Marsha Gregory was my high school art teacher. Since I graduated I have learned that she has also taught as an adjunct in many of the local colleges, including St. Rose. Currently she is working as a full time teacher of advanced art, and is an artist. Although I was very close to her, I didn't see much of her work until I had completed high school. I found out recently that this was because her work is a little too 'racy' for high school standards.

On the home page of her website (marshagregory.com) you can see one of her most famous paintings. It is of her, holding hands with a man, both of them in their underwear. Also present is her dog.

The setting of the paintings is outside in a dark field. The mood is deep and dark and brooding, with one singular tree on the left side looking withered and dead. Both her and the man are undressed. The two characters conflict each other, and yet they are joined by their hands. She is more heavy-set, he is thin. She is white, he is black, and yet they are unified.

This brings up some social issues. I think it speaks in the contrast of the two models. It speaks of racial issues, issues with sexuality and gender and how we as a society perceives things. But, it also deals with humor. Both figures features are exhaggerated. The man is so tall and thin that he looks stretched, while she has made herself shorter and more vuluptuos. The end result is almost cartoonish. This takes those more serious issues that come to mind upon sight of the painting and makes them a little lighter. It's as if she saying 'ok, here are the problems, here are the issues, but let's just laugh about them."

You can see her full portfolio of work on her website (mentioned above). I suggest you check it out (it's super cool =]]]]).

Keith Carter, Poet of the Ordinary

Currently, in the Massry Center of St. Rose there is an exhibit up containing work by photographer, Keith Carter. On October 7th, there was an opening reception, after which Carter himself gave a lecture to the art students of St. Rose and anyone else who was interested. Keith Carter is an internationally known photographer and educator. He is inspired by many things, some of which he listed. These included things like stars, children and animals. Nearly every photograph framed in the Massry Gallery had at least one of these contained in them.

I found his Carter's work quite interesting. Every picture was in black and white, which was different. What I found most intriguing, though, was his process. At the sight of many pictures I found myself asking, "How did he get that?!" He used different photographic techniques like counterbalancing blur and sharpness to pull your eye to particular objects. There were images of birds taking off into flight, and children jumping, caught in mid air. Upon listening to his lecture I found out that he never used digital cameras. He used film, and a black room to achieve these images and that was it. What an eye to have. To see something occurring on the street and instantly recognize the opportunity, then snap the perfect shot and work with it in the black room until the product becomes your vision, what a process.

In his lecture, Carter told us that the Los Angelos Times proclaimed him "a poet of the ordinary". I think this is a perfectly fitting title for him. He takes pictures of average people, animals, and objects, and seems to glorify them ; give them depth and meaning. This definitely takes vision and talent. I would recommend seeing his work to anyone. It is currently hanging on the walls of the Massry center and will stay there until late January. I suggest you go.

Sol Lewitt at MassMoCA

This week I'm not writing about a specific painting but an artist's collective work. Recently deceased artist Sol Lewitt currently had an exhibit showing at Massachusettes Museum of Contemporary Art, or MassMoCA. It was a collection of work from the beginning of his career, all the way to the last pieces he made before he died.

First, Sol Lewitt is a very respectable artist. He worked with graphic designers and architects and it reflects in his work. He's very simplistic, most of his art is made up of lines and basic geometric shapes.

I, personally found it very boring. The work was without much concept and didn't require much interpretation or thought. Each piece was like an experiment, he did a lot of combining lines and layering different directions. One piece was a wall where he connected every point on the wall (like the corner of a door fram or window) to every other point on the wall. I did stuff like that in grade school when I was bored in class, just not on a wall.

There are exceptions, of course. The work he did towards the middle of his career was a little more interesting. He started experimenting with color and shape. The work I was assigned to interpret was a long, horizontal wall. The top half was painted a matte black and the bottom half was painted glossy black and the two were divided by a wavy line. It was very simple and very boring. What could I have interpretted in this? What concept was there to discover? I thought hard and forced it. It could be interpretted as dark, maybe depressed. The two halves could represent being torn over something. If that's what he was aiming for I guess I have to give him credit, but I think it's a stretch.

If you're interested you could find Lewitt's work at MassMoCa, or on the MassMoCA website. It is worth checking out, if you're artsy, you should at least know who he is, whether you enjoy it or not.

Students / Artists

Last Friday I attended the Foundations Exhibition located at the Picotte Gallery on State Street in Albany. The work there was created by last year's freshmen art students of St. Rose. Although most of the work did not compare to what I had seen the week before at the Alumni Exhibit, one artist did catch my eye.
Her name was Lindsay Farkas, and the subject was a charcoal drawing. In the drawing was one monsterous-looking woman holding the bodyless head of another. Besides the odd concept what caught my attention was the detail and depth of this piece. The contrast was great, the deep blacks receding into space, while in comparison the soft highlights pulled forward. The accuracy of perspective was greatly intelligent for such a young artist and the time spent was surprising. As a working artist myself I know the amount of time and effort it takes to create those rich blacks that made up most of the composition.
Another thing that made the picture so interesting was the forshortening. The woman's reached out in space holding the head of the other which seemed to be twice the size of her own. This created an impressive sense of space and gave the impression that the woman was pushing this sad-looking head toward you, the viewer, to behold.
Overall I would say the piece was advanced for the artist's age. I think that in the future, Farkas will be someone to look out for, taking her talents to more meaningful rather than technical experiments. As a sophmore this year you can probably find her in any of the drawing rooms, and you can find her work in any student shows.

Brian Cirmo and His Neato Paintings

Today in the Massry Building at the College of Saint Rose there was a closing reception for the alumni art exhibit, set up by Karene Faul . It contained work from many of the alumni students of Saint Rose including one Brain Cirmo. Cirmo is currently teaching at the college as a 2-D professor. The work he had in the exhibit was both creative and mentally challenging. One painting in particular interested me. It is a landscape, neatly placed fully in the foreground with nothing in the background but sky. In the grass, with what looks like lazer beams criss-crossing in front of them, are pillows, each curled or flopped in a different way. As your eye moves around the composition you see that the edges are blurred in what seems to be smoke giving the painting the mood of a battle ground. It is futuristic and yet realistic. It challenges the mind and encourages the viewer to find a meaning in what seems to be abstraction. The symbolism of the pillows lying in such a chaotic landscape makes one think that they might stand for fallen soldiers "resting in peace".
As far as artictic talent there is nothing to criticize about Cirmo. He lines are neat and precise; his concept is original. The color balance between the blues and the reds forces the viewer to notice the "lazers" immediately, and the cool blue of the pillows gives them a feeling of rest and relaxation.
Overall, I would definately say that Brian Cirmo is an artist to look out for. His work is interesting and intriguing. If your looking for a brainteaser in the art that you look at, seek him out.