By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
On the job since February, Matthew Kyba, the gallery director at BGSU’s School of art, is curating his first exhibit.
The exhibit “Sticks & Stones,” features the work if Chris Lux , Oreka James, Jade Townsend, and Skye Volmar opens in the Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery, with a reception tonight (Friday, Oct. 6) from 5 p.m. James and Townsend will participate in an artist roundtable and question and answer session at 6 p.m.
Three of the artists have been in residence at the university during the past two weeks working in the studios with students faculty and staff.
This is a model for future exhibits, Kyba said. Having artists on campuses exposes students to different ways of thinking and creating art, he said.
The curator added another layer. The art will be viewed through a poetic lens.
Graduate students in the creative writing program will be crafting responses to the work in the exhibit. Those works will be shared at a closing reception and included in a book on the exhibit.
Almost all the art was created while the artists were on campus. Volmar, who is based in Philadelphia, was not able to visit Bowling Green, is represented by four paintings done for the exhibit and a few older works.
Jade Townsend, a New Zealand, shipped in paintings which were stretched on campus. Townsend’s work is influenced by her mixed Māori, Pākehā, and British heritage.
Chris Lux, based in Los Angeles, creates paintings and drawings that weave together the influences of contemporary graffiti and hard-edge painting with those of the Old Masters, illuminated manuscripts, and religious reliquaries. Ancient ghosts seem to linger among his figures and objects.
Having artists in residence, Kyba said, exposes them to the university and its students, faculty, and staff.
James, a Toronto-based artist has relished the opportunity to work in a variety of studios. This offers their resources they haven’t had since she graduated from Ontario College of Art and Design in 2016. James studied furniture making and has interests in architecture and archeology. James employs a variety of materials – metal, wood, upcycled cardboard, and, for the sculpture they created for this exhibit, ox horns.
The sculpture will with the horns attached be about seven-feet tall. It will be mounted on a motor to put it in motion.
It evokes Ogun the Yoruba god of metal and iron. The horns were an intuitive gesture, representing life. “My work looks at these different dynamics like life and death that exists simultaneously.”
James added “I have this fascination with archeology finding these relics, this excavation of mystery.”
James would love to give it sound but hasn’t figured out how to add that element.
“I look at my sculpture as shrines meditative pieces, inspired often by animism, inanimate objects hold history and spiritual energy and take on a life of their own.”
The artist is also creating a wall-size painting.
In keeping with the poetic dimension of the show, James draws her inspiration from African Caribbean myths and literature, including Dionne Brand, bell hooks, and Langston Hughes.
Galleries put to new uses
The reception will also mark the re-imagining of two other gallery spaces.
The Black Door Video Art Gallery will open in what had been the Red Door Gallery. The space has been equipped with an 11-channel sound system and will used for changing series of multi-media works.
“MONITOR 15: Clearings in the Fog” curated by Faraz Anoushahpour will be the inaugural show.
Organized by the South Asian Visual Artist Collective, the annual MONITOR showcases experimental short films and videos that initiate dialogue around the shifting nature of politics, economies, and landscapes across the Global South and its diasporas.
The Wankelman Gallery, which has been enhanced with higher quality exhibit lighting, will now be devoted to student works, Kyba said.
A student committee will work with him to determine what will be exhibited in the space.
For the first exhibit BGSU MFA student Ghazaleh Dasti will present “Sonic Luminosity: A Visual Odyssey.”
Through the blending of both audio and visual dimensions, Dasti focuses on the particular emphasis on the pivotal role that sound design plays in installation.
