Willimantic —
Faculty exhibition opens at ECSU
The opening reception of the Visual Arts Faculty Exhibition on Sept. 4 drew a large crowd to view a very diverse body of work. “There is some very fine stuff here. It is amazing that a relatively small college has such a talented Visual Arts Department,” said Peter Polomski, a patron of the arts, about the Eastern Connecticut State University staff. The exhibit opened on Aug. 28 in the Akus Gallery, located on the lower level of Shafer Hall.
Click the thumbnails above to see the full size pictures.
The exhibit, entitled “Building Consensus ,” included paintings in various media, sculptures, digital and lithograph pieces. Subjects ranged from portraiture and landscapes to abstracts. Artwork spanned from the humorous – reflected in the work of June Bisantz, who uses venues normally connected with advertising – to serious – represented by Amna Arroyo’s “Ancestors of the Passage,” a reflection on the slave trade.
“The title is in reference to the middle passage,” Arroyo explained. “In this piece, their spirits are coming, resurrecting from the bottom of the sea. They are their own witness of their own experience , and they are coming to tell us.”
Freshmen Samantha Beattie and Danielle Cargene were doing assignments for classes, which entailed choosing art they enjoyed the most, explaining why, and also telling what they thought the artist was attempting to convey. “I like being able to look at the art and express how I feel about it,” Carlene said.
Students were able to see a piece by Claudia Widdiss, which was incomplete, and to get some understanding of process . Her work is a large, free-standing sculpture of welded, riveted and forged mild steel. “When completed, the patterns will be illuminated by a light contained in the sculpture,” said Widdiss.
Adjunct faculty was well-represented , with 14 artists exhibiting. Muriel Miller’s impressionist style paintings, with their vibrant colors, jumped out at the viewer. “I try to push beyond what I see, to what I feel in expressing a reaction to a place,” she said.
The Akus Gallery is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday , 1-7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 2-5 p.m. The faculty show will run through Oct. 9.
