by Chelsea Selph
On January 10th, 2023 an exhibition titled “Art Spoken” was opened to the public at Valdosta State University’s Dedo Maranville Gallery. The exhibit, curated by Mark Errol, aims to highlight underrepresented voices. The juror chosen was Olivia Richardson from Northern Virginia. Richardson is mainly a printmaker who focuses on creating artwork that explores her identity as a person of color. That fits right in with the theme of Art Spoken, so Richardson was a good choice for the juror of this show.
In total, there were thirty-one pieces of artwork on display from nineteen different artists. The two, technically three, pieces that stood out were Antebellum 29, Antebellum 20, and Study of the Death of Nessus. All of these pieces demonstrated parts of the elements and principles of art well. In Antebellum specifically, there is movement, quite literally. The piece sits on a moving platform and spins, but aside from actual movement, your eye follows the shape of the vase, around the paper flowers and up to the metal plants sticking out. In Study of the Death of Nessus, there is an emphasis on Nessus, with him in the foreground of the piece, meant to catch your attention. You can see harmony with the figures in the background that balance the piece out.
Study for the Death of Nessus by Larry Sheffield is a piece that tells the story of the death of Nessus. Depicted in the piece, we see Nessus the centaur taking up most of the canvas, as it should for being the focus of the narrative. Nessus is shown with an arrow through his torso, posing so that you can see both the cloak around his body and the IV hanging from his staff. In short, Nessus was a centaur in Greek mythology who was slain by Hercules. Before he passed, he tricked Hercules’s wife, Deianeira, into giving him a cloak with the centaur’s blood on it. She believed the cloak would keep Hercules faithful, but in the end, the blood on the cloak was poisoned, leading to Hercules’s death.[1]
Antebellum 29 and 20 by Paul C. Blake features a set of glass vases covered in paper, decoupage style. It also has twines of metal that act as flowers hanging out of the vases. The vases are to represent, as the namesake of the pieces, the Antebellum South, a time period before the Civil War where one-third of white people or farmers in the South owned slaves.[2]In his artist statement, Blake talks about how the cotton on the vases represents the labor slaves did. The blood dripping from the cotton represents forced labor as well as the many lives that slaves lost.
Front to Back, Who am I? by Seongmin Yoo features three feminine figures made with ink, oil, and rice paper on canvas. Yoo discusses that her work is “how I identify myself with my own perceived body”[3]. There are more artworks by her in the gallery, using the same method of ink, oil, and rice paper that tell similar stories and meanings of the struggle of being an Asian woman. With objectification and societal norms on women, this piece fits into the gallery theme.
Art Spoken was based on the idea of having people of color’s voices lifted for everyone to hear. As a cisgender white woman, it does not feel right to critique what belongs and doesn’t in this exhibit if I am frank. But, if we are adhering to a theme or basis for this exhibition, then it didn’t hit its mark as fully as it could have. The number one issue is how vague the juror’s statement is for the exhibition. Richardson states that Art Spoken is “a show spotlighting the underrepresented voices and perspectives of artists”. But what exactly does that mean? Underrepresented voices can mean anything from people of color to those with disabilities, or anyone part of the LGBTQIA+, or simply anything else. For the most part, viewing these art pieces as an outsider, you can see in some of the art that it does represent the underrepresented. Antebellum is a perfect example as it is art about people of color made by a person of color. It starts to get hazy when we view other pieces, specifically the student portraits done by the Painting I students. This is not to criticize the art itself or the artist in any way, but I can’t help but wonder if they were meant to be in this exhibition or if they were entered just because the subject matter showcased people of color. Since I am unfamiliar with the student artists behind the pieces and do not recall seeing any artist statements for these pieces, it is hard to critique them as thoroughly as I would hope. In any case, I think the exhibition deserved to have a more blunt approach to the artist’s statement. It seemed Richardson put most of the punch in one of her last statements when she said “Please remember all the histories, art, and people lost to extreme violence in Palestine, Lebanon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo”. While some stand with this statement, having the rest of the statement be as vague as it was, makes one wonder why it was vague. Why not come right out and say something like “Pieces that represent people of color, artists with disabilities, or those with part of the LGBTQIA+”? Judging whether or not a piece fits in with the gallery is also difficult without knowing why the artist could be considered underrepresented but outright asking that is not appropriate.
The layout of the gallery felt fine, but Antebellum in particular felt too hidden. I do not like that corner of the Dedo Maranville Gallery as it feels restricted, and off-limits. The gallery could have also benefitted from more student artwork as a whole. Overall, while the exhibition is enjoyable, it could be aided with more student work rather than nonstudent work.