Photography Professor Priya Kambli exhibits in Jaipur, India

Professor Priya Kambli’s photographs were displayed at the JaipurPhoto show in late February/early March.  JaipurPhoto is an international open-air travel photography festival held every February in the Pink City.

For the 2017 edition, JaipurPhoto’s Artistic Director, Lola Mac Dougall, invited Federica Chiocchetti, Founding Director of the photo-literary platform Photocaptionist, to be the Guest Curator and respond to the theme of wanderlust. As a Westerner, who works on the relationship between photography and fictions, images and words, and who had to ‘imagine’ and ‘study’ Jaipur and India from far away, Chiocchetti felt inclined to search for photographic works that subtly connected the notions of travel with ideas of the imaginary and the unexpected.

Professor Kambli’s work on display in Jaipur.  These are from her series “Kitchen Gods,” which takes inspiration from her own family’s photographs from India.

As the festival writeup proclaimed: “In this unique family pantheon, Kambli labours to afford her ancestors the same treatment as given to kitchen deities. The act of transforming simple snapshots into gods that watch over the nourishment of the family makes this series–although aesthetically rooted in India- a universal story.”

Priya Kambli is back in the classroom in the fall of 2017, after taking a sabbatical to work on her art full time.  Congratulations on the show, and welcome back!

 

New Public Art on Campus

Danielle Yakle’s Introduction to the Visual Arts class was at it again this spring.  As you walk around campus over the summer, see how many benches you can find that were not there at the beginning of April.*

These benches were completely fabricated by Professor Yakle’s class, with her assistance, and they are sturdy enough to last through midwestern weather.  The body of the benches is metal, and they are almost completely covered with concrete with the decoration added at the end of the process. Each bench is differently-shaped and covered with glass tiles of different colors.  They are placed around the central part of campus.  It is time for a treasure hunt!

*There are six benches.

Painting professor Lindsey Dunnagan on one of the benches newly installed on campus.

Congratulations Dr. Heidi Cook!

Assistant Professor of Art Heidi Cook completed her Ph.D. this year in the history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh with advisor Barbara McCloskey. Her dissertation was titled “Picturing Peasants: Maksimilijan Vanka’s Folkloric Paintings and the ‘Croatian Question’ from Habsburg Empire to Croatian Nation-State.” Using the work of Croatian-American artist Vanka as a linking thread, her project explored how the production, circulation, and reception of objects and images related to Croatian folk culture played an active role in imagining a spectrum of competing national and imperial identities in early twentieth-century Yugoslavia. She received an American Councils Title VIII Fellowship, Foreign Language and Area Studies Academic-year Fellowships, and a Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship from the University of Pittsburgh among other grants to fund her research and writing. Her research will continue to focus on visual constructions of nationalisms and other competing political identities in the modern art, architecture, design, and cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe.

Dr. Cook and Dr. McCloskey at the University of Pittsburgh Commencement.

Congratulations to Art Graduates (and all other grads as well!)

Truman split their commencement into three parts this year because of construction and track improvements.  So the BA and BFA students were honored at a 9 am ceremony on May 13th, which also featured an address by Dr. Cole Woodcox of the English Department, who has also taught Art History for several years. Congratulations to all graduates!  We will miss you as you go on to your exciting futures.  Please keep in touch and let us know what you are doing.

Photo courtesy of Tim Barcus

3D Modeling, Motion, and Animation Final Projects on Display

Come and Enjoy!

In addition, Design capstone projects are up at the Kirksville Arts Association (1902 S. Baltimore, Suite 100) this week.  The reception to celebrate their completion of the degree will be at 6 pm Friday evening at that location.  We look forward to seeing you at one or all of the events coming up this week.

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.

Continue reading

Art Projects Look to Science for Inspiration

Art professors Lindsey Dunnagan and Francine Fox promoted interdisciplinary studies by inviting their students to sketch or paint in partnership with the sciences for first-hand experience with live, unique subjects.
Dunnagan’s class worked with science professors, including Jay Bauman, Elisabeth Hooper and Timothy Waston. Bauman taught students how to attach reflective nodes to their bodies and capture motion in 360 degrees by using special recording devices in the Piper Lab. Students painted how meaning is conveyed in body movements using the technology.

In another project, students painted plants and animals from the greenhouse using elements of a Japanese marbling technique and seed collections. Walston also set up a lab for students to investigate single cell organisms from pond water. The students also explored how other objects, such as dried plants, a cracked egg and clothes, looked when magnified a thousand times.

Teams within Fox’s class created multi-panel pieces of artwork centering on a given theme to render realistic representations of their subject matter. Later depictions also included distortions of their imagery to better communicate their concepts. Continue reading

Department Is Featured Artist

Local art gallery Gallery 104: Art on the Square highlights the Truman State University Art Department as their featured artist for the month of April.  The Art Department has had exhibition space in Gallery 104 since their opening last summer. Student artwork is on sale, and this month you can window shop for Truman artwork in the front window as well.

 

 

On March 31st, there was a reception for the exhibitors and students who attended are shown below: (from left to right, back row) Daniel Degenhardt, Hannah Nicks, Emily LaMarche, Lindsey Picht, Jenny Reagan, Audrey Kastner, Greta Dellinger, (from left to right, front row) Karlynn Naylor, Claire Nipper, Olivia Brady, and Maddie Pearson.

A poster from the “Join, Save, Buy” exhibit in the University Gallery this past February hangs in the Gallery 104 window on the Kirksville Square.

The sea serpent that spent last summer on the Quad has found a comfortable home in the gallery (his name is Wilburt, if you hadn’t heard!).