By Dorothy Shinn
Beacon Journal arts and architecture critic
One of the points of an education, especially a college education, isn’t to get a job. Not if you’re doing it right.
Colleges and universities are not just job-training facilities, but places where students go to be exposed to a wide variety of ideas and philosophies, many of them not only contrary to their upbringing, but also utterly new.
Fathom & Under the Iron Sea are part of the Imprint exhibit by Warren artist Eric England at the Downtown Gallery in Kent.
That’s why it’s refreshing to see that at Kent State University’s School of Art Gallery and Downtown Gallery there are two shows that first, challenge students to think outside the canvas, and second, ask them to toss out many of their preconceptions and predilections.
At the School of Art Gallery is Therely Bare, Curated by John Tallman and Ron Buffington, a show of nonobjective art that features the work of 18 artists from around the world, including France, Belgium, New Zealand, the Netherlands and the United States.
This is a show that challenges students — and the rest of us, for that matter — to consider, understand and appreciate art outside our comfort zones.
At the Downtown Gallery is Imprint, a sculpture exhibit by Warren artist Eric England. This exhibit draws on England’s extended relationship with comic-book superheroes and combines their attributes with those of ancient African carvings and American Indian totems, exploring the struggle between the body’s physical limitations and the mind’s infinite imagination.
These days many art students arrive at art school filled with ambitions of becoming computer animators and working at places like Pixar, Dreamworks or Nintendo. Such students are naturally more interested in realism, accuracy, action and things that go “blam!”
The sculptures in Imprint seem to fulfill this desire quite handily, as on first glance the dozens of painted wooden sculptures bear an uncanny likeness to Buzz Lightyear, the animated action figure in the Pixar/Disney classic Toy Story.
Only it appears that these figures are avatars for all action figures, and their general similarities challenge us to connect each piece to the comic-book hero that it purports to represent.
England, who earned his bachelor’s BFA from Kent State University in 1987, has a master’s degree in medical illustration and actually worked for Disney, knows a great deal about the enthusiasms of adolescent art students, as he has been teaching art at Howland High School in Warren since 2002.
And it would seem that one of the functions of these action figures — or as he calls them, Talismans — is to provide a path through which typical teenage manias can enter into the mysteries of art.
Part of that process is to acquaint oneself with the various “isms” of art, and back at the School of Art Gallery, Therely Bare presents us with a show that rests squarely on the barely visible shoulders of Minimalism.
Therely Bare is based on the premise of the subversive in nonobjective art. It sets up the viewer for certain expectations, then slyly inverts them, as demonstrated by the show’s title.
Further evidence of this inversion can be found on the show’s introductory panel, where hangs 147 (2006), by New Jersey artist Ken Weathersby, which presents to the viewer a tiny canvas that’s reversed and embedded in a larger canvas, its edges given over to optical illusions.
Further on is Hey, Headmaster (2010), an enamel on acrylic panel work by Cincinnati artist Jeffrey Cortland Jones that embodies the classic Minimalist features: a rectangular base upon which only the barest of representations has been laid down, accompanied by the merest hint of color.
Likewise, Buffington’s Static presents us with a plastic sheet that, like Saran Wrap, clings to virtually any surface for a predictable period of time. Gallery director Anderson Turner received instructions to spread the plastic out on the wall and leave it there, where it will remain, attached by static electricity, for about 48 hours. When it begins to lose static and peel away from the wall, it’s replaced by one of the dozens of duplicates Buffington has provided for the show.
Richard van der Aa, a Paris-based artist, sent along two works, Easy Piece No. 35 and Easy Piece No. 45, each of which is a variation of the blank, White Painting theme so dear to the hearts of early minimalists, especially its originator, Robert Rauschenberg.
However, these canvases are ivory, and the paint is actually manipulated, but only to the extent that one canvas has been placed on its edge before the enamel paint was dry, causing the bottom area to wrinkle slightly; while on the other canvas something, perhaps a small pebble or bead, has been dropped or embedded and the paint allowed to dry around it. If you’re into Minimalism, this would rock your world.
One of the artists in this exhibit is Lorri Ott, of Cleveland, who is an adjunct professor at both Kent State University School of Art and the Cleveland Institute of Art. Her work, like several of the pieces in this show, is based on serendipity and the vagaries of her medium.
Ott paints not on canvas, but in polymorphic shapes created by pouring a polymer resin medium. The resin allows for only 90 seconds of mixing time, and five minutes during which she can add color, toss in various found objects and pour it into a shape.
“I only get one shot,” she explained. “Once I compose the elements and pour, that’s it.”
These constraints force her to focus, and as she puts it, “I have to go in there knowing what I’m doing before I do it.”
Similarly, the various subversions used by the artists in this show force viewers to bring into play every bit of understanding and knowledge about art they possess, and then be prepared to have that knowledge upended.
Blinky Palermo, for example, was a precocious European art star who died under mysterious circumstances when he was 33. Palermo was one of the pioneers of the painting movement that did away with the canvas, calling into question the status of painting as a treasured, high-skill commodity.
Thus is solved the mystery of Philadelphia artist Kevin Finklea’s 2010 acrylic on wood, Parakeet (for Palermo, Group 1). He could even be cited as one of Ott’s influences. (In her case, he must share space with the work of American feminist artist Ree Morton.)
Nevertheless, once we are privy to the Blinky Palermo connection, his influence can be detected throughout this show, a placid-appearing, but rigorous and deceptively thorough introduction into the mysteries of art.
What better way to begin a new year in art school? Or anyplace, for that matter.
DETAILS
Shows: Imprint and Therely Bare, Curated by John Tallman and Ron Buffington
When: Through Sept. 24 and 30, respectively.
Where: The Downtown Gallery, 141 E. Main St., Kent; and Kent State University School of Art Gallery, respectively.
Hours: Noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday-Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Downtown Gallery; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday at the School of Art Gallery.
Information: 330-672-7853 or http://galleries.kent.edu.
Dorothy Shinn writes about art and architecture for the Akron Beacon Journal. Send information to her at the Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309-0640 or dtgshinn@neo.rr.com.
Hmmmm.
Thanks, Dottie, for connecting what we present/explore in the galleries run by the School of Art with aspects of an important mission of general education, to open up the world around us for newbies. Everyone can and should have access to these ideas, even as not everyone is interested in everything equally. So be it. For those who care, or might, or are simply curious, there is much here to invite observation, thought, and further questions, all of which are important parts of what we do in visual terms. Your review provides additional concrete perspectives from which to engage with what’s on view – thank you!