Local Color seeks to serve as a visual arts resource and forum for the Wake Forest University and Winston-Salem communities, as well as the art world at large. Through a combination of editorial and open submissions, we aim to provide a variety of content to engage students with art.
In conjunction with START Gallery’s current exhibit QD, Local Color will be sharing stories and experiences of undergrads and their involvement with art across disciplines. Our current exhibit showcases Cami Burruss, a Wake grad who studied art and is now in medical school. Her show blends her passion for art and science, art and poetry, and most importantly, art and life. Over the next few months, we will be sharing with you the experiences of current undergraduate students who are blending their passion for art beyond the studio.
Cubans at SECCA: A Lively Survey of Contemporary Cuban Art
Interest in Cuba has exploded in recent years since the 2014 lift on an approximately 50-year embargo between the US and the Caribbean nation. I’ve witnessed a revival of fascination with Cuban culture, especially with a surge of American tourists visiting the island described as, “timeworn but magnificent, dilapidated but dignified, fun yet maddeningly frustrating – a country of indefinable magic” by the travel guide book publisher Lonely Planet. Yet for all this attention, I truly cannot recall ever viewing Cuban art and this trip to SECCA provided me an amazing glimpse into major works from both the island and the Cuban diaspora.
The gallery was small but bursting with paintings, installations, videos and photographs. Each work was accompanied by English and Spanish descriptions alike. Warm and rhythmic salsa music played on the gallery’s speakers. Circular couches provided comfortable places to sit and view the artwork. My only complaint of the space relates to the bare white walls. Although this might have been due to gallery restraints of painting the space, I think a pale-yellow ochre color or other warmer toned shades would make the gallery seem less clinical, especially with the emotional nature of the Cubans: Post Truth, Pleasure, and Pain (a very good exhibition title, I would add).
The first piece a viewer encounters is the dramatic, slightly frightening Step by step, We Go Far by Jose Bedia, a visceral mixed media creation of two figures connected to two canine-like creatures with strings, entirely jet black. I learned from the little blurb about the work that it speaks to the system of shamanistic beliefs present in Cuba ever since the introduction of slavery, specifically a fascination with the relationship between the living and the dead. I thought it was a striking piece to place right when you walk in, and absolutely grabbed my attention. Other pieces in the gallery also spoke to local beliefs, such as Manuel Mendive’s The Landscape and its Owner, a beautiful and mysterious oil painting in natural tones of green, brown and blue coupled with a metal and fabric shield-like piece above it and dozens of spotted green and white painted gourds beneath. The painting portion of the piece also served as the main promotional image for the exhibition. I thought it was lovely, and an amazing introduction to Afro-Cuban religious beliefs, with an attention on both the natural world and duality of human existence. Another work that impacted me was the eye-catching yet repulsive video About Permanence and other Necessities, a close-up video of a woman licking the spikes of a cactus. Coupled with the atmospheric music emitted from the speakers, I was spellbound for a moment watching this provocative video which was imbued with “complex discursive constructions about love, eroticism, beauty, pain, femininity, and political or intimate spaces.” I also was struck by the various gripping black and white portrait photographs scattered around the gallery, speaking to the tenuous political history. A last piece that resonated me was Aimee Garcia’s From the Series Repression, several self-portraits attached to symbolic fabric and thread fibers to illustrate the paradoxical nature of being a woman in Cuba and the repressive nature of government censorship. The self-portraits had very memorable silhouettes with the woven components trapping and silencing the women.
Ultimately, Cubans: Post Truth, Pleasure, and Pain was a successful exhibit in providing a diverse collection of contemporary Cuban art to viewers like myself, most likely unacquainted with the rich artistic tradition of the island.
Written by Brooke McCormick for Leigh Ann Hallberg’s Engaging With Art.
Dorothea Lange’s America: A Moving Tribute to American Hardship and Sacrifice
Dorothea Lange’s photograph “Migrant Mother,” a searing black and white portrait, left an indelible mark on my understanding of the Depression and the Dustbowl when I first learned of these periods in grade school. I was less familiar with her other works but was aware of her status as one of the most celebrated photographers in capturing American life and its tragedies. I was interested in learning more about her background and other works. The collection Dorothea Lange’s America displayed at the Reynolda House did not disappoint.
Stepping into the contemporary lower-level gallery, I first noticed the title of the exhibition, written in thick black scrawl. The pale gray walls were simply adorned, save for a few quotes such as, “a human being has a right to stand like a tree has a right to stand/ burned out, blowed out, eat out, tractored out.” This quote fits well with the exhibition’s overall commitment to displaying portraits of human dignity and perseverance amidst challenging economic conditions.
A variety of artists were represented, many of them working under the New Deal created Farm Security Administration, a federal agency which assisted poor farmers and hired more than twenty photographers to document the Depression. The exhibition included photographs from John Vachon, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans and Marion Post Walcott, and of course, Dorothea Lange. The space was divided into sections displaying a chronological record of Lange’s works, the other photographer’s works and an interesting connection between Lange and the author John Steinbeck. I watched part of the six-minute excerpt from the 1940 film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath, and thought it was an engaging counterpoint to the photographs.
Lange’s photographs depict barren landscapes, sharply shadowed scenes of abandoned machinery and signage, families and mothers and even some shots of trips abroad. She also frequently photographed people of color, which was somewhat unusual for Depression-era photographers. I thought it was interesting to read in one of the paragraphs about her work that she frequently emphasized a person’s hands in her photographs. This visual concern shows both the physical struggle of farm work on a person (shown through heavily etched and gnarled hands) and the tenderness and support of family (shown through hands clasped firmly with loved ones).
Hands are the central focal point of perhaps my favorite photograph of the exhibition, “Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Pinal County, Arizona.” This dramatic composition shows a man squinting in bright sunlight, his heavily etched palm obscuring half his face. Unfortunately, workers who had the good fortune of finding work as they travelled across the U.S. were physically and psychologically hardened by the labor-intensive work they had to complete for basic necessities. I was struck by the man’s searching gaze and the feeling it conveyed of endurance and strength. The simple backdrop both focused my eye on the subject and reminded me of the expansive landscapes of American farmland.
Overall, Dorothea Lange’s America was a thought provoking and powerful exhibition. I am normally not drawn to photography but found myself captivated by the faces and landscapes that defined such a devastating era for most Americans. I constantly had to remind myself how recent this history was. Photographers like Dorothea Lange deserve such fitting tributes.
Written by Brooke McCormick for Leigh Ann Hallberg’s Engaging With Art.
Dorothea Lange’s America: Capturing Dread and Anguish from the Great Depression
The 1930s was a trying time for the American people, who after the grandeur of the Roaring ‘20s, faced adversity with the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. Both events were especially brutal for those living in the Midwest and rural swaths of the country, where the damage of the droughts coupled with economic ruin, produced images of an America distraught and disillusioned. Perhaps one of the most famous and important photographers in American history, Dorothea Lange, was able to capture this sense of dread and anguish, seared into her subject’s faces. The Reynolda House is displaying not only the work of Lange, but other photographers from the era, in order to show the full range of the Depression and its consequences for America.
Although Lange’s most well-known photograph is probably Migrant Mother (1936), I was intrigued by some of her lesser known photos, and one by her contemporary, Wright Morris. The first of Lange’s photographs that I was enamored by is aptly named, Girl with mattress springs, California, 1935, depicting exactly what it sounds like. The subject, a little girl, gazes straight into the camera with a look of confusion and defeat, as she leans against a wiry old mattress board. I was drawn to the print mostly because of the unique angle, in which Lange shoots from her waist so the lens is looking up at her subject. This perspective makes the girl look like she is on higher ground, looking down on the photographer, giving even the most helpless of subjects a sense of dignity and stature. Moreover, as she does in almost all of her photos, Lange captures the sense of human vulnerability that is hard to convey through any other medium like paint or pencil. Only her iconic photography could pluck out the despair of the era, immortalizing it forever.
Even though a majority of the images throughout the gallery depict the struggles of humans beings, I also felt the hardships of the Depression through photos of desolate streets and building across the American landscape. Wright Morris’s Two storefronts, Western Kansas (1940), piqued my interest. Morris captures two storefronts, stripped of any character or human presence, in a town presumably rocked by the Depression. I love the bare white of the building’s paneling contrasted with the dark black of the sky and tar road. The Depression turned many small towns into ghost towns, and the almost post-apocalyptic nature of the two nameless/faceless buildings photographed reflects this phenomenon. The shadows of the awnings loom like dark storm clouds over the unoccupied stores, highlighting the ominous tone of the photo. You can imagine where a sign for a pharmacy or general store would hang on these sad buildings, if only the Depression hadn’t been so catastrophic. Although there aren’t humans, Morris is able to capture the desperation and sadness with these two simple stores, that like the American people, are victims of the economic downturn. The advent of widespread photography during the early twentieth century created a new method to extend images/news amongst the general public and government, but today, in my opinion, these photos are just as much pieces of historical art as paintings from the Renaissance or Enlightenment. Art is all about capturing an emotion and invoking a reaction, in the viewer. The work in this exhibit certainly achieves both of those goals.
Written by Michael Angeloni for Leigh Ann Hallberg’s Engaging With Art.
Dorothea Lange's America: Reynolda House Museum of American Art
I always love going to the Reynolda House whenever I get a chance. I am very impressed by the works in their collection. It is amazing that this museum is right in our backyard with such impressive permanent works, visiting exhibits, and speakers. The Reynolda House has beautiful grounds that are always so peaceful to walk through. I love that the works are displayed throughout the home, which is very different from typical museum layouts. You can feel the history as you walk through the home, which makes the experience of looking at the art that much more engaging. The room for visiting exhibits contrasts with the feel of the rest of the museum. It is very modern with plain white walls and bright lights, which adds a completely different energy to the Reynolda House.
I think it is a very intentional choice to host the Dorothea Lange’s America in the Mary and Charlie Babcock Wing Gallery. The Reynolda House was built in the 1910s, so it makes sense to feature Dorothea Lange’s work from the 1930s and 40s in this museum. Dorothea Lange’s photography displays the hardships and emotion of people during the Great Depression. This is greatly contrasted by the wealth and prosperity of the Reynolds family, the previous homeowners of where the exhibit sits today. The emotion and hardship felt by the people who sit on the walls juxtaposes the extreme wealth and power of those who lived in the house during the time the photos were taken. I don’t think you can have the same experience looking at the exhibit without recognizing the stark opposition between the Reynolds family and the subjects in the photographs.
Another interesting contrast is between the bright white walls of the Mary and Charlie Babcock Wing Gallery and the black and white photos on the walls. The bright walls emphasize a variation between the new, modern wing and the raw, heartfelt subjects in the prints. The prints are large and demand your attention as you walk by them. These large, black and white photos further emphasize the unavoidable emotion in each of the works. She is able to capture the sentiment and tone of the hardships of the people during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Her ability to capture the pain and suffering of the time can trigger an emotional response, as you are easily able to relate to the faces of the subjects.
Dorothea Lange’s prints are some the most iconic American works. Even those who are not interested in art have seen her prints, as they are featured in history textbooks and movies. My favorite work, and most popular, is “Migrant Mother.” This sizable black and white image sucks you in as you can’t help but feel her pain. The wrinkles in her face, dirt on her children’s hands, holes in their clothes, and distress in her eyes truly makes you resonate and empathize with the anguish she must have felt. Dorothea Lange’s work is very well known and instrumental for her time period. The significance of displaying her prints in the Reynolda House does not go unnoticed. I am glad I had the opportunity to see her work first hand.
Written by Margaux Walker for Leigh Ann Hallberg’s Engaging With Art.
Tandem: A Mesmerizing Interaction Between Two Artists’ Work
Entering the cool, subtly lit Hanes Gallery last week was a welcome reprieve from the late summer heat. I was excited to see Lori and Royce Weatherly’s work with a fresh eye; before my gallery visit my only exposure to their creations was from the promotional poster. In fact, I was slightly overwhelmed by the dozens of small works lining the walls when I first arrived, as I didn’t know where to start.
I decided to take a look at some of Royce Weatherly’s works first. Along with other gallery goers I would guess, I felt far more comfortable viewing a realistic, more traditional style. With time, I began to notice how Lori Weatherly’s pieces creatively mirrored Royce’s paintings and eventually, I viewed hers separately with a greater appreciation.
Royce Weatherly’s works are atmospheric, highly realistic oil paintings of still life arrangements. Often he places subjects in softly lit monochromatic backgrounds. My personal favorite piece was Summer Plums and Damp Basket, a meditative study of orangish yellow plums in a collapsed teal basket. I am especially drawn to the colors depicted, the diagonal horizon line and the slightly reflective warm gray ground underneath the basket. There are also a few shallow indentations both in the foreground and background that add some texture to a largely smooth piece. It is paired with Lori Weatherly’s oil on linen At First I Thought It Was Nothing 2, a geometric and layered series. The white fabric she delicately overlaid atop the brown canvas forms a similar shape to the basket in Summer Plums, which I enjoyed.
Lori Weatherly’s pieces are quite different in style to Royce’s but they pair together nicely. Her mixed media works are layered and deceptively simple; they often feature grids that are slightly off, often with a shape obscuring part of the line segments at an intersection. She is confident in oil paints, acrylics, watercolors and graphite alike. I thought her spare, vibrantly colored watercolors were as unique as they were beautiful. My favorite piece of Lori’s was Wish For Peace, a bright canary yellow canvas. Upon closer examination, the viewer notices the translucent whitish shapes that resemble puzzle pieces in the center. The whole canvas has a soft tinge of olive green, with a small orange rectangle on the right. This piece speaks to me because of its bold color and the interesting shape of the white outline.
Overall, Tandem struck me as an exhibition well worth exploring. Particularly when I first entered the gallery, I found it to be minimalistic and simple, especially with the bare white walls behind the pieces-- it had a calming effect on me. I enjoyed reading the Artist’s Statement and learning about the couple’s work practice as well. Lori Weatherly described her work as “a kind of gentle and optimistic poetry,” which put into words my thoughts of her pieces. I was also inspired by Royce’s smooth handling of oil paint. Tandem was the first of many exhibitions I will visit in the Hanes Gallery.
Written by Brooke McCormick for Leigh Ann Hallberg’s Engaging With Art.
The START Gallery team is excited to announce that we are re-launching our Local Color Blog! The artwork from Start and Hanes Gallery will now be accompanied by critical engagements written by students from the Wake Forest University Art Department.
Be on the lookout for new content from Local Color, a blog about the art community at Wake Forest University written by students for students.
Color Your World: Upcoming Art Events for April 2017
2017 Student Art Exhibition
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 20, 5-7pm
Hanes Gallery
Each Spring, Wake Forest University presents an end-of-year show in Hanes Gallery celebrating the achievements of undergraduate-level artists on campus. The exhibition is submission-based and juried by the studio art faculty, and this spring, features nearly eighty works from more than fifty different student artists in a wide variety of media.
The show is a great way to see the creativity of Wake Forest students on display and to get a taste for the caliber of work being produced in Scales over the course of the past year--and what better time to do so than at the opening reception this Thursday. If you have work in the show, you should be doubly sure to come by since six students will be awarded $100 Hanes Gallery Awards for their work during the reception. And even if not, you can still get a sneak preview of works that might someday hang in the likes of Reynolda Hall, since the University purchases a handful of works from each show.
Don’t forget to come out this Friday to support your artist friends with works in the show, or take this opportunity to meet new ones.
Ann Nguyen: exposing printing processing
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 20, 5-7pm
Hanes Gallery
Accompanying the 2017 Student Art Exhibition, senior studio art and sociology major Ann Nguyen is pleased to present her honors project, exposing printing processing, this month at Hanes Gallery. Running from April 20 through May 15, the show is a personal exploration of photography and its limitations that borrows the impersonal visual language of the “Shirley Card,” a type of color reference card used behind-the-scenes in commercial printing practices to perform skin-color balance for decades.
Because the model used for reference was almost exclusively white, the resulting calibrations implicitly biased white skin tones, despite purporting to be an objective standard. Through her creation of large-format prints of Shirley Cards that feature non-white individuals, Ann Nguyen seeks to challenge the assumption of photography’s objectivity and to stand defiantly against the conflation whiteness and normalcy.
Come witness the artist’s powerful portraits starting this Friday at Hanes Gallery.
The Nature Of: Advanced Painting Senior Exhibition
Opening Reception: Monday, April 24th 5-7pm
START Gallery
For our last exhibition of the semester, START Gallery is thrilled to present The Nature Of, an exhibition co-curated with Page Laughlin's Advanced Painting Seminar. Featuring the work of 9 senior artists, The Nature Of explores themes particular both to the artists as individuals and to the class as a whole. The visual connections between these paintings speak to the many close-knit years these women have painted together in the studio, drawing inspiration from one another as they go.
We hope you will join us in celebrating the culminating achievements of these 9 seniors' time at Wake at our opening reception next Monday evening.
Art Installations
Opening Reception: Tuesday, April 25 from 7-9pm
505 Baity Street (behind Last Resort)
At its core, installation art is about transforming space, but it is also about transforming the way in which we interact with art. Through the creation of large-scale, three-dimensional works, installation artists seek not to create an object so much as an experience. The viewer enters these immersive spaces at the crossroads of participant and a spectator, their senses engaged.
Art Installations represents a collaboration between students from Prof. David Finn’s Installation Art course and Prof. Joel Tauber’s Video Art: Site Specific class. In inter-class pairs, they have been tasked with creating installations that incorporate both video and sculptural elements, transforming unused commercial spaces into works of art to be moved through and experienced directly.
See, touch, hear, smell, and perhaps even taste these installations for yourself at the opening next Tuesday, where you are invited to see what these classes have been diligently working on for the past two months.
Revisiting The Student Union Collection: The 2017 Art Acquisition Trip to New York
Post by Will Coleburn
Winston Wächter Fine Art
The next time you walk through Benson, I encourage you to look around with fresh eyes.
It’s easy for us to allow the paintings and photographs that hang on the walls there to fade into the background—to become a part of the scenery that we never give a second glance. We scurry past them on our way to meetings or plop our backpacks down on a couch on the third floor and turn our backs to them as we type away at a paper.
But I think that we miss out on a vital opportunity afforded to us when we fail to engage with these pieces. The art on the walls of Benson—together with a portion of those homed in the likes of Reynolda Hall, Wake Downtown, and the Byrum Welcome Center—forms part of the University’s Student Union Collection of Contemporary Art. There are some recognizable names, even to people who’ve never cracked the cover of an art history book, and some interesting pieces, no matter your familiarity with the art world.
But perhaps the most notable attribute of the collection is that it is entirely student-selected.
Every four years since 1963, a group of students has traveled to New York City to purchase art on behalf of the University. And this year, six students—myself included—had the honor of joining their ranks. Over Spring Break, we visited galleries throughout the city with one primary charge: To return with works of art that represented our moment in history.
Of course, to do that justice, our work had to begin long before the trip itself. We did our research on the front end, amassing a collection of artists of interest that by late January surpassed the one-hundred-and-fifty mark. And then we began the daunting process of narrowing down that pool. A lot of thought went into our “short list,” but in the end, we were still left with enough artists and galleries to easily fill our four short days in the city.
And I can assure you that they were full.
While I can’t say that participating in the trip was a particularly restful experience, it was most definitely worth the long days and the brisk walks through the biting cold of a New York winter. There are few feelings like walking up to a gallery and being directed to the back room where the pieces you requested—and sometimes a few surprises—are hung for display. After the back-and-forth of countless phone calls and emails and the task of sifting through price sheets and availability, to finally experience firsthand the artworks that you have spent months looking at on a computer screen is a reward in and of itself.
Of course, it was almost inevitable that we would find ourselves falling in love with far more art than we could ever afford. But after much thought and discussion, the six of us were able to land on five pieces that we knew we would be excited to share with the Wake Forest community.
James Cohan
SAPAR Contemporary
Jack Shainman Gallery
Since not everyone will have the experience of gallery-hopping in the hub of the art world, this collection aims to bring the gallery to you. And this fall, the newest additions from artists Richard Mosse, Shirin Neshat, Sun Xun, Faig Ahmed, and Mona Hatoum will go on display. In the meantime, though, I encourage you to revisit some of those framed works you’ve undoubtedly hurried by in the past.
Maybe you’ll notice something you hadn’t before.
Will Coleburn is a junior studio art and Spanish double-major from Atlanta, GA. A presidential scholar of the visual arts at Wake Forest University, he hopes to foster connections between the Scales Fine Arts Center and the rest of campus, as well as promote student engagement with art through the START Gallery.
Come visit our Design is_____. exhibition at #STARTGallery from September 22-October 9 and join in the dialogue about what design means to you! #designis #wfu #interactiveart (at Start Gallery)
Living Landscapes: An Interview with Natalie Brashear
Can you describe the inspiration behind your travels to Yosemite National Park?
When I was an Education Intern at Reynolda House last spring, I was asked to conduct research on the Hudson River Valley artists. Throughout my research, I became interested in Albert Bierstadt, his travels, and his depictions of the landscapes of the West. I was especially intrigued by his studies of landscapes in Yosemite.
About this time last spring, I had received a few emails about the Lynn Johnson travel award. In the abstract, I thought it would be such a great adventure to hike out west while following Bierstadt’s’ footsteps. However, the Lynn Johnson award typically only supports international travel. After discussing my ideas with Professor O’Neil, I applied for the grant arguing that the project would be feasible, interesting, and relevant even though it would be a bit unconventional compared to the types of projects the travel award typically funds.
A lot of elements surprisingly fell into place once I began devising my proposal. I discovered a museum with a large collection of Bierstadt’s landscapes only an hour away from Yosemite. Then my good friend and artist Mandy found out that she could also come with me on the trip. It all worked out so well!
So after traveling, what inspired you to curate your own exhibit at START Gallery?
I had planned from the beginning to share my experiences with the arts community at Wake Forest in some way. I figured that an exhibition at START would be the perfect venue, so I suggested that I would apply for the STARTyourself opportunity in my Lynn Johnson Travel Award proposal. I really wanted to be able to share my experiences since my research and travels were a little unconventional.
What were some of the most challenging and surprising aspects of curating your own exhibit?
I had trouble deciding how to visually express what I experienced and learned. I originally thought I might paint my own landscapes during my travels, but I really didn’t actually have time to do that while I was hiking. I had a lot of help from Paul Bright, who suggested that I represent the landscapes through photography.
You included some other students’ work in your exhibition. Can you speak to their involvement? How did they enhance your show overall?
After I had traveled and was assembling the exhibition, I thought to myself, What would make this a more interesting and diverse understanding of landscapes? I then decided to include some photos of landscapes by other students who had traveled and had experiences in the wilderness. I emailed Outdoor Pursuits to see if any members wanted to share images from their journeys. So that’s how Hannah Padronos (Junior) became involved. Then I asked my friend Kristi Chan (Senior) who had also traveled extensively.
I also included some photos taken my friend Mandy, who went on the journey with me and who happens to be a very talented photography student here at Wake. I especially think that Mandy’s contributions added authenticity to our experience of trying to recreate Bierstadt’s travels.
Bierstadt went on this journey throughout Yosemite with a writer named Fitz Hugh Ludlow. So it was like Mandy was my Ludlow.
What is some advice you can give to students who are considering applying for the Lynn Johnson Award and/or STARTyourself?
The best part about the Lynn Johnson Award is that doesn’t have to be super elaborate research required by the Richter travel grant. It also allows for a great degree of freedom, both in when you want to conduct the travel and in what you want to study. But I would encourage students to find some aspect of what they’ve studied here at Wake about which they are really passionate. Identify locations that you are inherently curious about and concentrate on an artist’s or a group of artists’ work that is represented in that area. You really want to use the travel award as a way to enhance your understanding of something you are already passionate about. I would also encourage the students to communicate their passion and desire, and to just go for it! It’s also so important for students to bring back their back their stories to campus and to share what they’ve learned.
As for curating your own show at START, I would say that if you have any interest, just go for it! It is such a great opportunity to learn the challenges of curating. You don’t need to be an expert by any means, and the art department provides great mentoring in guiding you through the process. Overall, it is an incredible learning experience!
Photos from the opening reception of Living Landscapes, curated by Natalie Brashear as a STARTyourself exhibit from the work she made while tracing Albert Bierstadt’s footsteps thanks to the Lynne Johnson Travel Award.
