News Release

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Ackland Art Museum presents work
by graduating master's degree students

CHAPEL HILL - Betty Boop perches on a bowl of Asian noodles, wearing a Chinese mask. Frying pans and flower pots flail in a full-fledged fight.
These and other creative images are the subjects of 26 works in "New Currents in Contemporary Art," on display through May 14 at the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. An opening reception will be held Sunday (April 23) from 2-5 p.m. at the museum.

Each spring, the Ackland hosts this exhibition of works by UNC students who are about to graduate with master's degrees in fine art. This year, four women artists are presenting their works, including wall murals, digital color photographs and work incorporating ancient Chinese cut-paper techniques.

The artists are Zeynep Cagla Alkan of Durham, who was born in Turkey; Wan Yu Wendy Chien of Vancouver, British Columbia, who was born in Taiwan; Natalie Larsen of Salt Lake City; and Lauren Rosenthal of Philadelphia.

"These artists stimulate discussions about how we look at photographs, process family memories, think of ourselves in a globalized world and locate ourselves in the natural world," said the Ackland's Christine Huber, exhibition curator. "Children and adults will enjoy discovering this exhibition."

Alkan, a graphic designer and photographer, approaches her photography as a filmmaker might: building sets, placing dramatic lighting and staging incidents. While she uses elements of cinema and painting, "the most important element of my pictures remains the unique nature of the still image …" she said. "A still image with no past and future can keep its audience in suspense forever, while moving images are required to offer resolutions."

The exhibition includes several prints from Alkan's "domestic fantastik" series. Placing women in domestic interiors, she questions assumptions about home space as a fulfilling haven of domestic bliss.

"In our homes we seek safety and isolation," she said. "Yet our homes often become the place where we confront our deepest fears."
In "The Chinese Monkey King Saving the City," Chien juxtaposes King Kong - clinging to Taipei 101, the world's tallest building - with the Chinese Monkey King, who runs over the city on his cloud.

"In my paper cut-outs, American pop cultural iconography collides with traditional Chinese folk art, resulting in work that reflects the new grammar of our increasingly globalized world," Chien said.

In another of her works, Betty Boop perches on a bowl of Asian noodles, wearing a Chinese mask. The figure, cut out of McDonald's hamburger wrapping paper, is "super-sized" on a resplendent silk scroll.

Larsen's 20-foot wall mural "Utah War" consists of more than 600 small drawings of people, including men dressed in suits, who are fighting with broomsticks, frying pans, flower pots and other domestic implements.

"My narratives center on the patriarchal family system and inherited religious culture of my youth - and, in practice, seek relevant responses to my experiences and memories," Larsen said.

Rosenthal, an artistic cartographer, re-interprets Geographic Information Systems (GIS) maps in her artwork. She identifies natural watershed boundaries and uses them to replace political state borders in her artist's book, "Political/Hydrological: A Watershed Remapping of the Continental United States," displayed in the exhibition.

"In the 'Haw River Drawing' series, I have eliminated all of the man-made structures by which we usually locate ourselves, leaving only the river network to contemplate," Rosenthal said. "What at first might seem disorienting leads to the possibility of re-orienting, of identifying with and within this natural system."

The Ackland is on South Columbia Street near Franklin Street. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. Sundays.

The museum is open until 9 p.m. on the second Friday of each month. Admission is free.

For more information, call (919) 843-1611 (recorded information), (919) 966-5736 (museum office), (919) 962-0837 (TTY) or visit the museum Web site, www.ackland.org. The "New Currents in Contemporary Art" Web site is www.ackland.org/art/exhibitions/mfa/2006. For information about museum programs, call (919) 843-3676.

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Photo URLs: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/ackland/2005%20Wan%20Yu%20Wendy%20Chien.jpg

http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/ackland/MFA%20exhition%202005%20Wan%20Yu%20Wendy%20Chien_large.jpg

http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/ackland/alkan_untitled1.jpg

http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/ackland/natalie_small.jpg

Ackland contact: Maria Bleier, (919) 843-3675, maria_bleier@unc.edu
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589