In this exhibition, artist and Monmouth University Art and Design faculty member, Tonya D. Lee presents a collection of multi-discipline work that explores the abstraction of nature and environment through the combination shapes, patterns, moments and pauses that are derived from passive spaces, fleeting thoughts and changing winds. Location and process are in a conversation about ephemeral moments of beauty. Using a multi-disciplinary process of combining painting, drawing, collage, construction, and digital media, the obsessions with materiality explore form and color as an echo of the present overlapping past presents — form and color negotiating to exist as object and subject.
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Maunderings by Tonya D. Lee
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Oceanids by Joseph Coscia Jr.
Oceanids are some 3000 nymphs in Greek mythology who watch over fresh water: rain, clouds, lakes, springs and rivers, as well as pastures, breezes and flowers. They are the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. Coscia, the Chief Photographer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has spent countless hours with classical sculptures, photographing them in various settings and seasons. He focuses on the qualities of light on sculpture in changing conditions, and the shifting effects of natural light on stone surfaces. His photographs of museum pieces explore elements of the art outside the context of the museum setting.
His recent work draws on Man Ray’s solarization techniques. This effect reverses the shadow areas and transforms the sense of weight and volume of the objects, so that they appear suspended in air or water. The forms are evocative of earthly creatures or fossils; photographing and printing them using recreated old photographic techniques removes time specificity, so that they also are suspended in time.
Coscia, Jr. received his MFA from Hunter College in 1989 and his BFA from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania in 1982. His photographs have appeared in numerous publications and museum books, most notably Light on Stone, a photographic essay published by Yale Press in 2004.
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First Senior Show: Fine Art & Animation
Featuring the work of Monmouth University graduating seniors who will receive their degrees in Fine Art and Animation.
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Second Senior Show: Graphic Design
Featuring the work of Monmouth University graduating seniors who will receive their degrees in Graphic Design.
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Annual Student Exhibition
Featuring the select works by Monmouth University students in Photography, Graphic Design, Animation and Studio Art.
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FILM SCREENING & FACULTY LED DISCUSSION: REBIRTH OF A NATION BY PAUL D. MILLER AKA DJ SPOOKY
To create his film Rebirth of a Nation, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, remixed D.W. Griffith’s 1915 epic film The Birth of a Nation. His re-telling of this overtly racist story depicted in the Reconstruction-era United States hurtles Griffith’s images into the 21st century. The original film was based on a novel and theater play by Thomas Dixon entitled. By applying DJ technique to cinema, Miller’s new film parallels, deconstructs and remixes the original. He likes to think of it as “film as found object” in the same sense that artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol and David Hammons, among many others, have fostered creative investigations into the idea of found objects, cinema and “appropriation art.”
The event will feature a discussion led by Monmouth faculty from a variety of disciplines. Including: Johanna Foster (Sociology), Walter Greason (History), Mark Ludak (Photography) and Brook Nappi (Anthropology). The first half of the film will screen starting at 4:30 p.m. Faculty will lead a discussion in the middle of the event, and the second half of the film will follow until 6:45 p.m.
Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, is an established composer, multimedia artist, and author. He travels around the world performing solo, with chamber groups, and with orchestras, while giving talks at prominent universities, museums, and conferences. His DJ Mixer app has seen more than 12 million downloads and in 2012- 2013 he was the first artist-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. He is also the executive editor of ORIGIN Magazine. He’s produced and composed work for Yoko Ono, Thurston Moore, and scores of artists and award-winning films. Miller’s work as a media artist has appeared in the Whitney Biennial; The Venice Biennial for Architecture; the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany; Kunsthalle, Vienna; The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh; and many other museums and galleries. He has been featured everywhere from CNN to SyFy. His new book The Imaginary App, published by MIT Press, was released in 2014. National Geographic named Miller a National Geographic Emerging Explorer for 2014/2015.
NOTE: Miller will not be present for this event.
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Artist Talk with Chris Clavio
Chris Clavio is an Electronic Artist and Entrepreneur living and working in Santa Fe, NM. His work explores the sublime and perception using light, sound, and interactive environments. Currently he is the Director of IT and Electrical Infrastructure Systems for the artist collective Meow Wolf.
Clavio has shown work across the United States, most recently in Pittsburgh, PA, with Energy Flow, a project in collaboration with Andrea Polli that highlights the Rachel Carson bridge with wind-turbine powered LEDs. His current projects integrate several software platforms and various hardware configurations to create immersive and interactive environments that stimulate the senses in order to evoke the imagination and push the limits of our perceived reality.
More info: www.clavionline.com
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Artist Talk with Weili Shi
Weili Shi is an artist who designs through the media of digital technologies. He creates unconventional experiences with the aim of provoking people’s consciousness. In his most recent work, Shan Shui in the World, he transformed the information of the buildings in Manhattan, NY, into traditional Chinese shan shui (landscape) paintings by a custom algorithm. This project revisits the ideas implicit in Chinese literati paintings of shan shui: the relationship between urban life and people’s yearning for nature, and between social responsibility and spiritual purity. With generative technology, Shan Shui in the World has the ability to represent any place in the world—including the city where the audience is—in the form of a shan shui painting. Weili Shi is currently a developer at Bluecadet and teaches at Parsons School of Design.
More info: shi-weili.com
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Rare Wildlife Revealed: The James Fiorentino Traveling Art Exhibition
Artist James Fiorentino of Hunterdon County, NJ, has won national acclaim for his ability to create uncanny likenesses of people. The youngest artist ever inducted into the prestigious New York Society of Illustrators, James uses his self-taught watercolor expression to paint some of the most recognized faces in the world, from sports icons and presidents to Nobel Prize winners and CEOs. His award-winning art is showcased in museums, galleries, and private collections across the globe, and his story has been told on national television and in the pages of magazines and newspapers.
Fiorentino uses his trademark detail and realism in watercolor to paint New Jersey’s most endangered and vulnerable wildlife species. His evocative artwork inspires viewers through his life-like depictions of rare wildlife in their natural surroundings. His paintings truly bring wildlife to life on paper, and in doing so, his art helps to educate and engage viewers about the precipitous declines that many of these species have undergone.
“Though their painting styles differ, Fiorentino is adept, like Neiman
was, at drawing, which is of course the most fundamental skill required
to succeed as a figurative artist. Very few wildlife artists that I know
of can handle the human figure in convincing fashion. Fiorentino has
distinguished himself as a wildlife artist with skill and versatility
that positions him above the rest in this regard.”In keeping with his expanding body of work, James is a signature member of the Society of Animal Artists and Artists for Conservation in addition to the American and New Jersey Watercolor Societies and the Salmagundi Club. He also serves as a trustee for The Raptor Trust and D & R Greenway Land Trust, both in New Jersey.
Rare Wildlife Revealed: The James Fiorentino Traveling Art Exhibition is sponsored by Omni Distribution, LLC, Flying Fish Brewing Company, Merrill G. & Emita Hastings Foundation, Studio 7 Fine Art Gallery, and Somerset Patriots.
This exhibition is presented in partnership with Conserve Wildlife Foundation -
Jacob Landau and His Circle
An exhibition of paintings by the late Jacob Landau and works by members of the artist’s circle who were strongly influenced by his vision including Myron Wasserman, Jack McGovern and Joanne Leone. The exhibition was curated by Leone who studied with Landau from 1985-2001. This event is part of the Jewish Cultural Studies Program.