By Amanda Benavides/reporter
The NW art department is hosting an exhibit of works by Texas A&M faculty that runs through March 15.
The exhibit features the works of professors from the Texas A&M-Commerce art department. Featured artists include Barbara Frey, Michael Odom, Chaddy Dean Smith, Gerard Huber, Vaughn Wascovich, Michael Miller, Thomas Seawell and Josephine Durkin.
Lakeview Gallery on NW Campus hosted a reception March 1 with department chair Michael Odom speaking about the exhibit.
Odom received his M.F.A. in painting from Indiana State University and considers his paintings “works in progress.”
“It’s a process of changing your mind by the layering of colors and shapes … a revision,” he said.
While Odom is the interim head of the department and has been teaching full time for the past four years at the Commerce campus, he also writes art reviews for art papers such as ArtForum.
Odom’s Gallery Talk was a walk through of descriptions and background of the artists and their pieces.
Odom began with Miller’s work “Hytop” from his 2005 series The All New LaSabre. Miller used printed fabric sewn together and stretched over the canvas, painting on top of that and as the focus a clip art image of a bird.
“The use of the bird in this piece portrays its meaning as taking flight,” Miller said in his artist’s statement.
One of the university’s newest sculptors, Durkin was also showing at the University of Dallas and could supply only one of her pieces.
Odom showed three of his own pieces at this exhibit, including his painting “Painting Isn’t Always.”
“It is a photograph of a rewrite of one of my reviews,” he said.
Smith contributed a series of photographs done with a pinhole camera.
Huber’s paintings have a theme using the rainbow shape derived from a windshield looking across the dashboard.
“Each painting tells a story with a touch of irony,” Odom said.
The department’s newest faculty member, Wascovich is currently documenting one of the most toxic cities using photographs.
“[Wascovich] makes the town look beautiful in his photos,” Odom said. “At the same time, it’s a sad project.”
The curator of the Texas A&M Artists/Professors exhibit is Fred Spaulding.
Spaulding’s mission in choosing this exhibit is to “expose art majors seeking the bachelor of fine arts degree to the program that Texas A&M Commerce has to offer.”
The program does not limit the major to a bachelor of fine arts but also includes studio art, video art, experimental studies, arts, photography, science and communication design.
Spaulding said the Texas A&M Commerce professors are “not only highly skilled but effective communicators.”
For more information about the program, visit the department’s Web site designed and maintained by its students: www.tamu-commerce.edu/art.
