Friday evening, October 27th, the University Gallery hosted a reception for the Missouri Associations for Museums and Archives, whose annual meeting was in Kirksville this year (October 26-28). Amanda Langendoerfer, Associate Dean of Libraries for Special Collections and Museums, was the local representative for the conference, and organizer of the events. Several students attended the conference, which included pre-conference workshops at the Museum of Osteopathic Medicine and days of presentations from museum and archive professionals at the Missouri Department of Conservation regional office on Friday, and at Truman State University on Saturday. Art faculty members Dr. Heidi Cook, Dr. Josh Hainy, and Dr. Sara Orel attended all or part of the conference, along with several Truman students and others from as far away as Kyrgyzstan.
Gallery
Artist Talk and Reception, Oct. 17th
Please join Dr. Heidi Cook and others on Tuesday, October 17, at 5 p.m. in the University Art Gallery, for an artist talk by Laura Berman, professor of printmaking at the Kansas City Art Institute, in conjunction with her solo exhibition Once & Then. Refreshments to follow at 6 p.m.
University Gallery Opening August 29th
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.
BA students present work in gallery
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.
World War I Exhibitions Opening
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.
I, too, am America — round table discussion
On October 27, Mona Lee and Zoe Abbey, visited Truman State University Art Gallery to discuss their contributions to the current exhibition I, too, am America: Photographs by Kansas City Fast Food Workers, on view in the side gallery until Thursday December 1.
The two artists, who have both been employed in the fast food industry for many years, are actively involved in Stand Up KC (http://standupkc.org), an organization set up to give fast-food and retail workers a voice to speak for better working conditions, higher wages, and a union. Through their work with Stand Up KC, Lee and Abbey were drawn into the Langston Hughes Club and collaborated on this photography project with photojournalist Steve Hebert. The aim of the project was to document—from their own perspective—the conditions in which low-income workers live and work.
Both Lee and Abbey talked discussed how their and their fellow workers’ financial, personal, and social difficulties were expressed in the everyday scenes captured in this exhibition, showing among other things bare rooms, empty refrigerators, and bathtubs full of laundry. The interactive and personal discussion provided an invaluable inside perspective, showcasing exactly why the exhibition I, too, am America has caught the attention of media nationwide (http://nyti.ms/1GDn5Ld).
Mona Lee and Zoe Abbey, who contributed to the I, too, am America exhibition, pictured with Gallery Director Heidi Cook
Fact or Fiction
(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.
Painting professor Lindsey Dunnagan to speak at “#15 for Art” on Thursday, October 20th
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.
“New Works by Truman Faculty” Show to Close This Saturday
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.
Gallery Opening Tuesday September 6th
