Art exhibits to open with reception

Combining students from advanced drawing, ceramics, and art history classes, the Department of Art's Student Gallery Committee is pleased to announce a two exhibit, one night reception extravaganza to say good-bye to the semester of spring 2013.

Scheduled May 6–24, 2013, the exhibits will open with a reception Monday, May 6, 2013 at 6–8 p.m.

Entitled Edges and Angles, Contours and Reductions, the collective work of advanced drawing and ceramic students will be on display in the Todd Art Gallery. According to Ashley Cook, a Drawing III student in Meghan O’Connor’s class each, “student has approached the theme [of the exhibit] with different media, subject matter, and dimensions to create work that truly pushes the boundaries of the theme…works with literal edges,…boundaries of light and dark, and also societal edges, including what we construe as normal and natural.”

Collaboration will also be a theme as the advanced ceramics students of Professor Marisa Recchia work in conjunction with the drawing students to incorporate work produced from the recently completed Wood Fire kiln. According to Laura Brake, a ceramics student and advocate, “Each [student] will individually present themes based on their submitted body of work.”

Concurrently, Todd Art Gallery210 will display the work of students in Dr. Laura Cochrane’s Italian Renaissance Art History class. Naming it, Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns, student Victoria Belser states, “…we shall each produce an artwork that employs either a Renaissance art technique and deals with a modern theme or an artwork in modern style and technique that deals with a Renaissance theme.”

The exhibit is based on recurring debate that seeks to determine the greater of two Art History components: the authority of ancient artists or the innovation of modern artists. The work will reflect efforts to investigate the interplay of Renaissance tradition and contemporary invention hoping to illuminate the ideas and concerns of each period.

Displayed work will represent fresco painting, panel painting, book arts, mosaic, and oil painting and are expected to address such issues as gender, artistic identity, religion, and politics.

All exhibits and receptions in the Todd Art Gallery are free and open to the public.  Gallery hours are Monday­–Friday, 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., closing only for state and university holidays, or for exhibit installations.