Five graduating studio art majors from the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Rochester will install successive exhibitions in the Gallery at the Art & Music Library on the University's River Campus beginning March 22 and continuing through May 13. The exhibits are free and open to the public.
"The extensive range of material and conceptual approaches represented in the students' senior thesis work is in keeping with the department's emphasis on interdisciplinary education," said Allen C. Topolski, associate professor of art. The senior shows will begin with the work of Summer Romasco from March 22 to 30, followed by Laura Burton, April 2 to 10; Russell Wyner, April 13 to 21; Keith MacLean, April 24 to May 1; and Adrianne Hulchanski from May 4 to 13.
Romasco's richly-patterned figurative paintings are both formally simple and emotionally complex. Her figures evoke partial familiarity and partial elusiveness, revealing the negotiability of the image.
In the second installation, Burton's work consists of large-scale, simplified portraits of celebrities portraying other celebrities. The audience may be overwhelmed with questions regarding identity as they negotiate a space dominated by icons of popular culture who may or may not be recognized in their different roles.
Wyner employs video and animation to express the complexities of a place between childhood and adulthood. He also has become deeply involved in television production, feeling that people discredit its potential as a form of high art because of ill-conceived distinctions between art and entertainment.
MacLean's exhibition documents sites in nature that he has altered with the presence of enlarged but mundane objects. The objects' scale and irrelevant function can displace the viewers and distort their sense of self.
For the final show, the acrylic paintings by Hulchanski make use of an array of stylistic approaches—from the photographic to the illustrative. Images of athletes and medical illustrations of debilitating injuries point to the necessity of risk as a component of success.
The hours for the Gallery at the Art & Music Library, located on the ground floor of Rush Rhees Library, are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 10 p.m. Sunday. Details about the receptions for each of the artists will be posted in the gallery.
For more information, contact (585) 275-4476.