This is a fun show to bring the whole family to this holiday season. It’s bright and energetic, and even young kids can enjoy a robust game of ‘I Spy’ in the gallery. This show demonstrates that you can create beauty from the commonest of objects within arm’s reach. All three of the artists in this show are also mothers, and it does not escape my attention that this show reflects what mothers do: making magic out of the everyday.”
“Babes in Toyland” opens Nov. 6 and runs through Dec. 23, with an opening reception with the artists on Friday, Nov. 6 from 6 to 8 p.m. All are welcome.
Atelier’s hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
Atelier is a contemporary art gallery in Warsaw, owned and directed by Grandon. Grandon is a contemporary art advisor and attorney. She opened Atelier in March 2023. “Babes in Toyland” is the gallery’s nineteenth exhibition.
Bailey was born in 1967 in Warsaw. She earned a BAE from Herron School of Art and Design with a concentration in Studio Art. Focusing on sculpture and bricolage, Bailey’s multidisciplinary work has won several awards including from the Indy Art Center where she was awarded Curator’s Choice in 2026 and the Midwest Museum of Art where she was awarded Best Sculpture in both 2024 and 2025 and Best Mixed Media in 2026. She has work in several private collections and in the Midwest Museum of Art in Elkhart.
Alongside her studio practice, Bailey is currently a guest instructor at the Warsaw Area Career Center at Warsaw Community High School. She lives and works in Warsaw.
Hill was born in 1984 in Indianapolis. Hill graduated from Purdue in 2006 with a major in art history and a minor in art & design and anthropology. To date her practice has been focused on commissions for local businesses and private collectors. Babes in Toyland is her debut exhibition. She lives and works in Winona Lake.
Provenzano was born in 1974 in Hudson, N.Y. She received a BFA from Parsons School of Design in 1996. Provenzano spent over a decade painting window displays, showrooms and various commission projects for fashion companies including Louis Vuitton, Ferragamo, Chanel and Hermes. She has exhibited in group shows at The Brattleboro Museum, Vt., The Chelsea Art Museum, NYC, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, Mass., and solo shows at Lyons Wier Gallery, NYC, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, Md., Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago, The University School of Nashville, Tenn., and Nancy Margolis Gallery, NYC. Her most recent solo exhibition was Seeing Oneself in Others at The Tennessee Valley Museum of Art in Tuscumbia, Ala., in 2025.
Provenzano has previously shown work in Atelier’s Pink Is Punk and Confetti exhibitions. She lives and works in Nashville.
