Post-bac exhibit impresses viewers
As the academic year nears its end, Brandeis' Fine Arts department is working hard to provide opportunities to showcase the work of every student, from first-years to graduate students. To share the works of the post-baccalaureate Studio Art students, the first of two exhibits, titled "Prospect I," opened on Wednesday. The exhibition is currently on view in Dreitzer Gallery in the Spingold Theater Center and will remain open for public viewing through April 14.
The architecture of Dreitzer Gallery lends itself well to the spatial and aesthetic organization of the exhibit. Protruding sections of wall attached to the far, curved side of the gallery are used as separators within the exhibit, dividing one student's work from another's. The students whose works are not displayed in these nooks hold spaces along the wall of the gallery nearest the entrance, letting one collection of works flow into the next. Students' names are displayed in trendy black Helvetica decals high up on the wall above their works, and each work is identified by a small, black number decal. Exhibit guides lay in stacks on podiums near the entrance of the gallery so that viewers may guide themselves through the exhibit.
The works themselves illustrate a wide range of use of color, medium, mood and message. Most of the paintings are quite large, some longer and wider than I am tall, filling up sizeable portions of the wall; but a few of the paintings are much smaller, taking up less than a square foot of wall space each. The exhibit boasts the work of eight post-baccalaureate students. Viewers can look forward to the works of Rachel Sevanich, Sam Riebe, Erin Bisceglia, Maya Anderson, Adina Geller, Sasha Parfenova, Rob Fitzgerald and Mark Farrell.
Some of my favorite works within the exhibit were paintings, a medium which most of the works in the gallery employed. Five paintings created by Sevanich, staged in the nook nearest to the entrance, provided a strong introduction to the exhibit. Sevanich's paintings were all works of oil paint on canvas that layered paint so that parts of each painting were raised and three-dimensional. Sevanich's works used strong colors, many of which were bold primary shades, deepening into darker hues, forming abstract shapes. For example, the bold "Corn Husk Dance," one of the largest paintings in her collection, shows a swirling shape of rich mustard yellows, blues and greens formed upon the canvas.
Not all of the works in the exhibit are paintings, however-media ranged from paint to sculpture to alternative pen and ink works. Anderson created several quite unique works using pitch-black pen and ink on waiflike, white Mylar, a thin, semi-transparent paper material. Her works are composed of layers of inked Mylar, so that some of the buried ink shows through the top layer of Mylar to add depth to works. Unlike the paintings in the exhibit, Anderson's Mylar creations use much negative space, contrasting with the highly detailed, dark depictions of people-shape-object hybrids that are the subjects of her works.
Working through a much different medium, Fitzgerald's two sculpture pieces provide a helpful contrast to the numerous works hung flat on the gallery's walls. One sculpture is positioned on the ground in the middle of one of the nooks, breaking up the viewer's expectations of the exhibit. The sculpture, which is untitled, incorporates the metal grate of a grocery store shopping cart mounted on a white base, splattered with pink and red paint that drips over the edges of the mound to the floor, like a puddle.
While each collection of works in the "Prospect" exhibit tells a different story and masters a completely different medium and mood from the collections next to it, the exhibit as a whole flows beautifully and captures what it means to be an artist at Brandeis: to be different.
Students and enthusiasts of art alike would be well advised to make sure to see "Prospect I" before it is dismantled.
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