Art Notes

All That Glitters

originally published April 5, 2006

The "Masters of Fine Arts Candidates Exhibition 2006" at the Georgia Museum of Art is up now, so go see it! Participants include Jen Bandini, Mackenzie Chester, Amanda Crouse, Drék Davis, Robert Giese, Emily Gomez, Daniel Graham, Jeremy Hughes, Claire Joyce, Kent Knowles, Amanda McCadams, Ken McLeskey, Lori Neal, Justin Rabideau, Theresa Sporer and Hooper Turner. As varied in their styles, influences and materials as they are in their backgrounds, the candidates for the Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Georgia have created a diverse exhibit.

Labor Intensive Revelations: Greeting us at the entryway of the MFA Candidates Exhibit is the knitted motorcycle of Theresa Sporer. Sporer, who has worked as both a bike mechanic and a librarian, has covered an entire motorcycle in knitted yarn, adding a feminine softness to the stereotypically male mode of transportation. This labor-intensive endeavor speaks of craft. Also interested in craft is Claire Joyce. Joyce’s work is a bizarre combination of Flemish style altarpieces, Tibetan Sand paintings and pop art iconography. The result is as exciting as a spiritual revelation. The combination of biblical Eve in jeweled horn-rimmed eyeglasses, a Styrofoam take-out box and Miller High Life beer cans, with glitter as the medium, reveals some strange truth about modern humanity.

Statements: Drék Davis’ work is intended to communicate a precise message. For example, in order to highlight the “warped cycle of history” and investigate the lines between historical and pop icons, Davis has created “a group of church fans, depicting and juxtaposing a composed Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, beside Hip Hop emcees Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G.” (Quotes taken from his artist's statement.) An eclectic assemblage style, using found objects, gives voice to his ideas. Hooper Turner’s paintings are replicas of fashion magazine pages, including the printed words describing clothing prices. In his artist's statement, he says, “By creating a singular, handmade object, I add a measure of uniqueness to this mass imagery.”

Change Is Good: After seeing the work of some of these artists around town over the past few years, some readers may be surprised at the changes in the work. Jeremy Hughes’ past paintings do not prepare viewers for the bloody subjects of his thesis work. One of his paintings on display at GMOA is of a run-over squirrel, as seen from underneath a car. A touch of humor is added by the depiction of R2D2 far off in the background. Hughes has also chosen to paint scenes from the movie The Shining, adding strips of imagery in the style of Andy Warhol, with Calumet Baking Powder substituting for a Campbell’s Soup can. Jen Bandini’s bold portraits of women, with compositions reminiscent of photographer Cindy Sherman’s self-portraits, are a departure from her previously seen, softly abstracted works. Bandini utilizes double portraits; for example, a scene from the bathroom shows the artist looking down, and repeats the image with the viewer confronted with a direct stare. Using photographs (both found and personal), film stills and Internet material as sources for imagery, Bandini takes “singular and consecutive moments” to “create new contexts for them.” (Taken from her artist's statement.)

Out on the Floor: The ceramic figures of Amanda Crouse seem to be growing from the surfaces on which they rest. Emotionally charged, distorted and contorted, these figures are not restrained by the reality of human anatomy. Instead, they seem to be created by an intuitive response to clay. Justin Rabideau has an affinity for materials. He utilizes basket-weaving techniques to create multiples of vessels filled with contradicting elements. One set of multiples is human-sized, teardrop-shaped sculptures with pink bubble wrap suspended inside. Ceramist Lori Neal is displaying organic sculptures, with a variety of glazes on the complex twists and turns of the surfaces. Neal’s objects are both humorous and guttural.

Tradition with a Twist: Kent Knowles pushes his compositions to the painting’s edge to create a claustrophobic quality. Placing figures in expansive landscapes, Knowles often uses mythological references, such as a man chained to a tree stump with a bird swooping down on him. He correctly states in his artist's statement that his “paintings often possess a timeless sensibility that is not indicative of any one era, but a summation of collective human experience.” Ken McLeskey, who has a tendency towards illustration, was influenced by a trip out West. His detailed, photo-realistic paintings relate the crispness of the western landscape, and deserve the truly American soundtrack of an Aaron Copeland composition. Daniel Graham is a printmaker doing a sculptor’s work, from his deeply carved woodblocks to an interactive “harmonica” made mostly of wood. Graham’s apprenticeship with a furniture maker is evident in the attention to detail seen in his sculpture. The “musical instrument” is intriguing both aesthetically and as an object of invention.

Photos and Furthermore: Emily Gomez’s black and white photography deals with memorial sites, cemeteries and earth mounds created by Native Americans. Gomez has a straightforward approach to photography. Amanda McCadams takes photographs of photographs. The glare of flash on glass adds to the bizarre sense of history surrounding the images. One is of a man walking on the moon, another of a nuclear bomb mushroom cloud. McCadams takes these pictures in museums, or what she calls “the archive warehouses of our contemporary culture.” The work of Robert Giese and Mackenzie Chester was not available for viewing at the time this article was written. The "Masters of Fine Arts Candidates Exhibition 2006" will be on view at GMOA through Apr. 30.

Beth Sale Send your art news to outthere@flagpole.com, and always put "Art Notes" in the subject line.

Beth Sale

Send your art news to outthere@flagpole.com, and always put "Art Notes" in the subject line.