“New Works by Truman Faculty” Show to Close This Saturday

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The University Art Gallery’s current show “New Works by Truman Faculty,” with artwork by Laura Bigger, Amanda Breitbach, Aaron Fine, and Francine Fox, has its last day on Saturday, October 8th.  If you are interested in seeing art from our new faculty or some of the works created by Aaron Fine on his sabbatical, you don’t have much time to take a look.

As a special treat, Laura Bigger will discuss one of her works on Thursday, October 6th, as part of the Art Department’s #forArt series.  At 4:45 pm every other Thursday in the University Gallery there is a presentation from a faculty member.  A 15 minute talk, between classes on  Thursday evening.  Come hear Professor Bigger talk about her own work in front of examples of it, as one of the highlights of this week in art.

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New Faculty Member Francine Fox

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Assistant Professor Francine Fox in her studio

            Truman State University has added several new faculty in the Art Department this fall.  Francine Fox is starting as an Assistant Professor of Foundations and she will be teaching Drawing, Art Studio Foundations I and II, and sections of Introduction to the Visual Arts focused on Drawing in the fall and on Watercolor in the spring.
            Before accepting her position at Truman, Fox taught a range of Fine Art courses at Western State Colorado University, Casper College, the Art Institute of York Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Millersville University, and the University of Delaware. She has been a member of the New Wilmington Art Association, The Lancaster County Art Association, Emerging Young Artists, The Casper Artists’ Guild, and the Rochester Contemporary Art Center.
            Fox is a nationally- and internationally-exhibiting artist whose work is represented by Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont, New York. She has exhibited at the Siena Art Institute in Siena, Italy, the Social Sciences Research Council in Brooklyn, NY, the Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science, and Art in Scranton, PA, and the Werner Wildlife Museum in Casper, WY. Additionally, Fox has works in the collections of the Contemporary Painting Museum at Namık Kemal University in Tekirdağ, Turkey, the University Hospital for Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY, and the 2016 Wyocity Public Art Project in downtown Casper, WY.
            Fox utilizes combinations of figures, gently anthropomorphized animal imagery, traditional and personal semiotic lexicons, and depictions of invisible forces through modified and invented charting symbols to examine the significance and aesthetics of gray areas between opposing ideas linked to identity and epistemology.
             For more information on Francine Fox, please visit – http://www.francinefox.net or http://www.kbfa.com.
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New work by Francine Fox will be on display in the University Gallery in September.

 

The Art Department has added several new faculty this year.  Check back on the blog this fall, because we will be highlighting them, along with other events and activities that are going on at Truman.

Dr. Julia DeLancey Contributes to the Italian Conferenza del Colore

Julia DeLancey (Professor of Art History) has been invited to serve for a second year on the Scientific Committee for the interdisciplinary Conferenza del Colore (Conference on Color); the 12th Conference will be held in Turin (Torino) Italy in 2016.

ThisLogo of the Gruppo del Colore international conference features work on color in all its aspects, including not only color theory and color in art history, but also color as used in industry, lighting, education, design, psychology, and so on. The Scientific Committee is made up of academics and other professionals who deal with color from a wide range of perspectives. Dr. DeLancey’s research is focused on the color sellers of Venice in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

More information about the 12th conference of the Gruppo del Colore has been posted, and their bright logo is the splash to the left.

Heidi Cook (B.A. ’07) serves as Director of the University Art Gallery for 2015-2016

While Professor of Art Aaron Fine is on sabbatical this year, researching and writing about color theory, 2007 Truman graduate Professor Heidi Cook is filling in as Visiting Director of the University Art Gallery and teaching Art History courses as well – Non-Western Art, Contemporary Art, and Introduction to the Visual Arts. She writes:

I am a Truman alumna (German and Art History, ’07) and I am truly excited to be back on campus and working alongside the Art Historians who introduced me to the history of art and made me want to pursue it further. Teaching Art History is one of the coolest jobs. I get to spend my time reading, thinking, and talking about how artworks visualize important and changing social, historical and religious ideas across the globe and throughout history. My hope is always that I can begin to open students’ eyes to the power of their visual surroundings.

I am currently a PhD candidate (All But Dissertation) in the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. My research focuses on the modern art and design of Central and Eastern Europe. Using a body of folkloric works created by Croatian-American artist Maksimilijan Vanka as a guiding thread, my dissertation explores how objects and images related to Croatian folk culture were used to imagine a variety of competing Central European identities. In February, I am chairing a panel at the College Art Association Conference in Washington, D.C., about the relationship between European folk culture and American immigrant identity titled “Old Country in the New Country: Exhibitions, Museums, and Early Twentieth-Century American Immigration.”

If you ever want to talk about modern art in Central Europe or about applying or attending graduate school, feel free to stop by my office OP 1231 or email me at hcook@truman.edu.

We are very pleased to have Prof. Cook on campus this year, and know that students in her classes are benefiting from her knowledge and enthusiasm.

Prof. Heidi Cook, her husband Brent, and Pumpkin, in Kumrovec, Croatia in front of the house where Yugoslavian dictator Josip Broz Tito was born.

Prof. Heidi Cook, her husband Brent, and Pumpkin, in Kumrovec, Croatia in front of the house where Yugoslavian dictator Josip Broz Tito was born.