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Master’s of Fine Arts students debut paintings, sculpture and photography

By ANDY BERNER
Ackland Art Museum

CHAPEL HILL -- Paintings, photography, sculpture and more by master’s in fine arts students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will be displayed April 13 through May 18 at UNC’s Ackland Art Museum.

Part of the show, "New Currents in Contemporary Art: Master of Fine Arts 2003," will extend beyond the Ackland, with three outdoor art installations along the Bolin Creek Trail Greenway. One will be visible to drivers and pedestrians on Airport Road.

The artworks constitute the theses of students David Antle of Charlotte, Jim Cicatko of Seattle, Tracy Cilona of Clifton, N.J., Severn Eaton of Winston-Salem, val h h martinez of Casper, Wyo., Gary Pohl of Milwaukee, Jeremy Taylor of Virginia Beach, Va., Beth Sale of Ruston, La. and Paul Valadez of Stockton, Calif.

"This year’s exhibition will prove again that the MFA exhibition is one of the Ackland’s most interesting shows of the year," said art professor Jim Hirschfield, associate department chair for studio art and director of graduate studies. "These young artists are pushing the boundaries of art as they create remarkably challenging works and ideas. In a manner of speaking, the MFA exhibition is a show where the public has an opportunity to experience the future of art."

The exhibit will open with a reception from 3-5 p.m. April 13. The artists will discuss their work April 30 in a lunchtime talk beginning at 12:15 p.m. Both events will be free to the public at the museum. Admission to the exhibits also is free at the Ackland, open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. Sundays.

The students gave summaries recently of their artworks and the ideas behind them. Antle uses color photography as a way to understand bigotry and the fear of diversity. Through autobiographic images that celebrate diversity, he documents life "in a visual culture that is heterosexist, puritan and patriarchal," he said.  In figural paintings that treat the body as a "fleshly marionette," Cicatko creates images that he called "imperfect representations of an anti-human ideal."

Cilona approaches the themes of loss and grieving with a feminist critique, addressing the ideas of nostalgia, guilt and the woman’s role as mourner. Using photography and digital video, she uses her perspective as an artist and documentalist to give cautious hope for an uncertain future.

Eaton presents a series of conceptual artworks of figures and buildings. In one work, human forms, made on the wall in plaster, are shown in different positions of motion. Eaton’s series of miniature buildings portrays the 10 largest skyscrapers in the world.

"Occasionally I come across a common object or event that speaks powerfully and directly of the tragedy of human progress," Eaton said. "These striking metaphors have become the basis for the majority of my work."

martinez brings natural elements into the human-constructed space of the Ackland and human-made elements into the natural setting of the Bolin Creek Trail Greenway. He plans to create the three trail installations Wednesday (April 9) and display them through July. One will be visible from Airport Road where the trail starts, in the dip just south of the Chapel Hill Police Department. Others will be farther east, the last near the Elizabeth Street trail entrance.

The installations will be large sewn fabric sculptures of muslin or burlap that address the topic of human interaction with the landscape, and different points of view and perceptions of that topic, martinez said. For example, the one near Elizabeth Street will be a circle of five burlap panels suspended among trees -- off the ground, but low enough to duck inside and have one’s upper body enclosed. Fifty feet in diameter, the enclosure "is about obscuring your view of the landscape, and also about creating space," martinez said.

Sculptor Pohl uses kinetic systems to illustrate social concepts. His most recent work on the concept of liberty has felt the effects of Sept. 11. "I can evoke the topic (of liberty) and convey the notion that all is not well in regard to the status of liberty," he said.

Sale presents a cross section diagram of the human digestive system adapted to symbolize a mandala, intertwining the spiritual and the physical. She hopes the diagram can be understood as an entryway into a world open for exploration.

"Food and the digestive system are a metaphor for life and for human involvement with the physical world," she said.

Taylor uses illustrative, iconographic forms to convey and reflect on environmental abuse. "These works are not only a close observation of our distance from nature, but also a depiction of our ability to exploit and destroy it," he said. "Today we are living through a catastrophe of outdated technologies that continue to destroy this Earth."

Inspired by vintage Mexican movie posters and American newspaper advertisements, Valadez uses symbols of corporate sponsorship to explore and document the world as he sees it. "My work is a commentary on words, text and the power of language," he said.

The Ackland is on South Columbia Street near Franklin Street. For more information, call 919-966-5736 or 919-962-0837 (TTY), or visit the Web site at www.ackland.org.

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Photo url: To view an example of the artwork to be displayed, visit http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/visiting/pohl_metropolis040403.jpg

Ackland Art Museum Contact: Andy Berner, 919-843-3675
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 919-962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu