STLCC-Meramec faculty showcase their artwork in the gallery.
By: Taylor Menke
-Staff Writer-
Black and white photographs, landscapes, emotionally charged sculptures and abstract paintings: examples of these artistic works and more can currently be found in the STLCC-Meramec Contemporary Art Gallery, where the Art Faculty Exhibition is taking place.
The exhibit is a collection of what Meramec’s faculty has to offer, brought together by a cohesive combination of hard work and skill. It features a variety of artistic works for admiration and even purchase, if you have an eye for art and the cash to support it.
“[The exhibit] lets students see what excites their professors…the unexpected track a professor might be taking,” said Chuck Groth, a graphic design professor who contributed an acrylic painted landscape (name: “untitled”) rather than a display of digital designs. Art students may be surprised at the number of formats and artistic talents their professors may be keeping under the radar.
“Landscapes and light and sky,” Groth said of his work outside the classroom. “I get blown away by the depth.”
“Teachers in the arts realize that the particular discipline that they work within is integrated and influenced by a myriad of other sources,” said David Hanlon, photography professor and co-director of the gallery along with Professor Margaret Keller. His featured piece in the gallery is a photograph entitled Terminal, San Francisco Airport, which explores the relationship between people and their surroundings. “Teachers, therefore, are often very much interested in exploring an adjacent artistic material or approaches…everything that you can take in helps.”
The exhibit, which attracts art students looking for inspiration or a close-up view of artistic detail, the three-dimensional strokes of a paint brush, the curves of a statue, cracks in a work of clay, precedes the Juried Student Art Exhibition which begins in April. There are six art shows running this year on the Meramec campus, and each has something to offer students regardless of their major when it comes to broadening their imaginative capacity. Though visual art, like other mediums of human expression, is subjective, sometimes it is not clear where the meaning or educational merit lies, if indeed any was intended at all.
Rennie Behrend, who teaches Figure Drawing, has submitted an interesting and decidedly abstract piece to the gallery this year: the geometric, acrylic-on-linen Potholder #1. “I don’t know [what it means]. I like the colors color and form,” Behrend said of the piece and other independent works. “It’s what I do.”
Behrend, like other contributors in the exhibitation, is selling Potholder #1 to anyone with the funds and interest available. Though his selling price is $2,000, other prices range from the college-student affordable (Momento of a Farm by Kathy Ladd, $50) to the amount only an art aficionado could appreciate or afford (The Beach by Lizzy Martinez, $3,500). Some items are not for sale at all.
Most visitors will not be looking to buy, however. They will be looking to observe, and to see the work of those who pass on their skills to younger artists.
“The Meramec Contemporary Art Gallery functions in several ways,” Professor Hanlon said. “Students in our art programs can see in the Faculty Exhibition some ideas that their teachers are working with, often acting as a starting point in a discussion about approach, the use of certain materials and problem-solving approaches. Viewers who are not art majors can gain equally important insights…”
The Faculty art show is located at the very end of the Humanities hallway. Students will be greeted by a volunteer attendant just outside the gallery.
The exhibit runs until Sept. 21, Monday through Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; and Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
