The Schumacher Gallery put two new exhibits on display on Monday, Jan. 15 for students, alumni, and faculty to observe, appreciate, and learn from. These exhibits, “Vessels” and “The Absolutes,” add to the extraordinary collection of fine art the gallery previously had, and displays the tireless behind-the-scenes work Schumacher Gallery’s director Dave Gentilini and others had put in over the last year and a half.
“Vessels”
According to the exhibit’s press release, “’Vessels’ is an invitational exhibition bringing together the work of practicing women artists who incorporate the vessel in a variety of ways, even by breaking down the very idea of its structure.”
The exhibit features pieces from twelve different female sculptors, though that was not the original intention.
“We started looking for pieces that would fit into a show, and what we found was that the first seven or eight artists just happened to be female,” Gentilini said. “At that point, we decided that we would make the entire show a female display.”
The exhibit, as a contemporary show, fits very well with attitudes and beliefs that currently inhabit our culture, specifically ones that deal with gender inequality. We can see this through the “Me Too” movement, and how it has swept across the nation, filling social media and other media outlets with support for women. ‘Vessels’ gives off a vibe of female empowerment and an attempt to justify the divide that resides between the two sexes.
“I was hesitant to announce that it was an all-female exhibit,” Gentilini said. “It shouldn’t matter who created the pieces. You can’t look at a piece of art and assume either a man or woman made it. There are no gender roles when it comes to art, it just is.”
The twelve artists who contributed to “Vessels” are Catherine Bell Smith, Liz Delatore, Kate Menke, Carol Boram-Hays, Rebecca Harvey, Lauren Miller, Molly Jo Burke, Lisa Horkin, Karen Snouffer, Kristen Cliffel, Eva Kwong, and Nicki Strouss.
“The Absolutes”
Created by Daric M. Gill, “The Absolutes” takes the role of secondary contemporary exhibit in the Schumacher Gallery, and offers a little different taste from that of “Vessels.”
“’The Absolutes’ is a series of oil paintings on reclaimed wood. They started as an exploration into the lost genesis of western pictorial language and the historical parallels in philosophy and cross-cultural linguistics,” the exhibit’s press release states. “The work has grown into a full language where concepts and stories are told through visual vignettes. Like any pictorial language, an impactful story needs to be edited down to the fewest elements necessary to tell an effective story. This minimalist storytelling ensures that the subject matter will be full of symbolism, often blending the line between artifact and narrative display.”
“We like for our two contemporary exhibits to share a relationship in some form or fashion,” Gentilini said. “And I think we were able to do that.”
In “Vessels,” you have the smaller, more intricate female sculpted pieces, where as in “The Absolutes” we see big, larger than life male pieces. Though the two exhibits differ in the artist’s gender, we still see the complexities and small details within these larger oil paintings, which further reinforces Gentilini’s previous point.
Both “Vessels” and “The Absolutes” will be on display until March 28. They are both free and open to the public, located on the fourth floor of Blackmore Library. The Gallery’s hours are from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
