The Wilson Art Gallery, located in the Noreen Reale Falcone Library, is currently hosting an exhibit of recent work from the visual arts faculty. The exhibit includes works by Katya Krenina, Barry Darling, Charles Wollowitz, David Moore and Zach Dunn. Some, including photographer Moore, took the opportunity to step outside their comfort zone.
“In the past, I’ve focused on the dark and symbolic,” Moore said. “These reflect a different side of me.”
Moore, who enjoys camping and hiking in the wilderness, took photographs of Adirondack mountains in winter, but he wanted the focus to be not on the mountains, but everything captured by his digital SLR camera.
“[ My idea was to] reduce subject matter to its essential forms,” he explained. “It’s not about the mountain, but the visual shapes created in winter.”
Krenina, typically knokwn for her book illustrations, decided to focus on more experimental (and personal) work. Her pieces in the exhibit consists of clothing altered to include other forms of media (e.g. photography).
“The most meaningful of these is ‘Mother’s Dress,’Krenina said. “it’s an actual dress that belonged to my mother. After she died, I wanted to resurrect her story.”
“I generally tell and illustrate other stories,” she continued, “but I wanted to tell my personal stories. Your own story is important.”
Krenina notes that she likes the creative process much more than the final product.
“It’s a way of expressing myself,” she said. “I find healing and transformation through the process, but once the piece is done, I let go. I’m not as interested in the end result.”
Darling, who contributed several paintings to the exhibit, agrees that there’s a certain joy in any sort of creative process.
“It removes you from day-to-day life,” Darling said. “It’s a nice place to reside, Everything else disappears and you’re in another state, working within the moment. The result is the aftermath, the by-product of the experience. The intrigue [of the creative process] is that it keeps you interested enough that you want to go back and do it again.”
Wollowitz, who contributed three new sculptures, believes that with art, one has the unique ability to take something simple and shape it to say whatever he or she wants.
“It can serve as information or entertainment,” Wollowitz said. “You can manipulate material and create something you love out of it. You can make [regular] material somehow beautiful.”
The exhibit will run through Friday, Oct. 5.
