ortlip gallery – Page 2

Saturday, March 16 was the opening reception of the Student Juried Exhibition, a collection of artwork submitted by Houghton students and selected by visiting artist Kevin Shook. Shook is an Associate Professor of Art & Art History at Birmingham-Southern College, and specializes in printmaking and digital media. In addition to selecting which of the submitted artworks would be displayed in the show, Shook also chose at least ten pieces to be awarded with between $25 and $200. Additional awards were given by President Mullen, the First Gentleman, and various art faculty members.

Each student was allowed to submit up to five works, and many took full advantage. In the days preceding the show, canvases and prints could be seen through the windows of the gallery piled against walls and pedestals, awaiting Shook’s judgment and the skilled hands of Gallery Director Renee Roberts and her assistants to arrange the show. Submission was not limited to art majors; any students on campus interested in art could submit their pieces. The tremendous response from students, as well as the open submission policy, resulted in a full, vibrant, and incredibly diverse show.

Unlike Ortlip Gallery exhibitions in the past, including previous Student Juried Exhibitions, this year’s show possesses very few common threads throughout the pieces. The color schemes are varied and disconnected. The mediums range from woodworking and ceramics to painting and drawing, and from book-making and textile art to printmaking and graphic design. And the pieces vary in size; they are sketch-pad sized and teapot-sized, they are teeny tiny and they are monumental. So perhaps it is fitting that the central focus of the room—the movable wall containing the title of the show—is painted in flashy fuchsia, a color not found in any other piece in the room. And that hanging upon that wall is a lovely abstract oil painting by Lindsay Burgher, which is made up of greens, yellows, blues, pinks, and oranges—representing in one work the splashes of color seen in different works throughout the room.

The medley of submissions is also accurately represented by the array of awards presented. The Presidential Purchase Award and the First Gentleman’s Purchase Award went to pieces of two different media, Katelyn Kloos’ woodblock print Misty Morning in County Cork and Megan Loghry’s ceramics piece Great Balls of Fire, respectively. The Moss Award for 3rd Place went to a colorful oil painting entitled Bad Company by Kelly Ormsby. Rebecca Dygert’s sweet and wistful litho The

First Dance took home the Alumni Award for 2nd Place. Art Gallery, the witty watercolor by Megan Tennant, received the Paul Maxwell Memorial Award for 1st Place. And the Ortlip Award for Best in Show was presented to Alexandra Hood’s beautiful and elegiac litho, In Time. Several other awards were given, representing a small percentage of the assortment of submissions from package design all the way to photography.

The Student Juried Exhibition will be on display in the Ortlip Gallery until April 18. All students are encouraged to take the time to swing by and check it out. Find out which other submissions won awards, take in the beauty of all the pieces of art, and appreciate the talent and hard work of fellow Houghton students.

An exhibition by Jason Green entitled “Past and Present” is currently on display in the Ortlip Art Gallery. The exhibit is open until March 7, and there is an opening reception on February 23.
Entering the exhibit evokes a sense of quiet. All but two of the pieces on display are mid-sized and evenly spaced along the walls, leaving the center of the gallery open and empty. This bare space is oddly inviting. It draws the eye to the individual pieces and necessitates movement to examine each work up close.
“Jason’s work is pretty exciting for our gallery, we haven’t had an exhibit like it in a while– a full ceramics show,” said Hannah Jennings. According to Green’s artist statement, his current work grew out of his “experience as a builder, renovator and maker of temporary architectural installations.”

Green’s work in this show is comprised mostly of tiles, “thick, gorgeous, and oversized,” described Jennings, and the pieces do seem to hearken to a tradition of building and construction. They are raised slabs on the wall, coated in designs that call to mind Eastern temples.

Indeed, Green cited travel as one of his main influences, listing off China, Mexico, France, and Italy as major sources of inspiration. He works to incorporate “themes, ideas, and motifs that are shared between different cultures and different time periods.”

The two pieces on display that most notably reflect this concept are the two free-standing pieces. Green has created stacks of interestingly shaped, repetitive tiles that are coated with ornate texture. They look as if they had once been part of an ancient greater structure, now worn away.

Green himself reinforced this impression by sharing his intent behind the patterns, stating, “Decorative patterns lifted from history recall how layers build up over time, each having given a contribution to the memory and story of the space.” The two free-standing pieces are by far the most conservative in color choice, as the rest of the wall-mounted tiles integrate bright blues and greens.

In addition to the color, close examination reveals that these tiles are also covered in intricate, overlapping patterns and textures. In some cases, the clay itself will create a 3D texture that contrasts with glazed designs, and in others, multiple layers of glaze create depth and crisscrossing patterns. Some of these forms are geometric, repeating, and solid, while others are more organic and flowing, and the two styles work together within the clay.

Green said, “The geometry of my arrangements is tempered by the fluid characteristics of glazed surfaces that evolve during multiple applications and firings. Some works use fields of modular units that suggest the vastness of landscape and the results of weather and erosion.” The pieces are both beautiful and also intriguing, making it a mystery as to how they are created.

“His work would be interesting to a lot of people, I think, because of the process, which is something he’ll be talking about during the opening reception,” said Jennings.

The reception will be from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Ortlip Gallery on February 23. Green’s artist talk will start at 7:30 p.m. and there will also be live music and refreshments, so be sure to check it out and find out how Green makes such stunning and intricate artwork.