TWO NEW GALLERY EXHIBITS TO BEGIN THE SPRING SEMESTER
Sam Kestenbaum
Wheaton Wire
rage/paper1134/news/2009/02/04/ArtsCulture/Two-New .Gallery.Exhibits.To.Begin.The.Spring.Semester-361 0939.shtml
Feb 4 2009
MA
On Sunday, Jan. 25, two art exhibits opened in the Beard and Weil
Galleries in the Watson Fine Arts’ building- "Recent Work," by Wheaton
Professors Tim Cunard and Patty Stone and "Exploring Modernism,"
a collection of work from the acclaimed American-Armenian Boston
artist Garabed Derhohannesian.
Professor Cunard’s most recent work is constructed out of concrete,
found steel, wax and iron. Many of these pieces grew out of a visit
to a nearby trash-heap. Cunard saw piles of abandoned "buckles,
catches, parachute rings, tool parts, and gun-sights"-and he was
inspired. Cunard incorporated some of these found industrial objects
into his own forms, creating sculptures which interestingly call to
mind delicate objects from the natural world: ferns, pods and flowers.
When working on these pieces Cunard set a number of rules
for himself: "enjoy the labor," limit his time working, do not
"over-intellectualize" the work, "trust his eye," and permit the work
to flow naturally.
Many Wheaton art students were in attendance on Sunday. Students who
typically interact with their professors only within the classroom
are now able to see another side to their teachers; they can see them
as artists.
"I see roads and rivers, but I also see other shapes, imaginary and
abstract," Kait Saaf ’09 reflected. Inspired by roadmaps, dreams,
memories, and GoogleEarth, Stone has crafted a body of mixed-media
paintings, a "meditation" on how we make sense of our "interconnected
world," Stone says. She has created her latest images which, in her
words, illuminate the "tension between real place… and the abstract
patterning of roads, cities and topography."
Garabed Derhohannesian (1908-1992) was one of Boston’s most acclaimed
artists. His "Exploring Modernism" is a collection of work spanning
60 years of his career from 1929 to 1989. Born in nearby Newton to
Armenian parents, Derhohannesian attended the Massachusetts School of
Art in Boston as an undergrad and taught at the Rhode Island School
of Design until 1973. His work is displayed in the Guggenheim Museum
in New York.
Though not as familiar to the student body, Derhohannesian’s "Exploring
Modernism" is a diverse body of work and well worth a visit. On Sunday
afternoon, students crowded around one of her paintings. "I’ve never
heard of Garabed before," Ross Culliton ’09 admitted. "But these are
really great."
"Exploring Modernism" and "Recent Work" are on display Jan. 25 to
Feb. 25 in Beard and Weil Galleries, Watson Fine Arts.