Art: Show me, Teach

Above: a piece from Wanda Ewing’s Black Catalogue series.

“Panoptic”
Through Dec. 12
Lied Gallery at Creighton University
2500 California Plaza
creighton.edu

There is nothing quite like a mentoring program to dispel that old adage, “those who can’t do, teach.” No matter the field of study or creativity, mentors and their interns enjoy a hands-on, often one-to-one relationship that exposes their strengths and weaknesses not only as instructors and learners but as creators themselves. It’s in this environment, out of the classroom and in a studio or lab that the teacher especially cannot hide behind “don’t do as I do, do as I say.”

The Kent Bellows Studio and Center for Visual Arts counts on this philosophy for its own mentoring program, which benefits local high schoolers. Mentors consist of area emerging and established artists who provide up to 20 hours a month of tutoring during various 16-week arts-related courses. At the end of each session the interns and their work is featured in an exhibit along with their mentors just like the one that takes place this Friday, Dec. 11, from 6-9 p.m. in the Bemis Underground.

As expected, past shows featuring such teen talent as Monica Moynihan, Hugo Zamorano and Antonio Garcia benefited from their collaboration with mentors Bill Hoover and Jeff King. As Hoover said at the Center’s inaugural exhibit, “I think it is good to show young people there are other options in life, options to live a creative life … there are great opportunities and avenues in Omaha.”

Hoover and 10 other fellow instructors are currently taking advantage of their own opportunity in “Panoptic,” a mentors-only exhibit on display through this Sunday, Dec. 12 at Creighton University’s Lied Gallery. “Panoptic,” curated by Weston Thomson, the Center’s new director of education, is a one-stop viewing chance to appreciate how Bellows’ interns are inspired and influenced by the work as well as the instruction of their mentors. The exhibit features the multiple viewpoints, genres, media and styles of Claudia Alvarez, Wanda Ewing, David Ian Griess, Rebecca Herskovitz, Matthew Jones, Natalie Linstrom, Joey Lynch, Caolan O’Loughlin, Katie Veys, Hoover and Thomson, all of whom hold various degrees of creative and educational experience of their own.

Regardless of background, this overall, very fine show clearly demonstrates that mentors teach as much by example as they do instruction. In general, an intern is instructed, encouraged and motivated by a mentor, mostly through freedom of expression, spontaneity, experimentation and creative thinking, values unique to an independent educational resource. All of which are evident in “Panoptic,” but what is also present are discipline, professionalism and context. A student, as well as a viewer, paying attention to the artists’ statements in the show’s brochure soon learns that art is not created in a vacuum. It is made within a wide perspective of cultural and historic influences, no matter how individual its expression.

For argument’s sake, allowing for differences as well as similarities, one could categorize the work in “Panoptic” according to POV as well as genre and style. Veys and Jones favor an abstract style yet, ironically, with an emotional, personal point of view. The figurative work of Alvarez and Herskovitz is also personal and emotional, but it has socio-political overtones as well. Hoover and Thomson also offer figurative pieces but their approach is more cultural and ethnically oriented. Ewing and Lynch too have cultural issues with their figurative art, but the tone is more satiric along socio-political lines. Conversely, the work of O’Loughlin, Linstrom and Griess, though decidedly different in genre and style, is more esoteric and conceptual, as it concerns itself with process as much as content.

This analysis doesn’t define or limit this exhibit; it merely provides a starting point for discussion much the same way curator Thomson has with the careful placement of work that allows for continuity rather than competition for attention. This permits the eye and imagination to connect, then readjust. For instance, the cultural figures of Ewing and Thomson are grouped together, but the technological iconography of the latter prepares us for Lynch’s minimalist assimilation of figure and symbol which, in turn, prepares us for the conceptual prints of Linstrom and the overtly abstract and textured art of Jones and Veys that follows.

Moving left to right through “Panoptic” you first encounter Ewing’s now familiar but no less effective images of culturally charged assertive Black Women from her Bougie mag cover and Black Catalogue series. Both reflect a concern for Black pride and identity along with gender and pop culture themes, but each has its own tone. The Bougie figures vamp and vogue, oblivious to their own satiric exposure despite such giveaway text messages such as “Relax, Relax, Relax your hair.” Black Catalogue is deliberately softer, a montage of cameos that appear to have stronger self-images even if created by a better wardrobe and no distinguishing facial features, and perhaps no character or personality as well.

Thomson’s bold, graphic and ethnic portraits are also integrated with their backgrounds, aesthetically and conceptually which such suggests that all races are consumed by technology and various social systems. Especially effective are “Electric Puzzles I & II” with their portraiture in a flat, colorful mosaic that includes the encroachment of text, wiring and machinery. Less effective are the stand-alone portraits minus the social subtext and background palette of institutional green, gray and black.

Lynch also integrates technology into his mixed media prints in a more detached POV in the minimalist “R.T.” featuring a drawn, pathetic figure in the foreground dominated by a background of insinuating skeletal, metal armature. This is a welcome deviation from his more familiar graphic and appropriated imagery. The social message is still abundant but less overt.

Linstrom has two startling, horizontal archival pigment prints, “Sacred Rock, Sailed Stone” and “Goodness, Gracious,” that “parody both ancient and current societies.” But if this is social commentary, it is blunted by the ethereal beauty of her imagery and extraordinary lighting. “Sacred Rock” is an intricate weaving of filigree, fabric, hearts and pearls of wisdom greater than the sum of its parts. The message underwhelms, but seldom will you see such delicate shades of grey, white, pink and cream put to such effect aesthetically.
Jones and Veys, as mentioned, work in the abstract with a personal motive, but the former is more effective at combining style and point of view. Jones’ indirect approach to involving the viewer beneath the surface of polychrome plaster and cracked linen laminate that resemble marble and sandstone, works quite well. This is especially true of his horizontal pieces that look less like floors and walls of corporate lobbies and more like finished, organic work. Their asymmetrical composition is interesting not only for its energy but for its “empty” spaces between the tumbling figures of stone. In contrast, Veys’ mixed media designs appear too fixed and formal to allow for the “journaling” she seeks with the viewer.   

Hoover offers more of his primitive folk art with its Cubist and Latino influence and content, three in all, but the most impressive piece is his variation on the iconic “Last Supper” scenario. Much of his engaging work has an edgy religious theme and this is no exception. Yet, Hoover couches cultural, spiritual themes within a contemporary context. Whether intended or not, Christ and his disciples sport halos that resemble space helmets and facial features etched with ancient hieroglyphics and digitized symbols contributing to the timeless effect.

Perhaps the single most impressive work here is one of Alvarez’s signature studies of children simultaneously at risk and at play. It is a disturbing image of kids and guns further nuanced by the expressive detail given to each face. Ironically Alvarez’s babes in and with arms, old before their time, are mirror images of adult behavior patterns, her real concern. Herskovitz addresses at-risk youth and other social issues also, in three mixed media on paper and wood, but more conceptually and less emotionally than Alvarez. She focuses on objects and figures that are disconnected despite their close proximity, yet only “Finding Mariah” is overly ambitious with its arbitrary juxtaposition of a nude figure and symbols of nature and technology that lack balance and a clear point of view.

However, the most conceptual works in “Panoptic” are the USB flash drive of Griess that experiments with new media and information systems and the repetitive watercolors of O’Loughlin. The former is aptly titled “Sporadic Dissemination” and, conversely, the untitled latter is a studied variation of subtle changes in a landscape far from the field and point of view of a Keith Jacobshagen. Like other mentors in this significant exhibit, Griess and O’Loughlin show as well as teach their interns that one’s vision is not limited by or to any particular process or medium.