Cross section of local talent on display at Center for the Arts

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

By Richard Anderson

I really enjoy the Art Association’s annual members exhibit. I enjoy seeing what long-time artists are up to, enjoy checking out new talent, enjoy the wide diversity of subject matter, media and styles.

The 2007 show opened on Friday in the Lobby Gallery at the Center for the Arts, and as usual, if I were the judge, I’d have a hard time choosing a Best of Show. A few favorites, however, include Samantha Eddy’s verdant oil pastel “Munger August,” J. Gonet Jones’s excellent watercolor “Star Valley Storm” and Ben Roth’s clever “Bikini,” a wall-mounted sculpture that appeared to be made from just six spoons.
Other stand-out paintings were Alison Brush’s energetic abstraction “Dragon Rising,” Huntley Baldwin’s exacting painting of “Trevi Fountain,” and Betsy Smisek’s simple, organic encaustic “Rouge.”

I’m not big on sculpture but I would find a place in my home for Amy Unfried’s bronze “Hawk Totem” or Dorothy Jankowsky’s stone and wire sculpture “The Crux.” Dick Collister’s “Legends” – three figures clad in traditional, ceremonial Southwest Indian garb – also caught and captured my imagination for some time.

Other fine pieces include Liz Park’s lithograph, “Daddy Will You Buy Me A Horse?,” Notola Michelle’s evocative wall sculpture “Torah,” Brian McGeogh’s black-and-white photo of the Westerner Motel, Aude Noelle Nevuis’s folksy “Farm Poppies” and Denise Daigh’s stained glass “Magnolias.”

And props to adventurous artists like Sam Dowd for his steel and ceramic “Athena Class Cargo Hauler,” Lawrence Bennett’s ongoing experiment in textured metal, and Nikiaya Adomaitis’s curious mixed media sculpture “Over Prescription.” Oh, and of course clay student Haily Patno’s “Pongo”; the card next to the spotted horse’s bust put a value of “priceless” on the piece. Yes.

The Art Association’s Members Show will remain on display through June 8.

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I like the Wyoming Arts Council’s Biennial Fellowship Exhibit for similar reasons. Works by six fellows – 2006 winners Zane Lancaster, Jon Madsen and Jim Laybourn, and 2007 winners Ashley Hope Carlisle, Ginnnie Madsen and Mark Ritchie – hang in the Center’s ArtSpace and Loft galleries. Again, the show offers great variety, some of the work beautiful, some very thoughtful, some a little disturbing.
By disturbing, I’m thinking of Lancaster’s grotesqueries – big ham-shaped bodies and thighs with stick-figure arms and calves that bring to mind nightmarish Russian art or Lucian Freud’s unflattering human figures.

More uplifting was Carlisle’s mixed media sculpture of a cloud of 55 or more oversized dandelion seeds caught in mid-puff. It hangs in the space above the gallery, casting wonderful shadows on the white walls.

Laybourne’s work was similarly inspired by nature, his color photos showing a red fox pouncing, a bull moose maddened by rut, and another impressive bull passing through a cottonwood gallery.

Mark Ritchie offered a couple smaller monotypes as well as some larger, multi-panel pieces that reminded me of Rauschenberg, though less opaque, more interested in the archetypal significance of the ladders and vessels depicted.

And finally there were the automotive-themed paintings of Ginnie and Jon Madsen. Ginnie’s paintings show scenes from a demo derby in bright, joyous, carnival colors, while Jon’s works turns the landscape into a road to explore, with dotted white and yellow lines leading the way across a jumble of Southwestern mesas. The Wyoming Arts Council’s Biennial Fellowship Exhibition remains on display through May 25.

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In other art news, 15-year-old Bob Cook of Cokeville won Best of Show in the 2007 Wyoming Federal Junior Duck Stamp Contest with his painting of a Steller’s eider. His entry, judged by a panel of artists and educators at the National Museum of Wildlife Art, will represent Wyoming as the annual contest continues this week at the national level in Washington, D.C.

The museum, meanwhile, will display the top 36 ribbon winners, chosen from a field of 546 entries from across the state and four age groups, through Aug. 26. Also on display will be the 23 Honorable Mention entries from Teton County artists.

Top local winners include first place awards to Shannon Matthews, 8; Madison Wilkerson, 9; Hailey Patno, 10: and Janell Hill, 11. Second place awards went to Syler Peralta-Ramos, 9, and Nicole Collins, 9.  And third ribbons were awarded to Jamie Vargas, 8; Sam Miller, 8; Walter Thulin, 9; Grace Balliro, 11; and Danielle Nicklas, 12.
Thomas Mitchell, a 9-year-old from Pinedale, received the 2007 Betty Nelson Artistic Promise Award.

The award was established seven years ago to recognize the artistic accomplishment of students in the K-3 age group and to honor the late Betty Nelson, a generous supporter of the Junior Duck Stamp program.

NMWA will offer reproductions of the top-winning art on note cards, available for purchase at the museum gift show. For more information about the program, the exhibit or the cards, call 732-5417.

Bob Cook, 15, won Best of Show in the 2007 Jr. Duck Stamp C .

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Cross section of local talent on display at Center for the Arts | Planet JH News Article: Arts Beat

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