By Kelli Henderson/entertainment editor
Faculty members have come together to participate in the Northeast Art Faculty Sampler and show other faculty, students and the community the power of the artistic mind.
The exhibit, curated by associate professor Cindy Hurt, will hang in College Hall on NE Campus until Oct. 5
Art associate professor Andrew Stalder said he thinks the show could be used as a motivational tool for students.
“Our department is full of practicing artists, and I think that is very important when it comes to educating our students,” he said. “By constantly producing work, we are continually educating ourselves, which only strengthens what we are able to impart to our students.”
Wanting to start the semester off “with a bang,” Hurt organized the faculty to voluntarily provide pieces, including two of her own.
Photo by David Reid/The Collegian
The two paintings come from The Cabes, a series she has been working on for the past year.
“They have to do with an internal search and internal journey, but at the same time they relate to the issues around global warming … They’re basically biospheres, and what that means is, we’re all interconnected and related,” she said.
Hurt, like many artists, doesn’t just think of random things to paint as brush goes to canvas.
The more the artist feels and ponders, the more emotion and expression will come out in the work, she said.
“I think what happens for artists when we work is we come up with visual symbols and things to drive our production and our desires to complete a piece,” she said. “And these different symbols and images pop up in the work.”
Quite a few of the pieces hanging in the exhibition are things viewers may have seen before but distorted to fit another meaning or symbols that may mean something completely different when paired by themselves.
Stalder’s piece fits in this category. Roll is one in a series of paintings where versions of luxury brands are cropped and disfigured with paintings on top of the symbols. Roll is the hood ornament of a Rolls Royce.
Hurt said she believes it’s OK for viewers to get a different meaning out of a piece than intended by the artist.
Stalder said he does not pay much attention to the viewers’ decided interpretation but is not happy until he gets at least some sort of reaction.
“Indifference is the artist’s worst enemy,” he said. “I hope that everyone will come away from the show with a sense of the wonderful diversity of the NE faculty’s work — in content, process and medium.”
Some of the pieces have personal meanings to the artists. They use friends and family as inspiration, including adjunct art teacher Elizabeth Holden and associate professor of photography Richard Doherty.
Doherty used a friend’s family and their dynamics with their child for the traditional portrait in Ozzie and Family, he said. He used Ozzie as the focal point for the dominance the child seems to use with the family in real life.
Holden’s charcoal on paper is a piece dedicated to her mother being diagnosed with breast cancer.
“This drawing is a way of expressing my anger, my sorrow and my hope that she will be healed,” she said. “It is a way for me to symbolically confront the evil known as cancer. Art, by its nature, is self-reflective. Every work is personal. Most artists draw upon life experiences, both good and bad. If this piece moves people and allows them to heal spiritually, physically, emotionally, or what have you, then I have truly accomplished something wonderful.”
Every curved line and every mix of color has a meaning to the artists, Hurt said.
“I think when the artist can really tap into their own personal experiences, I think that makes the work much more powerful,” she said.
The department will hold a reception for students and the TCC community 5-7 p.m. Sept. 5 and two artist talks 11:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Sept. 10 and 6:15-7:30 p.m. Sept. 20.
College Hall will be open every day with no set schedule. If faculty would like to set up an appointment for a class, contact Hurt at cynthia.hurt@tccd.edu.
