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Manifest Creative Research Gallery: NUDE 4 | Darkfire and The Waiting Room - 17 Aug 2012 to 14 Sept 2012 Current Exhibition |
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Grace Benedict
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4th Annual NUDE An exhibit of works exploring the uncovered human form Main Gallery and Drawing Room Opening Friday, August 17, 6-9p.m. Exhibit continues: August 18 - September 14, 2012 Manifest exhibits many kinds of works, from more conceptual and experimental art to the traditional. In fact we think it's important to have such a range in our repertoire. It is something that Manifest is known for. In our Drawing Center educational programming we provide opportunities and instruction for professionals and students to study life-drawing. Although our studio is not limited to working just from the nude model, it is a core component in our curriculum, and our flagship studio offering since 2004. Our annual exhibition projects allow us the chance to track how artists around the world address a consistent theme, subject, or media over time, or allow us to document the state of art in a particular strata of professional activity, and to study and preserve our findings in a meaningful way through our exhibit catalogs and website. NUDE is one such project. The human body is a popular subject for many reasons, the most obvious being that it is us. Throughout history the representation of the human form has been charged with tremendous energy. Through all the permutations art has experienced across history, work of the body persists. We use the human nude to master skill, understand ourselves, and push social and psychological buttons for the sake of expression. We intend for Manifest's annual NUDE project to explore how the subject of the body is used today in art to achieve these goals and more. As is always the case, artists were invited to submit works in any media, of any style or genre, (abstract, conceptual, highly realistic, etc.), and of any size, for consideration in Manifest's highly popular exhibit. In this way our gallery program achieves symmetry with our academic studio pursuits, and makes the age-old practice of working with and from the nude accessible to the general public. It also reveals the many ways artists reflect on the human self - the raw, natural, vulnerable, yet powerful thing we really are... This year Manifest received 522 entries from 221 artists from 34 states and 15 countries. Our jury selected 20 works from the following seventeen artists from Georgia, Ilinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and the countries of Hungary and Scotland. IN THE GALLERY: This year NUDE takes a decidedly strong lean towards painting, compared with previous years which spread the spectrum of media more evenly. Fourteen of the twenty works on view are painting, with only two photographs (one from Budapest, Hungary), one video/animation work, and only one sculpture. The remaining two works are drawings, including a large work by Tamie Beldue who returns to the gallery nearly eight years after having a solo exhibit of her works in the Drawing Room at Manifest as part of the gallery's grand opening in January 2005. NUDE 4 has a quieter feel from past iterations, with more focus on technique and formal energy, and less on expressiveness about nudity. This gives the exhibit a mature, more confident character, and will surely provide visitors to the gallery with a fresh perspective on the contemporary nude.Featuring works by: Martin Arnold Oxford, Mississippi Ken Beach Chicago, Ilinois Donald Beal Provincetown, Massachusetts Tamie Beldue Black Mountain, North Carolina Grace Benedict Lafayette, Indiana Daniel Dömölky Budapest, Hungary Steven Hudson Champaign, Illinois Travis S. Little Indianapolis, Indiana Jeffrey Markowsky Savannah, Georgia Alan McGowan Edinburgh, Scotland Eric Penington West Lafayette, Indiana Michael Reedy Ann Arbor, Michigan Shane Snider Black Mountain, North Carolina David Stanger Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Sheldon Tapley Danville, Kentucky Erick von Hoffmann Arglye, New York Danny Warner Manhattan, Kansas Darkfire & The Waiting Room An exhibit of prints by Sean Caulfield with Collaborators Hart (poetry) and Colberg (book design) Parallel Space Gallery Opening Friday, August 17, 6-9p.m. Exhibit continues: August 18 - September 14, 2012 Manifest is very pleased to finish out its eighth season with this exhibit of works by Edmonton, Alberta artist and professor Sean Caulfield. Over twenty framed prints, both complete sets of Darkfire and The Waiting Room, will be on view in Manifest's Parallel Space, including portfolios with loose-leaf and handleable text pages containing poems intended to accompany each print. Caulfield's exhibit is the fifth solo show awarded out of 130 submitted for the 2011-2012 season. To initiate "Darkfire" and "The Waiting Room," Caulfield, Hart and Colberg used themes and poetic images taken from Dante's "Inferno" and "Purgatory" as a common start for each of their image/text pairings (eventually working towards responding to all three volumes of Dante's famous work). They share an ongoing interest in the "Divine Comedy," as well as with the long history of illustration associated with this work (Blake, Botticelli). These compelling images, often inspired by earlier classical and medieval myths, have a power that endures in contemporary society in the face of drastic cultural, social and environmental change. Although the work looks to the past for inspiration, its merging of mechanistic and organic languages is intended to point viewers towards a contemporary context in which advancements in technology are rapidly changing our relationship to the natural world, biology, and our own bodies. In a broad sense, then, these artist's books are intended to encourage individuals to engage in reflection and dialogue about the changing environments of our daily lives. Further, by investigating the formal and conceptual dynamic of relations between text and image, "Darkfire" and "The Waiting Room" are a celebration of poetic language and imagery for its own sake, as well as artifacts that pay homage to the artist's book as an important part of contemporary culture. Sean Caulfield is a Centennial Professor in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta, and has exhibited his prints, drawings and artist's books extensively throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and Japan. Recent exhibitions include: Perceptions of Promise, Glenbow Museum; Return to the Surface, Davidson Gallery, Seattle, WA, USA; Imagining Science, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta; among others. Caulfield has received numerous grants and awards for his work including: Triennial Prize at the 2nd Bangkok Triennial International Print and Drawing Exhibition, Bangkok, Thailand; SSHRC Fine Arts Creation Grant; Canada Council Travel Grant; and a Visual Arts Fellowship, Illinois Arts Council, Illinois, USA. His work is in various public and private collections including: Houghton Library, Harvard University, USA; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England; Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA, among others. |
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