Works by Professors Rusty Nelson (left) and Wynne Wilbur (right).
Join us Tuesday, August 29th at 5pm for the Fall 2017 New Work by Truman State Art Faculty show, featuring works from Professors Matt Derezinski, Lindsey Dunnagan, Aaron Neeley, Russell Nelson, and Wynne Wilbur. The show will be up through the 6th of October.
Students completing their degrees with the BA: Liberal Arts major took over the University Gallery last week to show their work in their capstone classes. The students whose art was featured were Olivia Brady (printmaking), Akari Kinjo (fibers/sculpture), Sabrina Lavezzi (printmaking), Hannah Nicks (ceramics), Morgan Price (ceramics), and Allyson Uhles (ceramics). The reception to celebrate their exhibition was held on the Friday of their week in the gallery. These pictures show some of the work and visitors enjoying the shows.
Kimono by Akari Kinjo.
Hannah Nicks’s plates on a painted wall made the ceramic work into an elaborate design of which they were only a part.
In commemoration of the centennial anniversary of World War I, the Truman State University Art Gallery and Pickler Memorial Library’s Special Collections have collaborated on two interrelated exhibitions about art produced during the Great War. Join, Save, Buy: WWI Posters on the Homefront consists of a selection of never-before-exhibited World War I posters from the E.M. Violette Museum which reveal experiences on the American home front. Arts Against the Great War looks at creative responses to the Great War which explore the war’s complications, violence, and human cost.
Truman State University undergraduates contributed and are contributing significantly to the exhibitions, including in research, writing, installation, serving as docents and designers, and other activities.
The University Gallery during installation of Join, Save, Buy: WWI Posters on the Homefront. Photo courtesy of Sara Orel.
And here is a 3D view of the side gallery during installation of Arts against the Great War.
Mona Lee and Zoe Abbey, who contributed to the I, too, am America exhibition, pictured with Gallery Director Heidi Cook
(Featuring artists Brandon Anschultz, Michael Behle, and Greg Edmondson)
The second set of fall exhibition at the Truman State University Art Gallery, Ophelia Parrish 1114 are coming to a close on Friday December 2. Fact or Fiction features new work by three Saint Louis-based artists: Brandon Anschultz, Michael Behle, and Greg Edmondson.
The works of these three artists collaboratively come together to address questions concerning artistic media, patternistic logic, material reality, color, and the illusionary.
Brandon Anschultz’s works featured in the exhibition fog the border of painting and sculpture. Utilizing the paint as a physically sculptural medium, he challenges the tradition of painting and explores the effect of color on the human eye. The pieces are created to stimulate curiosity in the viewer to explore the unknown and the ambiguous. His works are inspired by elements of narratives, art historical movements like Minimalism and Constructivism, Queer culture, and personal history.
Michael Behle’s paintings on photographs question the material reality, illusionary, and the representational in art. Iconographic elements exist alongside a fascination with the human experience. His sculptural works and mix-media photographs draw a psychological reaction from the viewer, exploring common themes and narratives.
Greg Edmondson uses his art to explore the ideas of organic growth and informational coding systems. His pieces emphasize pattern and artistic technique. Edmondson’s pieces see through the process of exchanging and organizing information. He utilizes the imagination to create art and cement the importance of the scientific, in the seemly separate, but all-to-connected world of art.
New Assistant Professor of Painting, Lindsey Dunnagan, is giving this week’s “#15 for Art” talk. Come to the University Gallery on Thursday October 20th at 4:45 pm. These images may give you a sense of her work, but come and see what she talks about on Thursday afternoon.
Professor Dunnagan has a major art series which just had its first public exhibit this past summer. Her The Journey Home Project was featured at Carneal Simmons Contemporary Art in Dallas, TX, from late July to late August, 2016. She describes the process of creation and the work itself:
For the past year, I collected locations from people in North Texas and beyond, including various student groups and a refugee center in Dallas. Now their names and “ideas of home” have been painted onto a large-scale installation that forms a labyrinth.
As visitors walk through the painted translucent walls, they may find a location that holds significance to them while also experiencing other places that are cherished. In this way, the project presents the world as a treasure and a place to discover; it intimates a deep connection we have with each other and the planet.
Lindsey Dunnagan, The Journey Home Project, on display in Dallas, August 2016.
In addition, Lindsey Dunnagan installed a large commissioned work in Fort Worth, TX, at Store #532 of the Kroger Company. Native Treasures is painted and drawn with watercolor, ink, salt, and acrylic on Clear Acrylic. You can see it in Fort Worth at 5241 N Tarrant Parkway.
Native Treasures, 2016, installed in Kroger store #532.
All photographs courtesy of Lindsey Dunnagan.
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.
o Benjamin Flowers receives a certificate in recognition of his selection as the Outstanding Student in Art: Studio Art. The award is presented by Sara Orel, Professor of Art History.
Congratulations to the three students, representing three of our major programs, who were selected by the Art faculty to receive recognition as the outstanding members of their senior class. The three students are:
Sadie Pafford, Outstanding Student in Art
Benjamin Flowers, Outstanding Student in Art: Studio Art
Madeline Perel, Outstanding Student in Art: Visual Communication
Dr. Sara Orel represented the Art Department to present the awards to Sadie and Benjamin. Madeline was otherwise occupied, taking part in the BFA: Visual Communication capstone exhibition at the Kirksville Arts Association, for which the final reception was the same evening (the Friday before graduation). We will have pictures from that exhibition soon. In the meantime, here is a photograph from Benjamin Flowers’ senior BFA show. Congratulations to all three students from the Art faculty and from Truman State University. We will miss all of you!
Visitors admire Benjamin Flowers’ BFA exhibition in the University Gallery.
Two retirement receptions and one gallery reception. What a way to end the semester and the year! Come join us this Friday to celebrate the end of Bob Jones’ and Jim Jereb’s careers at Truman, and the completion of the BFA degrees of three seniors.
The events start at 2 pm in the Georgian Room in the Student Union. Come and celebrate the contributions of Professor Bob Jones to Truman and the Art Department. The senior member of our department, Bob has taught at Truman since 1979, serving in numerous administrative positions, starting the Visual Communications program, and teaching thousands of students over the decades. 
Then at 6 pm come to the University Gallery for the reception celebrating the last gallery show of the year.
And a fitting way to end the evening is the retirement reception for our printmaking professor Jim Jereb, who has been at Truman since 1990. In addition to teaching a generation of printmakers, Jim has taught a variety of courses in foundations and the university core. He has mentored many students who were interested in learning about conservation and most recently has helped to prepare an exhibit of posters from the Great War to be displayed in the University Gallery in 2017. Come to the Dukum Inn at 7 pm Friday and celebrate his contributions, his past, and his future.