The Valdosta National group exhibition at the Dedo Maranville Gallery in the Fine Arts building did a wonderful job showing the different styles of artists’ works with different mediums and styles used throughout each piece. Not only was I surprised by the variety and distinctions of artworks displayed on the walls of the gallery but there were even sculptures built in such a unique way, giving the viewer more than one way to look at the artists’ piece. The works Square Sun by Nathan Taves and The Garden by Bryce Speed caught my attention the most when looking through the exhibition. It brought up an issue I find amongst many artworks in exhibitions, how judges go about deciding which artwork gets awarded and if there is an appropriate judging criterion they follow in order to make their judgment. In this paper, I will address the issue of judgment, placement and which works I found to be successful and not so successful.
Mixed Bag and Mixed Feelings: My Take on Contemporary Art
The exhibition Mixed Bag: An Assortment of Contemporary Art at Valdosta State University was very surprising. After walking around the gallery a few times I analyzed what I saw, and at first what seemed like confusion later developed into disappointment. Although I viewed some pieces that piqued my interest, I was not entirely pleased with the show. Continue reading Mixed Bag and Mixed Feelings: My Take on Contemporary Art
Not A “Bag” Experience
By: Karley Hamm
Mixed Bag: An Assortment of Contemporary Craft contains works from Max Adrian (Columbus, Ohio), Emily Culver (Richmond, Virginia), Elyse-Krista Mishce (Appleton, Wisconsin), M. Paige Ward (Gatlinburg, Tennessee), and Xia Zhang (Tulsa, Oklahoma). Their exhibition and works are held in the Dedo Maranville Gallery at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia. It consists of multiple works that follow up on social issues, and is explored through many different mediums.
As soon as you walk into the gallery, you will find it to be pretty bare for the size of the room. Dedo Maranville Gallery is not infamous for its huge space, but it is no mere rinky-dinky sort of gallery, either. The works displayed in this exhibition are fairly small and do not fill much of the room. Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to the viewer. The colors of all of the different works share a similar contrast and palette. They have delicate touches of pastels in their works which gives off a sense of light and airy bliss on the white walls. Continue reading Not A “Bag” Experience
Mixed bag. Mixed Feelings
Mixed bag. Mixed Feelings.
By: Daniel Carter
“Mixed bag”, the current exhibition at the Dedo Maranville Gallery at VSU, is an interesting concept of having five contemporary artists showcase their pieces to the masses of the school as well as those outside of the university. The five artists in the showcase -Max Adrian, Xia Zhang, Emily Carver, Elyse-Krista Mische, and M. Paige Ward- bring their own unique styles to the table in this current exhibition. The Mixed Bag Exhibition is an interesting idea of contemporary artist coming together and providing an insight to their own ideals and morals that leaves someone questioning why each artist only had three pieces each. Continue reading Mixed bag. Mixed Feelings
Philosophical Art Show: Mixed Bag
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.
An Assortment of Contemporary Craft
Mixed Bag: An Assortment of Contemporary Craft displays five artists using interesting craft techniques to explore difficult subject ranging from universal human experiences to those of specific identity groups . The artwork in the gallery is spread across the wall and on simple white stands around the floor; there is plenty of space between pieces but the space still feels resolved and filled. Each of the five artists have more than one artwork to show though they are not always placed next to—or even near—each other; the exhibition is truly “mixed”. You may come across an artist’s statement and biographical information across the gallery from some of their work. These statements give background information on both the artists and the meanings behind their art; they are best read after you have experienced and considered the work on your own and have come to your own conclusions.
Mixed Bags
The “Mixed Bag” is a variety of contemporary art created by five different artist. The exhibition was set up in the Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery at Valdosta State University. The exhibition deal with a variety of social issues that are sometimes too hard to discuss. So each artist created artworks dealing with social and political topics that they feel strong about. The topics vary from sexuality, queerness, faith, race and death.
papier-mâché, panel, canvas, embroidery, tin foil, gold leaf, thread, acrylic
When I first walked into the gallery, I felt a sense of emptiness compared to previous shows. The walls were not over crowded with works. In fact it was maybe two or three works of art on each wall, the back wall in the gallery even had one piece hanging. Just based on the scene set up, I concluded in my mind that this show may be a very simple show, but yet the artworks convey strong messages that we often deal with throughout life.
Ideally, I made connections that most of the work had that post modernism feel. Looking at the pieces I felt as though they were made from your everyday household objects. One piece in particular that sat in the back of the gallery on the floor caught my intention. It was a block constructed with what I believed to be bath tiles. It had what I assumed were bath plugs, until I further looked and noticed the chains attached to the stoppers were actually necklaces. The piece was entitled “What I See”. It had a very monochromatic color scheme. To me the piece implied a story. What you see is what you see, nothing more, nothing less if that makes sense.
Majority of the pieces had a different variety of media. The pieces by artist Xia Zhang interested me the most. He used different mediums in his work such as porcelain, cotton, gold thread, wood, wire and glaze. When first looking at his pieces before really engaging them, I thought that I was looking at a series of different paintings. What I realized was that they were scenes from movies. There was a total of eight different pieces, each of them dealing with social subjects dealt with throughout the world. One of the pieces said “To Americans, all Chinese look alike for goodness’ sake”. I immediately interpreted that this particular piece of work focused on racism. Emphasizing how Americans view other that are of a different race. Zhang’s pieces varied from the subject of racism, sexuality, and feminism.
Another piece in particular that caught my attention was the setup of dolls, by Max Adrian entitled “The Buddy Community”. My initial reaction was why he dressed these dolls up in these different furs, and loud colors. The dolls were all connected at the neck with rope metal chains. I wondered what the purpose was. My initial take was that the artist was showing how much of an influence friends can have on one another. Signifying that we often let our friends influence us on a lot of decisions. Almost like having a chain wrapped around one another pulling them and making them do whatever we want, whether the decision is right or wrong. Continue reading Mixed Bags
Mixed Bag reunites at VSU
by Joseph Mays
As I entered the exhibit, titled “Mixed Bag: An Assortment of Contemporary Craft,” I quickly noticed the vast amount of open area. Each artwork had enough space to allow the viewer to walk around and look at it from multiple angles. Each artist whose work was displayed had spent time with each other during their residency at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee from June 2017 to May 2018. In fact, this bringing together of their work was like a reunion for them, seeing as though they all moved to separate states upon the end of their residency. I’m sure being in each other’s presence had some sort of influence on the art they made at the time, and here, we see a unifying theme of usually sensitive topics and themes. Continue reading Mixed Bag reunites at VSU
“Mixed” Feelings
By Maria Davis
Exhibition “Mixed Bag: An assortment of Contemporary Craft” is currently on display in the VSU Dedo Maranville gallery. “Mixed Bag” is an exhibition of works by five artists. Each artist brings their own perspective to the contemporary craft components of this exhibition. The artists are Max Adrian, Emily Culver, Elyse-Krista Mische, M. Paige Ward, and Xia Zhang. The artists express the vulnerability of social issues often difficult to discuss such as: faith, sexuality, queerness, race, and death. The aims of this exhibition is to showcase the perspectives of the five artists and the harmonies that unite them together.
Valdosta National Exhibition: A World of Mixed Media
By Brittany Hawkins
The Valdosta National Exhibition, located in Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery at Valdosta State University, is a show that presents the best in contemporary art in an annual national all-media competition. The show is open to anyone over the age of eighteen and with submissions from all over the United States. The exhibition is a juried show and three winners were chosen at the end of the opening night and at least hundred dollars was awarded. The judge and jury was Michael McFalls who is a Professor of Art at Columbus State University and a practicing artist. Continue reading Valdosta National Exhibition: A World of Mixed Media