On Tuesday, Oct. 5th at 5 p.m., Southeastern’s Contemporary Art gallery hosted the opening reception for “Pressure: the National Juried Printmaking Exhibition.”
The exhibit featured some of the most important artists focused in the field of printmaking. Along with the juried exhibit, was the closing reception for the “Tiny Circus” exhibition, an interactive video animation project.
Some of the 26 artists featured were Tom Huck, who owns the printing press Evil Press, Aaron Wilson an associate professor from the University of Northern Iowa and Shaurya Kumar, an assistant professor at the University of Mexico.
“All of the artists with artwork on exhibit were invited and I got all of their names from Anita Jung,” said Dale Newkirk, the Contemporary Art Gallery Director. “We invited them because they are some of the most well known printmakers throughout the country.”
According to Newkirk, all of the artists that were invited to show their skills in the exhibit hold various positions in the country, most of them being careers are at universities. Information on each of the artists was made available next to their prints.
The entire exhibit was full of prints on many different forms of expression. The tools used ranged from pencils, ink and paint, and varied between the artists featured and their works.
As a follow-up, on Wednesday Oct. 5 at noon, Anita Jung an associate professor at the University of Iowa, came to speak to the visual art students of Southeastern and critiqued some of their art pieces. Jung also served as a juror for the exhibit.
People were drawn to the artwork for varying reasons, some came to look at the exhibit to find a piece of art in order to write a critique, while others came to see what the exhibit was all about and what was featured in it.
“I came because I love art,” said Andre La’degaillerie a junior majoring in graphic design. “The best piece here is ‘Tiny Circus’ because it has so many different elements in its design and that gives it a sense of complexity.”
“I love how the pieces are mounted and set behind Plexiglass rather than being framed, it makes the show seem more intimate and allows you to connect with the prints,” said Betty Lou Starnes a junior majoring in both art history and painting. “They had a pretty successful gallery exhibit and it was definitely curated beautifully.”