Grad art opening features different media
Art and art history students’ journals photography and sculpture exhibits are on display at artworks Gallery
By Cara Pugliese, contributing writer
Posted on September 21, 2006

Whether inspiring, concerning, confusing or enlightening, the pieces featured in Monday’s opening reception in the artWorks Gallery leave definite impressions.

Until Saturday, Sept. 30, artWorks Gallery will showcase the art of 10 graduate students in the school of art and art history. The exhibits vary, from journals to black-and-white photography to sculpture.

Entering the gallery, the audience is first greeted by the untitled works of Brandon Wallace, a second-year graduate student. Wallace’s work focuses primarily on the human form, with emphasis on facial expressions, body parts and internal organs. “Many people find the work I do disturbing,” Wallace said about his images portraying violence, vulgarity and humor. “But how many disturbing things do you see in a day?”

Adjacent to Wallace’s paintings and sketches are the paintings of L. Ann Stevens. Stevens displays colorful and intricately detailed paintings that she began working on while visiting India. Stevens explained that since the early ’90s, Indian culture has been inundated with images from Western culture. The paintings depict items such as matchbooks and soap boxes that were locally made in India and don’t reflect Western culture’s current influence. “My paintings are about cultural identity subsumed by a Western veneer,” Stevens said.

Beyond Stevens’s culturally minded paintings, Ramiro Fernandez’s untitled piece is mounted upon the wall with an environmental statement. Made from PVC pipe, pipe hangers, a pump, a lamp and a peach pit, Fernandez’s canal-like sculpture continuously channels water in an effort to inspire people to seek different forms of “sustainable energy systems,” Fernandez said. “I think of my workspace as a lab instead of a studio.”

 From Fernandez’s canal, a glimpse of Daniel Robinson’s black-and-white photography can be spotted. Two of his photos on display “tell a forgotten history,” depicting an old school bus that was abandoned near his property in Newport, Va., since 1969, Robinson said. His photographs, made in silver darkroom process, were shot through a door’s peephole that was drilled into the lens cap. This effect gives the feeling of distance between the subject and the viewer, Robinson said.

At this point in the gallery, it would be impossible to miss third-year graduate student Dave Bascom’s two remarkable paintings. Relying heavily on the texture and depth of the paint, Bascom used wide brush strokes and heavy paint application to produce “George,” a portrait of George Clooney, and “Osama,” a portrait of Osama bin Laden. The two paintings are the last in a 10-part series depicting political and celebrity figures, Bascom said. “Osama” is particularly gripping. Done entirely with black paint, the painting takes on the frightening and villainous feel that the terrorist himself seems to embody.

Other exhibits in the artWorks Gallery include Steven Coates’s alluring black-and-white photography, David Modler’s three mesmerizing journals, Aimee George’s winter landscape photographs, and Robin Teas’s organic sculptures. Additionally, Paul Jung Estabrook’s work with the burned pages of books should not be missed.

There’s no shortage of variation in the graduate artwork featured in the artWorks exhibit, with inspiration spanning from India to Newport, Va. “What I really liked about the exhibit was that there was such a range of work,” Stevens said. “It’s nice that the work doesn’t all look the same.”