A new crop of graduate students from Western Connecticut State University are exhibiting their art at Blue Mountain Gallery in New York City from June 16 to July 3. What strikes one immediately is the depth and perception behind their artwork and their thematic objective.
Bare by Octavia Byrd is both bold and soft in its presentation. Byrd uses oil on a wood panel and offers us the warm, mahogany tones of a curvy female body. The body appears strong, and voluptuous yet suggests a vulnerability and weariness. The colors where light hits the curves have tan and pink undertones. Implied are fleshy layers we can’t see. As if the body holds a text beneath and the physical being has its own story to tell. One sees only the middle section where there is bulk, not the face. Yet, this position conveys strength as well as sublimated power.
In Byrd’s piece Untitled, we see a group of figure drawings in vignettes and close ups of the center of the body, the solar plexus. These are simple drawings tucked into a boxlike shape hinting of confinement. These are skillful contour sketches revealing surgical stitches, that share an intimacy with the viewer. One senses an openness from the artist and a celebration of the human form in all its variety.
Loren Birtha uses movement and swirling waves in the piece titled Drowned in Good Intentions. The title itself is a one sentence poem. The white space on the left is empty. And surrounding it are flowing paint strokes, creating a cavelike shape featuring a partial view of the face of a woman being swallowed by sinewy streaks of pigment. This has a mysterious beauty with a dark undercurrent. The image of the face is blurred and nearly buried in “painterly good intentions.”
The word serpentine comes to mind, that life itself is effluvial, watery, ever changing and we can be drowned by its complexity. Birtha’s second piece displays a link to the first artwork. It is a sculptural piece made of carved redwood roots called Polymorphic Divinity. Its interlocking and coupling roots reveals her continuing theme of entanglement.
For a completely unique approach we turn to Jacqueline Joyce’s piece Mall Rats, where she creates a game board, game pieces and player sheets. Joyce is fascinated with the mask between worlds. She has taken the abstraction of liminal spaces, e.g. hallways, abandoned malls, airports, transitional spaces and invented a game in a forgotten mall. She recalls her love of visiting malls as a teenager. In this game she creates a map of this “third space” where six players represent friendship and the awkwardness of adolescent socializing. She uses the perspectives of six characters written as subversive spoofs of teenage media tropes. They write in their own characters for a more customized experience. (I am quoting almost directly from the artist’s statement since she explained it so perfectly.) Joyce’s love of fantasy is influenced by The Lord of the Rings, Victorian art history and imagined realms. She exhibits her inventiveness and originality which comes from her own personal experience by creating escapes from the real world.
When viewing Katherine Moran’s art, one sees both fragility and resilience in two of her artworks. The piece titled Above/Below is gouache on canvas which is an abstract veil of mottled paint suggesting tenuousness. There’s a gentle movement of tans, browns and blue intermixing with each other that bleeds into a lighter patch of light. One is reminded again of liquidity. Flowing movement, fluency. And with that comes the surprise when using mixed media.
This appears to be a watery shroud but can’t disguise the defenseless beauty of what experimenting creates. In direct contrast is the artwork titled, Oval 1, Oval 2, Oval 3, mono prints on canvas. Minimalist in its presentation, there are three large ovals. One is a bluish black, the second is a washed out blue and the third is a deeper gray. Although these pieces are simple ovals, their shapes feel solid and grounding with smooth edges and placid colors. Moran offers us their staying power, a calmness in an ever-changing world.
Riley Weaver also provides us with the excitement of disparity. He shows us two different approaches; The first one titled Moonage Daydream, is a partial image of a forehead where we see intense eyes and black bangs superimposed within a composition of pastel blocks on a tan surface. There’s an ethereal quality to what is not being portrayed in the expansive empty space and of the suggested face. We are given a glimpse of a dream, in which we often find ourselves between our real and the inner world. The color blocks with straight edges appear to keep this dreamy moment contained, as if to preserve it and hold it captive. Weaver’s other piece is a block print in a grid of a license plate using dirt and gravel on cork with freckled layers of red, black and tan. Bold letters from the license plate offer an elegant, graphic touch to the art.
One is impressed with the attention and focus these artworks convey. We are presented with extreme contrasts, which is so much a part of our culture and daily lives. There’s comfort in knowing these new artists present us with their awareness. One looks forward to seeing more of their expanding creativity and mindfulness in future works. G&S
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