Eleven artists from New Mexico State University will showcase their work in an exhibition titled “Impermanent Topography” at the University Art Gallery. The artists are faculty and staff from the Department of Art in the College of Arts and Sciences. The show will run from Tuesday, Jan. 17 through Thursday, Feb. 9 with an opening reception from 5-7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 20.
“Impermanent Topography” was curated by the gallery’s interim director Michelle Lanteri and includes artwork by professor and department head Julia Barello, college assistant professor Tauna Cole-Dorn, associate professor Craig Cully, assistant professor Jessika Edgar, assistant professor Motoko Furuhashi, college assistant professor Richard Hesketh, assistant professor Wes Kline, manager of chemical safety Adam Labe, adjunct faculty member Bree Lamb, visiting assistant professor Jacob Muñoz and professor Rachel Stevens.
“This exhibition addresses the social, political, geographical and cultural landscapes that comprise our ever-shifting understandings of contemporary life,” said Lanteri. "It grapples with the overlapping intersections of memory, selfhood, and information as described through the artists' inscriptions of identity in paint, metal, clay, digital media, experimental sculpture, and site-specific installation.”
Cully’s “Slaughter Series” confronts the undoing and reconstruction of life through accumulations of oil paint that question the unnatural yet customary process of harvesting livestock for foodstuffs.
Furuhashi’s coiled packing tape sculptures record her explorations of different exterior landscapes through collected earthly material.
Kline’s installation produced with Erika Lynne Hanson is titled “Varied Choreographies (desert, dialogue, debris).” His work investigates serial movement as a choreographed system that activates community.
Through porcelain letters that script prayers for the dead around steel rows, Stevens’ “I Can’t Remember My Name” sculpture describes the adaptation, impermanent home and survival of her grandparents and relatives during the Holocaust in Western Ukraine.
Along with the exhibition, the University Art Gallery will also include highlighted programs presented by some of the artists. “Finding a Path: Collaborative Tape Sculpture with Motoko Furuhashi” will be at 5:15 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 24. This will be an interactive group performance to make a tape sculpture. The resulting artwork will be on display in the University Art Gallery from Jan. 26 through Feb. 9, 2017.
Another program, “Space Harmonic Performance by Wes Kline” will be a demonstration at 5:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 8. This is an intermedia performance that corresponds to his and Erika Lynne Hanson’s site-specific installation, “Varied Choreographies (desert, dialogue, debris).”
The University Art Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Highlighted programs that are part of the exhibit as well as admission to the gallery are free and open to the public. For more information visit https://uag.nmsu.edu/upcoming/
Voters approved General Obligation Bond C for $22.5 million dollars for renovation of D.W. Williams Hall, which currently houses the Department of Art and the University Art Gallery. However, an additional $1 million is needed to purchase furnishings and equipment to complete this state-of-the-art facility. Ammu and Rama Devasthali have pledged a $250,000 matching gift to encourage donations. To contribute to the Williams Hall renovation and have your gift matched, visit the NMSU Foundation website at http://nmsu.life/G or contact Andrea Tawney at 575-646-4917.
Information from NMSU