As artists grow and change, so does their artwork. While conceptual pieces track a creator’s thoughts and feelings, aesthetic art culminates from the artist’s skillset and interests within the field.
Dale Newkirk, director of the Contemporary Art Gallery, has been able to witness the artistic development of himself and his peers thanks to the annual Art and Design Faculty Exhibition.
The exhibition’s opening reception is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 29 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
“We do this every year,” said Newkirk. “It’s always the first show of the spring semester. It’s an opportunity for the students and community to see what the professors do in their studios, because the students don’t get to see that very often.”
Each faculty member presents artwork in the medium of which they teach. Though some individual exhibitions feature the same artists year after year, each exhibition develops a life of its own.
“It’s always surprising to me,” said Newkirk. “This is my 11th [exhibition]. The personality and character of the show changes every year even though a lot of the faculty are the same. A lot of the times, the faculty members will use this show as an opportunity to make something different or to experiment with something.”
This is true even in regards to Newkirk’s work. Though Newkirk is a sculpting instructor, his pieces to be presented in the upcoming exhibition are 2-D design. In one of his pieces, Newkirk utilizes light, proportion and color to evoke emotion and tension in the viewer.
Gary Keown is another faculty member who will be deviating from his past artistic trends. Though Keown is a graphic design instructor, he has a master’s degree in sculpture. After taking sculpture as part of his graphic design undergraduate curriculum, he “fell in love with it.”
One of Keown’s pieces presented in a faculty exhibition was a series of sculptures based upon the “Dick and Jane” children’s stories, which were meant to symbolize the Sandy Hook shooting. However, this year Keown decided to get back to his roots with a typography piece.
Keown’s current piece features a zoomed-in piece of the letter “K” proportioned in such a way to evoke feeling in the viewer. This piece was influenced by Claude Garamond, a 16th century typographer in the 1500s, and Ellsworth Kelly, a painter whose work is thematically centered on minimalist shapes and vibrant color.
For more information on the faculty exhibition, contact Newkirk at [email protected].