By Maria Jaime
The Dedo-Maranville fine arts gallery located at Valdosta State University, held an exhibition giving their faculty and staff the opportunity to display their works. I had the chance to give the gallery a visit. Nestled in the tall pine trees of South Georgia, one wouldn’t think such talent could be in such a small town.
The gallery was well lit, of smaller size, and had a range of all Medias including ceramics, paintings, metals, sculpture, drawing, and more. I did not feel overwhelmed by the amount of work for it was arranged in a way that seemed to balance it out. Every third piece or so was a different medium. The colors were distributed evenly with the occasional black and white charcoal piece to add some variety. As the faculty and students buzzed around me, I got a sense of familiarity with each artwork, having their creator speak about it openly and casually.
This was definitely a way for each professor to show their line of work and show that they “still have it” per se. The range of work was incredible.
Richard Peterman displayed his large scale sculptures that leave the viewer asking many questions and sometimes wanting to spark a literal flame. Abigail Huess, teaches jewelry making and metals. Her works on display were beautiful copper trinket bowls and handmade jewelry. It gave me a whole new appreciation for fine detail and small scale work.
Kalina Winska and Craig Hawkins both showcased larger drawings, with incredible detail. Hawkins’s way of looking at religious beliefs and translating them into modern charcoal portraits was intriguing. Winska’s pieces were the show stoppers for myself. Atmospheric Gaze #5 is the title given to her piece that seemed to grab my attention most.
When at first glance, it seems as though a simple line drawing that could easily be looked over. But as the viewer allows their eye to flow through the well-articulated line forms, they are interrupted by clusters of thousands of simple repetitive shapes, forming space-like images.
The lower left frame of the relatively large white gesso paper, is for me, the beginning or ending point, potentially a point of emphasis. It seems to be the heaviest area on the paper. Above, evenly spaced lines guide you through the piece. The curvature of the repeated lines leads your eye upward and through many turns. Clusters of circles engross the center of the piece in hive like groups. The simple circles in which the clusters are formed truly create a galaxy like images turning translucent to opaque throughout, and fits the title of the piece.
A map like appearance could be used to describe the journey like arrows that encompass the clusters. Arrows going every which way, some with prominent ends and some without, somehow never seem to lead the viewer away from the piece. The lines could almost be an interpretation of trails of light or trials of motion of some sort, all ending up leading or guiding the eye back to some point of the galaxy like figure.
Red, blue, and green of water color, and colored pencil, are the only colors we experience other than the deep grey of the graphite. The layers of the graphite highlight the depth of the piece and make the space seem more convincing. The lines that are made of color seem to also serve as important emphasized parts of the whole, while also breaking up the piece to balance it out.
The Artist statement Winska provided for this show in particular, explains that she tends to mix inspirations of nature, with science and abstraction. Microscopic images are listed as a source of inspiration for her as well. Her diagnostic way of arranging her lines and simple shapes in a way to almost evoke the same sense of awe and wonder from real life atmospheric gaze, in my opinion is very well done and beautifully crafted. The discipline and repetition throughout this piece is done so in a way that is genuinely intentional and still intricate enough to seem as if the viewer is in outer space amongst the stars.
Other staff had works such as graphic design, interior design, and mixed media work throughout the gallery as well. Visiting this exhibition allowed me to see into each faculty member at Valdosta Sate’s line of work and skill set. Although I did not talk about each and every piece I observed in the gallery, I urge anyone curious to visit the gallery and get a feel for all the small town talent one wouldn’t quite imagine could be there.
Maria Jaime is a senior at Valdosta State University. She works within the realm of sculpture, ceramic, and painting. She is pursuing a bachelors degree of fine arts.