Please join the Studio Art Department April 4th for an exhibition and discussion of work by visiting artists.
APRIL 4 - Tom Ferrara
"My paintings are mostly intuitive. It is important to me because I think it’s the product of experience going back to the beginning of time and it is a vital part of our collective nature. All that we are made of was there at the beginning. We were not just witness to the beginning of the universe, we were participants. It is the resonance and impression left by that experience and all transformations since that forms our intuitive nature. Painting is the best way I’ve found to channel intuition. The passages are a notation of the impulse that sparks their creation. Each mark is a response to the ones preceding it and the tension of their interaction is what brings the painting to life. I never really know how it will finish but the hope is that it will be something surprising."
APRIL 18 - Tim Olson
Tim Olson is an Architect and designer, whose work ranges in scale from architecture to furniture and art installation. He is currently employed by Bensonwood, a design-build company based in Walpole, New Hampshire. His experience includes working for Boston-based architecture firms, Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc., on projects including a new science museum in the United Arab Emirates, and as an intern for Sasaki Associates. Tim served as a furniture design instructor and fabrication facilities manager at the Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning in Washington, D.C. He has designed and collaborated with architects on custom furniture commissions, and has worked as a sculptor on large scale public art projects. Tim holds a Master of Architecture from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2011), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Alfred University (2003).
MAY 2 - Stina Köhnke
"My studio is a stockpile of antique and curious objects. I am drawn to antique items for their design, integrity and history. Before I begin building a construction, I spend a disproportionate time collecting appropriate objects. I then experiment with disassembling these items to the extent where I feel I am able to synthesize the object’s former context with my own meaning. With my interest in taxidermy, toy construction and industrial hardware, I enjoy the challenge of distilling recognizable items into alluring abstractions. I consciously preserve some evidence of the objects’ former use. My habit of disassembling and rearranging my components helps me test the parameters for merging incongruous elements into convincing scenarios. Beyond fragmenting my found materials, I transform these objects into my own narratives by reconfiguring them in unexpected ways. As these recognizable images are morphed and upended, their context becomes more dreamlike. As in a dream, my work’s appearance is simultaneously plausible and improbable."
8:30 - 10:00am
Nearburg Gallery, Black Family Visual Arts Center
Pastries and coffee will be provided.
Sponsored by the Leslie Center for Humanities.
