Press Release Archive, 2004-2005

Wide-ranging Cornell faculty exhibit features photography to fiber art

Feb. 14, 2005

MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College art faculty will exhibit their work in a show Feb. 20 through March 20 in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery of McWethy Hall on campus. A reception is Sunday, March 6, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Regular hours for the gallery are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.

Featured artists are Susan Coleman, Doug Hanson, Janet Lauroesch, Tony Plaut and Maria Schutt of Mount Vernon and Sandra Dyas of Iowa City. Media choices include assemblage, ceramics, collage, drawing, fibers installation and photography.

Coleman’s drawings focus on a spiritual dimension found in nature. “Despite its long history in western art, I feel that the subject of landscape can serve as a fresh and relevant path for interpreting the human condition,” she says. “Landscape can make reference to a larger journey.”

Hanson’s ceramic forms are deeply grounded in the utilitarian pottery traditions of England and Japan. “…Those Western and Eastern influences come together in the earthiness of the soda fumed skin on bare clay exteriors, but with a smooth functional glaze covering the interior surfaces,” he says. “All these elements are put together to hopefully form a cohesive whole, but equally important in my work is the consideration of the function of each as it is to be used in our eating and drinking.”

Lauroesch’s series of photographic images reflect her recent travels in Australia and Hawaii. The collection is called “Still Life II: White Crosses and Leis.” She says, “Although burial grounds are conceived as final resting places for those memorialized there, by capturing the effects of gravity, weather, season, time, even neglect upon the tombs, the photographs maintain that change is still taking place and is very much a life force there.”

Plaut’s recent assemblages are primarily “found” materials with a mechanical aspect, which is activated by winding a spring-driven motor. “The inherent beauty of collage and assemblage work is that it takes items from the ‘ordinary world’ and allows them to retain their individual associations, yet at the same time creates a new set of unexpected and unpredictable associations,” he says.

Schutt’s recent work, titled “Widows of 9/11,” explores the themes of death and remembrance. Her colorful hand-cut paper veils bring to mind Mexican motifs surrounding the Day of the Dead.

Dyas presents a series of photographic collages, “All You Can Eat,” where the viewer encounters abundance for the visual plate. “My interest in photography lies in the people and the visual ambience of an environment,” she says. “After photographing the East Village, I created 13 rather large collages using my images, text and mixed media. I enjoy using multiple photographs in a piece. It reminds me of how films and videos are made.”