Art

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September 2018

New Directions: Art Department Faculty and Staff Exhibition

September 4 – 24, 2018
Gallery Talk and Opening Reception: Tuesday, September 4, 7 – 9PM

Welcome to the new Art Department at Allegheny College. Continuing faculty, Byron Rich, is joined by professors of Studio Art, Heather Brand and Ian Thomas, Professor of Art History and Gallery Director, Paula Burleigh, and our new Studio technician, Eric Charlton. Come to meet the team and learn about the exciting changes planned for the Art Department’s facilities and curricula.

October 2018

Elements by Elise Adibi and Andrew Shirley

On view October 1 – 21 2018 (closed Oct 6 – 9, fall break)
Opening Reception and Artist Talks: October 1, 7 – 9PM

The Bowman, Penelec, and Megahan Gallery at Allegheny College is pleased to present Elements, an exhibition featuring Elise Adibi and Andrew Shirley. Using materials like fire, charcoal, carbon, and plants, both artists incite elemental transformations that reveal connections between the body, art, and environment. Works by Adibi and Shirley suggest the ways in which viewers are linked to their surroundings through shared physical properties, and to the past through common rituals.

Alternately charred and infused with smoke, Shirley’s found object sculptures and works on paper bear traces of the communal rite of gathering around a fire. Moving between figuration and abstraction, his practice reflects the profound effect of place on identity. Made in a remote area of Northern Maine where his family has convened for generations, Shirley envisions his work as a conduit for communication with a still living history.

To create four never before exhibited large format paintings, Adibi began with the woven grid inherent to the canvas. Those lines grew into spirals and curves, evoking ocean waves or pathways of light and sound. Painting with organic essential oils, pigments, and human urine, Adibi explores the material affinities between bodies, plants, and paintings, and the possibility of dialogue among them. Adibi intensifies that dialogue with The Outermost Painting: the presence of life sustains life, a longterm site-specific installation featuring a copper oxidation painting in the gallery’s adjacent outdoor sculpture garden. On view through the harvest season and surrounded by plants likely to die during winter’s dormancy, the painting will respond to its environment in unpredictable ways. In conjunction with The Outermost Painting, Adibi invited Allegheny students and faculty to make their own oxidation compositions, also on display, which serve as a foundation for discussions within the community about cycles of life and decay that bind all living creatures.

Elise Adibi received an MFA from Columbia University, and she holds a BA in Philosophy from Swarthmore College and a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. Adibi has exhibited at The Frick Pittsburgh, The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, The Andy Warhol Museum, and at The Armory in New York, among other venues. She is currently based in New York, NY.

After graduating from Allegheny College in 2013, Andrew Shirley received an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. He has shown work throughout New England, and currently teaches at the Fay School in Southborough, Massachusetts.

Strategic Planning

October 30 – November 20, 2018
Opening Reception and Celebration: Tuesday, October 30, 7 – 9PM

In her new work, Chantal Zakari raises a warning flag about the terminology that has been widely adopted by academic administrations. The business term, “strategic plan,” originated in the military, and is now a staple of every university and liberal arts college. It functions as a promise for positive change and improvements to the bottom line. The designs of Zakari’s flags and pennants are a study of visual elements from various historical periods. The vernacular imagery points to hollowness of corporate language. At a time when an increasing number of small colleges are under financial stress due to a shrinking student population and soaring tuition costs, the flags in this exhibition remind us that the true ideals of higher education may be at risk.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Pennsylvania Council on Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

December 2018

Free Wine: Food + Art

December 4 – 12, 2018
Opening Reception and Celebration: Tuesday, December 4, 7 – 9PM De-Installation: Thursday and Friday, Dec. 13 & 14, 12:00 – 4:00PM

At the end of every fall semester, the art galleries of Allegheny College feature the work of graduating seniors as well as Art majors and minors from the Advanced Studio Projects seminar course. Participating students will talk about their works at the gallery reception.

Winter/Spring 2019

Challenging Borders: A GLCA Art Exchange

The exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of Challenging Borders is available for download here: Challenging Borders, a GLCA Art Exchange.

January 29 – March 15, 2019
Opening Reception: Tuesday, January 29, 7 – 9 PM

Artists teaching within the Great Lakes Colleges Association come together for the first ever GLCA Art Exchange, an exhibition juried by select Allegheny Art Department faculty, joined by Justin Kronewetter (Professor Emeritus, Ohio Wesleyan). The exhibition explores borders, which can be geographic, national, religious, generational, environmental,  political, cultural, economic, or gender-based. Whether expressed as physical barriers or mental constructs, borders delineate the structures of our lives. The artworks on view highlight the ways that borders perpetuate systems of power, while gesturing toward possibilities of dismantling the borders that divide us.

Challenging Borders includes work by Ron Abram, Kristina Bogdanov, Michael Dixon, Claudia Esslinger, Noah Fischer, Rodolfo Guzmán, Craig Hill, Lori Kella, Jim Krehbiel, Justin Kronewetter, Sarah Lindley with Amelia Katanski, Sandy de Lissovoy, Steve Nelson, Byron Rich, Keith Allyn Spencer, and Katherine Sullivan.

Select artists participating in Challenging Borders will join us in February and March for an exciting lineup of panel discussions in conversation with Allegheny faculty. All panels take place from 4:30 to 6:00 pm. Following the panels, the Art Gallery will be open from 6:00 to 6:30 PM for an informal reception and exhibition viewing.

Tuesday, February 19th: Border Crossings features artists Rodolfo Guzmán (Earlham College), Kristina Bogdanov (Ohio Wesleyan University), and Keith Spencer (Denison University), whose work explores the impact of border crossings—migration, immigration, asylum seeking, and diaspora—on various cultural groups and communities. Individual artists present their work followed by a panel discussion moderated by Professor Brian Miller (History and International Studies, Allegheny College). This event will be held in the Campus Center, rooms 301/302.

Tuesday, February 26th: Indigenous Geographies features Jim Krehbiel (Ohio Wesleyan University) and Sarah Lindley (Kalamazoo College), artists engaging with tensions between naturally occurring and politically motivated borders in relation to indigenous communities in the U.S. Individual artists present their work followed by a panel discussion moderated by Professor Benjamin K. Haywood (Environmental Science & Sustainability, Allegheny College). This event will be held in the Campus Center, rooms 301/302.

Monday, March 4th: Beyond Borders features artists Noah Fischer (Kenyon College) and Byron Rich (Allegheny College). Individual artists present their work followed by a panel discussion on the political radicality of speculative fiction strategies in the arts, moderated by Professor Jen Julian (English, Allegheny College). This event will be held in the Art Gallery.

Support for this exhibition and related programming was provided by the Great Lakes Colleges Association as part of its Global Crossroads Initiative, made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This exhibition is also supported in part by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Visiting Artist Lectures: Edinboro University MFA candidates

Wednesday March 6, 2019: 7 – 8 PM

Please join us for an evening of art and conversation, in which MFA candidates working in ceramics, metal, and painting present their work in advance of the annual thesis exhibitions at Edinboro University.

Annual Student Show

April 2 – 9, 2019
Opening Reception and Awards: Tuesday, April 2, 7 – 9 PM

Allegheny students submit artworks to be evaluated by this year’s guest juror Alex Young, a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and curator based in Pittsburgh, PA. Final jury selections will be on view in the gallery, with awards in several categories presented at the opening reception.

Advanced Studio Popup

April 16 – 17, 2019
Opening Reception: Tuesday, April 16, 7 – 9 PM

Senior Projects

April 23 – May 3, 2019
Opening Reception: Tuesday, April 23, 7 – 9 PM

Every Allegheny College student completes a Senior Project in their major field–a significant piece of original research or creative work. Studio Art and Art & Technology majors create bodies of artwork around a central idea, to be presented  in the galleries for the final exhibition of the spring semester. All participating students will give brief talks at the opening reception.