By: Andrew Pack
The “Mixed Bag” group exhibition at the Dedo Maranville Gallery, Valdosta State University, is a show of contemporary artworks over social-religious thoughts.. In this exhibition, there are five artist and their names are: Max Adrian, Emily Culver, Elyse-Krista Mische, M. Paige Ward, and Xia Zhang. The “Mixed Bag” is about social issues such as “sexuality, queerness, faith, race, and death”. The artworks are a form of vulnerability in the process of analyzing the social issues. The exhibition has much to offer in exploring who one is, and how these artworks affect people today in our confusing society.
Within the gallery is an open space with sculptures distributed among the open floor on pillars, or display tables of sorts. The rest of the art hangs on the walls as other kinds of display pieces, such as paintings, pictures or video. The artworks are grouped by the artist who produced the works. This grouping helps keep the atmosphere airy and open. The gallery has an open feel, as if to allow conversation to flow and be open, like the show and the issues the artists attempt to convey to the viewers. The open space also makes it easy to wander about and take time to look at the pieces without seeing others immediately. It allows the viewer to focus and study the pieces.
Within each section of the grouping, there are artist statements among the works that explain the artists’ viewpoints. The viewpoints are the subject matter that the artist is trying to convey to the viewers. Adrian tries to look into the LGBT community and looks to understand the struggles in understanding one’s self. Ward explores the ideas of faith and what that means to humans in daily life. Mische explores life and death, and how that affects people. The other artists look into topics as well such fears and misplacement, but these have a strong representation throughout the gallery, and cover the most ground in bringing the works together without isolating one from the other.
First, Max Adrian and his artwork titled, “The Buddy Community”, is a fun play on the LGBT community. The work displays anthropomorphic type cats. The cat-like pieces sit in groups facing each other in a form of conversation. The works are made from vinyl, cloth, hair, suede, and some metal chains. The pieces take the sensual type materials, to be a form of community. Each group has a clique that they belong to, kind of like society, and how there are so many types of ways of identifying. Going off of identity, is the manner of how people view themselves as male or female regardless of body parts, or other factors. But in all reality, it is honest in how we are divided. The piece conveys this very well. The colors also help, as there is this form of a rainbow effect. Not all the colors are used, but the artwork does use the idea of the rainbow flag that represents the LGBT community. This also helps build the idea in a way, by how the LGBT community uses a rainbow flag. The community has a feeling of isolation, even though there is community. But the groups are chained to each other, as if they are shut out from the others, while resting in the same boat.
“The Buddy Community”: Max Adrian, Vinyl, Cloth, Hair, Suede, Metal
Ward explores faith in her works, as most of her pieces relate to faith. She fabricates representational works, of a house on a firm foundation, which is called “How Firm A Foundation 1 and V”. These are two separate works, but are relative to the subject matter basically being the same. In the pieces the houses are made of wood with pins that keep the wood kept together. These representational houses are then mounted on top of a piece of cast concrete. The concrete is a firm foundation that holds the house up. The concrete is important, by relating to the Bible story, about where one should build their house. The firm foundation determines whether the house will sink. It is a matter of wisdom and how one cannot build there house on sand, or it will sink. But a house built on concrete will not be going anywhere anytime soon. It fits the context of faith and the Biblical story in how important the house is to be built on the firm grounds to avoid sinking. It is similar to faith and how one should have a firm foundation in their beliefs.
”How Firm a Foundation 2”: Paige Ward, Concrete, Wood, Pins
The last artist is Mishe who delves into the ideas of life and death. The best representation is “Tether”, which is a great representation of life and death. The piece balances a strong representation of life and death amidst the turmoil of life. The usage of the sun and the moon shows the exchange of life and death. The sun represents life and when the sun sets, that represents death. The chairs work compositionally, as they balance the asymmetric piece. The asymmetry being how the sun and moon are in different sections and provide a different weight, but still has a balance in the piece. The moon being under the chair provides an idea of being under, like ten feet under, representing death. The other having the sun rising shows life, and it is above its chair. This lets it seem like one is rising or growing to get through the day.
“Tether”: Elyse-Krista Mische, Paint (Acrylic), Paper Wood
Overall, the gallery is successful in conveying what the artist were trying to explain to the viewers. Some of the works are representational. But this allows the viewer to reach for an interpretation, amidst the social issues that are tackled. The pieces are very successful in the purpose that they were trying to represent in the gallery. The artworks are representational, but are right on the money in the representations of the subjects in society in how people interact with their faith and identity.
Andrew Pack is a Art Education Major in the Fine Arts Department of Valdosta State University. He was born in Savannah, Georgia and lives in Macon, Georgia. His artwork revolves around faith and struggle. Human strife is a major part of life, and having dealt with depression; he uses it as the fuel for his artwork. He draws from personal experiences such as sports that he played such as football and track, along with the enjoyment of the outdoors. The last inspiration is from faith.
