Sarah Kinard
explains her Thesis at the Bevier Gallery
Rochester Institute of Technology
Being able to express yourself; having the self-confidence and making a good argument for your artwork - that is a sign that you are ready to step up and graduate. Just last week I brought my printmaking students over to see the Thesis works by Ms. Sarah Kinard. She built her show at the Rochester Institute of Technology around an environmental explosion of forms that are truly a mixture of printmaking and painting. Sarah is at heart a collage artist, not afraid to improvise. Her pieces have unexpected forms often silk-screened onto wood and then painted and cut out to create compositions which she then orchestrates on the walls of the Bevier Gallery.
Sarah's work reminds me of Robert Rauschenberg combined with the wit and action of Elizabeth Murray - an artist who I once brought to R.I.T. to speak to my painting students almost ten years ago.
Sarah had more pieces in this show than I had expected. Many of the works of art are small in comparison to other contemporary art works, but these have textures that you have to see up close, since they are almost the size of a postage stamp.
Casual Fourplay
opened First Friday at Gallery r
This is the season for students to contemplate their graduation. Do they have a plan to go beyond and see how their artwork and life will develop? At Gallery r this week there was an opening for a show called: "Casual Fourplay" with senior art students - Holly Ferguson, Eliza Harvey, Erika McCarthy and Kit Shulman. What a mixture of art forms including huge sculpture, prints, drawings and installations! In the back room take a look at the mysterious line-up of glowing glassware... Just what is going on in this artwork? What are all those T shaped pins for, and what is in those glass jars anyway?
Holly Ferguson at Gallery r
100 College Avenue, Rochester, NY
I have worked with Holly Ferguson on some of her print pieces, and she let me know that combinations of her little square linoleum cuts were going to be arranged like parts of a quilt. She stood next to one of her tall works in yarn and found textiles, and I wondered how she found the time to crochet all of those patterns...
Glowing Glasses at Gallery r
Back on campus at R.I.T. on the third floor of Building 7B ( Ganett ) there is a photo show now at the William Harris Gallery called: Terra Incognita. The photographs are all from graduating MFA students all with a very self-assured look to each segment of the exhibition. At the entrance there are postcard like prints that offer an interesting window-on-the-world.
"Terra Incognita" at William Harris Gallery
Inside the show there are a variety of candid photos like those of Jade Thiraswas, expressing joy in human relationships as expressed in the images. Gwendolyn Anne Davies photographed herself in a variety of outfits on a beach or other locale. She is self-possessed and confident as she sets up each angle. One work is a play on the centerfold model where she certainly breaks the mold.
Jade Thiraswas
at William Harris Gallery
Gwendolyn Anne Davies
"Terra Incognita"
at R.I.T.
