Metals, jewelry and photography exhibits at DeVries

by Ashley deBear
Western Herald

(Brooke Klenow / Western Herald) Western Michigan University students check out the interactive jewelry and metal sculptures at the Metals Guild Group Exhibition Reception on Monday night in the Devries Gallery of the Richmond Center for Visual Arts.

The Eleanor R. and Robert A. DeVries Student Art Gallery opened its door to Western Michigan University’s Metals Guild Group Exhibition and the Human Nature Photography Exhibition on Oct. 27.

The Metals Guild Exhibit featured the creations of 10 WMU students: Alissa Lamarre, Veronica Ptaszynski, Lynn Batchelder, Annie Dennis, Jennifer Moss, Erica Stephens, Liz Liczbinski, Katelyn Kronshage, Katie Rearick and Jason Spicko.

The work of each artist is hung creatively through a pulley system.

“The exhibition itself is interactive, featuring a pulley system which people can view the work on a closer, more personal level,” Lamarre said.

A guide is posted on a wall next to the hanging exhibit, and gives corresponding numbers to metal plates at the bottom of the pulleys.  The diversity of materials hanging from the exhibit ranged from metals such as sterling silver, copper, and magnets to softer items which included fur, wool and felt.

“Human Nature” is a collective photography show which features the work of four WMU students: Mary Vernon, Karie Kuiper, Amy Stieve and Adrianne Marks.

Each student took a different view of human nature.  Mary Vernon’s collection, “In Our Blood,” focused on human’s dependency on automobiles, and how that dependency is contributing to pollution and global warming.

“This work is a response to the personal and public struggle between humans and our roads and automobiles including our dependence to them,” Vernon said in her artistic statement displayed next to her exhibit.

Adrienne Mark’s exhibit focuses on nature, and was the only collection not in black and white.  In her artistic statement, Marks said her work has “transformed from a vision of almost apocalyptic landscapes into finding life in dead or dying things through artificial means.”

Amy Stieve’s two collections depict decaying forms of nature.  The “Untitled Leaf Study,” which features four pictures of leaves, is the “intimate study of fallen leaves in their diseased and decaying state of being,” according to Stieve’s description of her collection.

Stieve’s other collection, “Untitled Stump Series,” was inspired by Shel Silverstein’s book “The Giving Tree;” more specifically its first line “Once there was a tree …”  In the description of her collection, which she calls an ode to Silverstein, she says the book has become more meaningful to her as she got older and has used it as a muse for her collection.

The final collection in the “Human Nature” exhibit was Karie Kuiper’s “Look Around” exhibit.  Her series of photographs showed trees marked to be cut down with embellished bright orange spray paint.

“This work specifically addresses the human description to nature through both the application and the symbolic meaning of spray paint in contrast with images of a natural forest environment,” Kuiper’s statement reads.  “Spray paint is often used to mark a tree that is scheduled to be cut down, as was the case with the forest I photographed.”

Kuiper goes on to say that the spray painted marks foreshadow both the destruction of the trees and forest as well as the natural environment by human progress.

Both exhibits will be featured in the DeVries Student Gallery through Friday, Oct. 31.  The gallery is open Monday-Thursday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday noon to 6 p.m.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Oct 27 2008. Filed under A & E. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
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