IN THIS LIFE: REFLECTIONS ON WAR AND POLITICS

In This Life is an exhibition with a collection of paintings on the subject of war and politics. You may visit this exhibition in the Fort Collins Museum Of Contemporary Arts between September 25, 2007 and December 08, 2007. The three featured artists in this exhibition are Felipe Echevarria, Miguel Tio, and Kumiko S Mckee. Through their paintings, these three artists reflect on the events of 9/11 and the war in Iraq. The experience of war and destruction as a component of the human condition is said to be central to Echevarria's work. In his work titled My God Is Not Your God, he paints a wide and calm blue sky with bombs falling down in it. Taking a different approach is Miguel Tio who was born in the Dominican Republic and currently lives in New York City. He was living in New York City at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center, which is where he drew his inspiration from to paint The Journey After. In this oil work he paints classical nude figures as angels with wings flying in a clear blue sky around the World Trade Center towers in a beautifully dynamic composition. Tio handles the human skin on the angels fantastically with such a sense of control and a knowledge of color pallette. His brush strokes are smooth and his representation of the World Trade Center is executed to perfection, which is why I made this painting my favorite pick in the museum's exhibition. Miguel Tio says he paints "not through eyes that are merely temporal, but through eyes which serve a higher purpose: as the windows of the soul". Echevarria, Tio, and McKee together show in their works political issues that are a reality to us all. The three artists all seem to understand that humanity is capable of dangerous actions, such as destruction, war and revenge.

Sculpture Works by Colorado State University students

Some say sculpture lives all around us, in our surroundings from day to day lives. Even the most anatomical parts of us can be turned into beautiful artwork. Students enrolled in Colorado State University's sculpting class have turned to studying body parts and body form for these next group of sculpture works they've created. A foot, a hand, a person laying down, a human form dancing, and many more can all be found in sculpted pieces of cardboard here in the Visual Arts building hallway. Yup, it's pretty amazing what you can do with recycled cardboard. What most would consider pieces of trash, others can find masterpieces in the making. I also noticed a wide variety of color choices which was a decision each individual artist had to come to. As I walked through the bunch, I found myself not just thinking of what it is exactly I am looking at, but the form it took and the presence it possessed in the dark lonely hallway. Some pieces demanded from its passer-byers the attention it deserved, screaming for someone to take a second, if not a minute of their precious time to gander at the sculpture someone had worked so hard on. Sculpture takes not only great talent and skill, but great patience as well.

Defining and Discovering Personal Culture In the Context of a Mixed America

This exhibition consists of works created by Elizabeth Bartlett. She is a student at Colorado State University and this gallery contains her graduating thesis works. These are works she has made over the past several years from her beginning experiences with art up to her most recent works. The exhibition will be open October 5-9 and is located in the Mini Gallery in the Visual Arts building. I really appreciate the work and hard efforts she put forth in putting this gallery exhibition together. I was pleased to see such a wide variety of multiple media works such as sculpture, painted canvas, painted fiber, illustration, clothing, and even a functional hat piece was in the mix. The show won't be up long so please come visit.

unconventional vision: photographs from the Bauhaus, Moscow and Tashkent, 1919-1937

This exhibition is open from October 29- November 16 in the Hatton Gallery located in the visual arts building on the Colorado State University campus. The exhibition is free and open to the public. It features two photographic portfolios that illustrate the extraordinary modernist experimentation with photographic media that took place in the early 20th century.

Photography at the Bauhaus includes a selection of images made during the years 1919-1933 by twenty Bauhaus faculty members and students, illustrating the unconventional and experimental use of the medium characteristic of Bauhaus artistic practice. Photography at the Bauhaus was part of a broader, international phenomenon, often described as "New Vision", also seen in Holland, Czechoslovakia and Russia.

The work of Russian artist Georgi Zelma (1906-1984) comprises the second portfolio and includes twenty-nine images created between 1929 and 1937 that combine avant-garde formalist devices with politically conforming content. Zelma's signature titled modernist camera angle is seen in his views of the Soviet Union in Moscow and in images of his native Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
For more information about this exhibition call 970-491-7634
You can also check the website www.colostate.edu/depts/art/hg

Sights Unseen: Prints by Dean Russell Thompson

This exhibition of prints by CSU student Dean Thompson can be seen in the Colorado State University Mini Gallery located in the Visual Arts building October 22-26. Dean Thompson specializes in color woodcuts with a strong emphasis on structure, line, shape, composition, and color palette. His works scream industrialization and technologies that have shaped our modern day of life. Dean says " We live our lives surrounded by the infrastructure of our society. Despite this, most of us never see it, or perhaps more properly, never really look at it." One of his works titled "Winter Park, Eastbound" shows an image of an old train riding down the tracks. Strangely, he chose to show this print of a train in the color green. This really made me think about the artist's thoughts of color choice. Why green? Perhaps the involvement of money during the industrial revolution. Other titles of his works are "Seattle", "Charlotte", and "January", which are prints showing cityscapes, other ideas of industrialization. Dean focuses on creating large scale color woodcut prints because he feels that they best capture the essence of the environments he is trying to depict. His work is incredible and I feel he should pursue this idea and concept in further works. I believe this concept has endless possibilities and he has only scratched the surface.

Visua - Critical: Prints by Charles Mitchell

Charles Mitchell is an undergraduate fine art student here at CSU with a concentration in printmaking. This exhibit displays his work from this semester and will be open to all in the CSU Mini Gallery at the Visual Arts building October 15-19. A reception will be held here on Thursday October 18 at 5pm at which time you will have the opportunity to speak with the artist and ask questions you may have for him. His prints are available for purchase. Email the artist at sigma462@yahoo.com for prices. His works seem very mechanical as though he has much interest in engineering and machinery. They seem structurally unsound and a bit chaotic. He uses very little type and mostly imagery in his works. I enjoyed his variety in scale choices: large, medium, and small prints were all seen in the same room. Charles says "Meaning is a construction, arbitrarily derived from structure. Political, social, physiological, linguistic structures that deny free will. Our actions are the complex and mechanistic result of our experiences within these structures. My work began with the innate and irrational structures expressed in modern science and ancient belief systems. Determinism and fate. I am now more concerned with the external micro and macro power structures. The unacknowledged presence of manipulation, discipline, surveillance, and self-regulation that defines the socio-political simulation. A pervasive language structure, combined with a quest for knowledge underlies it all."

Fang Chen: Honor Laureate

This week I visited the art gallery in the Lincoln Center on Mulberry St. The artist featured here is graphic designer Fang Chen. Fang Chen is currently an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Arts at Pennsylvania State University. He was born in China and received degrees from the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts and Hubei Institute of Technology in Wuhan,China. Then he has been the recipient of numerous awards and has served as a juror at design competitions throughout the world. Chen's work is included in several permanent collections including the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, the Museum of Modern Art in Toyama and the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Mon. A profile writer as well as designer, Chen is author of several critical essays for design publications and exhibitions in China. Chen's award-winning series, "We Are One" is an innovative take on the poster that includes an extended series of linked images addressing nationalism, racism, and environmental sustainability. Chen is not a commercial designer, he sees himself as a philosopher and a teacher. He engages in graphic design and uses the poster medium as a "philosophical pursuit," a way to share his ideas with the world and teach his students.

Forming Light: Sculpture Installation by Sophia Dixon

Today I visited a sculpture installation by one of our very own CSU art students Sophia Dixon. This installation is up in the mini gallery in the visual arts building and can be seen October 1-5. There are 2 doors entering this gallery. Walk in one and you are immediately stuck and have nowhere to go , but enter in the other door and you can walk through this sort of maze of hanging fishing line that shimmers reflecting light being cast up from below. One student said "This makes me feel dizzy, I see a billion tiny lines and the blurry light reflecting on them like the gut of a luminescent, musically inclined jellyfish. Where does this insanely tidy spiderweb end? Why does it hurt my eyes?"-Mike. The reflections Mike is talking about here make me feel relaxed and almost put me in a dazed day dreaming state of mind. Now if the artist could just add soft sounding nature music to this piece I think it would make it all the better, but I was happy with it overall. Sophia Dixon, the artist, estimated the number of nails she used to be approximately 24,384, and the number of actual yards of fishing line used is 28,000 yards. Wow! she could have caught a lot of fish but I think she put it to better use.

Asian Masters of the Graphic Arts

This week I visited The Asian Masters of the Graphic Arts held at the Morgan Library. This is a selected showcase from past Colorado International Invitational poster Exhibitions. The posters will be shown September through December 2007 so there will be plenty of time to visit this one.This showcase features a chinese poster designer Fang Chen who flew out to CSU from Pennsylvania where he now teaches graphic design. I had a chance to speak with Fang and he told me "the most importang thing to think about when designing a poster is the message". Other artists you will find here are Han Jiaying, Shen Hao-Peng, Wang Zhi Min, Fang Xiao-Chin, and Wang Yuefei. Most of the posters you find will have messages about social issues, but there is one promotional poster designed by Fang Chen that stood out of the crowd for me. It is titled meditation and was designed by Fang to promote a meditation class. This my favorite pick of the bunch.

Fang Chen says "As an artist and educator, I am proud of having chosen poster design as my career because it represents one of the most difficult challenges and requirements for creativity"
"A good designer maximizes both communication and aesthetics in a limited circumstance when he or she designs a poster"
"For years I was thinking of creating a poster to demonstrate a lofty oriental aesthetic realm of solemn and quiet".
You may view posters and learn more on the Asian masters of the graphic arts at http://lib.colostate.edu/CIIPE2007

Prints by Sarah Melendez

Greetings art fans,
I have just visited an exhibit of prints created by Sarah Melendez showing in the Mini Gallery on the CSU campus in the visual arts building. It will only be up September 17th through September 21st so I suggest you move fast. My first impression of her works was that she has a great understanding of color and line work. On the negative side of things I have to say I was not impressed with framing and mounting of her pieces. Sure the framing was clean but I was bored because every piece was framed the same way with a sheet of glass over white mattboard. She needs more variety to keep my attention and to give a bit of a surprise element to the viewers walking through. I would also have liked to see more variety in the scale of the prints. My top favorites in this exhibit were "From Nothingness" because of its use of warm and cool colors, negative and positive shapes, and continuos flowing movement and "Being Dormant" because of its great linear marks over a fading background. A cupple of prints I disliked were "Pig on Paros" and "Cow on Paros" because they were both very dark and I found it hard to understand the line work. Thanks for checking in with me Fort Collins and have an art filled week.

CSU Student Exhibition/15th CIIPE

Hello all,
I have just visited the CSU Student Exhibition located in the Visual Arts building on campus. This exhibition is a collection of posters covering a wide range of world issues. Problems such as terrorism, global warming, darfur, and animal rights are addressed through image and type on these posters. I felt that I walked away from this exhibition having gained a sense of education and global awareness for these topics after studying each poster carefully. These posters will leave you with a new outlook and perspective on life having realized the growing problems humanity faces every day. I did enjoy the variety of pieces I found and the differences in color choice, type choice, and sense of imagery. I strongly urge people to stop in and take a close look at this poster exhibition because I think there is much to learn about global problems in our world today.