Fairfield University studio art students exhibitions

Fairfield University studio art students exhibitions

Image: Salon An exuberant and visionary art exhibition, "Salon 2008," highlighting current work by Fairfield University Junior and Senior Studio Art majors and including works by students enrolled in Studio Art classes, is currently on display in the Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery at the Quick Center for the Arts. The exhibition opened officially March 20 and runs until May 9. In addition, "Open Studios," a one-evening event set for Wednesday, April 23, highlights work by students currently enrolled in Studio classes.

Receptions for both exhibitions will be held on April 23: The "Open Studios" exhibition will be held in Loyola Hall with a reception from 5-7 p.m.; and a reception for "Salon 2008" will be held in the Walsh Art Gallery from 6-8 p.m. Admission is free and the public is welcome to attend both of these special events that introduce the new and exciting work of young artists.

"Salon 2008" will also be the subject of the Director's Choice Lecture led by Jo Yarrington, professor of Studio Art and Suzanne Chamlin, assistant professor of Studio Art and exhibition organizer on Friday, April 18 from 12:30-1:30 p.m. in the Walsh Art Gallery. Yarrington's lecture will focus on printmaking and students from the Junior Senior Seminar will discuss their work. Admission is $5 and attendants are welcome to bring a brown-bag lunch.

Chamlin organized "Salon 2008" with her colleagues in Studio Art, Jo Yarrington, John Mendelsohn, Matt Blackwell and Marion Belanger, all of who submitted works from students in their classes.

Chamlin has installed the exhibition, giving juniors and seniors (who are majors) priority by providing them with a specific gallery section in which to work. The junior and senior artists were given the largest amount of space for experimentation with the installation of their work. The salon style exhibition is grouped and arranged, for the most part, by Junior and Senior Studio Art Majors, as well as by course.

The Junior and Senior Seminar is taught each year in the spring semester and Chamlin and her colleague Yarrington rotate teaching the course. The juniors and seniors in this semester's course had the opportunity to install their pieces and to continue work on ongoing projects with an eye to attaining the goal of a full installation by mid April.

Chamlin expects more than 300 works to be on display in the Walsh Art Gallery. Work from students in the Studio Art program that are not necessarily majors will be hung, as Chamlin describes it, "salon style, which means the paintings are hung on walls from floor to ceiling, often with little space in between. The configuration of many works hung in close proximity, offers the viewer a 'banquet' of color, style, subject, texture and medium to devour."

Image: Salon Kathryn Sorrentino, a junior in the Studio Arts program who is a matriculated University College student and was formerly a fashion designer, has created two arresting sculptures that are versions of the classic Asian kimono. She chose this universal shape, she says, "Because the Kimono lends itself to many variations and applications that range from embroidered silk to terrycloth and it seemed to me that it would also lend itself to metal mesh and paper cups."

Sorrentino's works are entitled, "Paper Cup Kimono," which uses 1,056 crushed paper cups that are sewn together and supported by a tube and a graceful mesh kimono, "Hardware Fabric Kimono," constructed entirely of materials from Home Depot and decorated with 100 tin can tops of various sizes.

Riannon Thomas, a senior who has been accepted into a Masters of Architecture Program at the California College of the Arts, focused on sculpting and drawing with a concentration on discovering an ease that allows moving from one medium to another.

Thomas' works are entitled, "Land After Time, "Disintegrate" and "Becoming" and were inspired, according to Thomas, by a television "show about the world a hundred years after the humans were gone and all the buildings were beginning to fail or become warped by time ... I'm interested in architecture ... and one day...I saw plastic on the ground...garbage...the idea came to me...buildings slowly swept away... crumbling ... disintegrating...gone with the wind..." Thomas uses Charcoal, Hot glue, Porcelain Islip as the materials of her art.

Chamlin states, "We expect over 200 works in the "Open Studios" exhibit in Loyola Hall. The students are working in Charcoal, Acrylic, Sculpture, Oil Paintings and Prints. This is a rich opportunity for students to see the results of a segment of their artistic journey and the exhibitions present the public with a rare window into an artist's development."

The Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery hours are: Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday, Noon to 4 p.m., Closed Mondays. The gallery is open prior to scheduled entertainment.

Posted On: 04-08-2008 10:04 AM

Volume: 40 Number: 202