Chenyang Mu presents "Hear You" at Joy Gallery
and
Bevier Gallery at R.I.T.
Chenyang Mu has a mysterious side to her artwork. You have to listen closely to the sounds her glass sculptures can evoke. You can brush up against some blown glass forms and hear music, then you can strike a chord on what looks like some glass icicles, and in so doing they can remind you of the sounds of Harry Partch with his invented instruments.
Chenyang Mu solo performance at Joy Gallery, Rochester, New York
Chenyang Mu has also brought some of her new artwork to The Bevier Gallery where she has a segment of the space to highlight some of her pieces and her process. Blown glass is only part of her artwork. Her Thesis revolves around how sounds can be shaped by the glass forms that you see, and this is artwork that you can hear as well. In fact some of this art engages you to become a performer in her process - for example you might blow into a tube to create a hum or a series of notes.
Once a year, Rochester Institute of Technology presents the IMAGINE Festival where the public is invited to come and see what is happening in the various areas - including visual arts, photography and science. The parking lot was jammed full when I drove up to see what was going on. Hundreds of people came out on a cool and windy day to check out the show. The projects are part of the mission of my college to inform and educate especially in ground breaking technical skills and innovative image making.
RIT IMAGINE Festival
"Thermal Portraits"
IMAGINE is a Festival of ideas, concepts that also have an interactive component, for example in one studio you could have a thermal portrait of yourself projected up on a monitor. In another former of that same studio a print was being made by a computerized eye dropper filled with liquid coffee. The image was made with a myriad of fine dots - one drip-drop at a time!
Coffee Drip Prints made on the "spot"
Down the hallway, I met up with one of my graduate students who I have worked with this year on her project she calls "My Experience Manifesto". Xuechun Wu has created a flexible mural with imagery taken from life - stages of growth from a young girl, to a teen ager, and beyond. She writes up the characteristics of the life she lives, and also prognosticates about what she will become - this is a bit of fortune-telling and her project is very illustrative!
Xuechun Wu has developed a mural that tells the story of a young lady growing up
Upstairs, at the Bevier Gallery, I took some time to talk with another one of my graduate students who had a whole other story to tell. "Tony" Hexuan Cai presents his silk screen images that could represent the birth of the universe. There is a little baby floating in some of the screen prints, and there is a really creative mind at work here. The imagery sometimes is repeated with screen prints on glass that can look very architectural indeed.
"Tony" Hexuan Cai
presents his universal screen prints
We only scratched the surface of what was being offered during the Festival at RIT. In the University Gallery there was a whole room full of interesting new Industrial Design work. Robots, and much more to see, so if you can - take in the shows at RIT and look for the IMAGINE Festival next spring!
Industrial Design at University Gallery
Rochester Institute of Technology
