HUNT GALLERY

2011-01-31T10:44:00.000-08:00

CURRENT EXHIBITION:

IMPRESS(ed)

March 17 - April 16, 2011

PAST EXHIBITIONS:

Claudia DeMonte
January 21 – February 19, 2011

Early Works (video)

Aug. 27 - Sept. 17, 2010

David Schild, Being Content with Uncertainty

Sept. 24 - Oct. 23, 2010

Ann Mansolino

Thresholds

Nov. 5 - Dec. 4, 2010

2010-02-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

Bring Me A Lion:
An Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art

March 19 - April 16, 2010
Curated by Jeffrey Hughes and Dana Turkovic

Jaishri Abichandani

Dhruvi Acharya

Rina Banerjee

Chitra Ganesh

Tushar Joag

Jitish Kallat

Reena Saini Kallat

Bari Kumar

Yamini Nayar

Rakhi Peswani

The competing forces of tradition and modernity, indigence and diasporas, village economies and international capitalism are primary discourses in contemporary Indian culture. Bring me a Lion seeks to investigate some of these multiple dualities mirrored in the recent art of India. The emblem of the Republic of India is based on Ashoka’s Lion Capital (c. 250 BCE), presently in the Sarnath Museum. Placed atop a pillar to commemorate the Buddha’s first sermon, the capital displays four apposing majestic Asiatic Lions. The lions signify the great Emperor Ashoka and also Gautama, the lion of the Sakya clan - a combining of militarist might and the Buddha’s peaceful message of the Middle Way. Stories of both the grandeur and foibles of lions appear repeatedly in the Hitopadesha and other Sanskritic texts. The powerful Narasimha, the half-man/half-lion avatara of Vishnu, symbolizes the dual nature of times, places and the omnipresence of the sacred. The lion is therefore a fitting metaphor for the many sides of contemporary Indian art and culture. JH

We are indebted to the Arthur and Helen Baer Charitable Foundation for its major financial support for this exhibition. Our thanks also go to the Missouri Arts Council, and the Regional Arts Commission for their generous support.

2010-02-01T10:48:00.000-08:00

Re(SOUND)
February 5 - March 5, 2010
Curated by Dana Turkovic and Adam Watkins

Opening Reception: Friday, February 5, 6pm-8pm

Martin Atkins
Maria Blondeel
Keith Bueckendorf
Loren Chasse

Seth Cluett
Mark Early

Robert Goetz

Helena Gough

Joe Gilmore

Eric Hall
John Hardecke
Thomas Harris
Daniel Hockenson
Patrick Hunt

Emilie LeBel

Jay Lizo
Ed Osborn
Andrea Polli
Tony Renner

Steve Roden

Jodi Rose
Patrick Savage

Micah Silver
Nicolas Wiese
Thank You Earth For This World
-Bo Chung
-Chris Compton
-Dan Hayhurst
-Magdalena Jitrik
-Alexander Khodchenko
-Arthur Lager
-David Roberto
-Sterling Roswell
-Sky Sunlight Saxon
-Stanton Warren
-Adam Watkins

The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present Re(sound), an exhibition that explores the sonic medium by compiling a long list of current musings by sound artists from around the world. Re(sound) hopes to build physically on the concept of the periphery, using one sensory input, and providing an alternative metaphor for demonstrating that the idea of an art center has now become more like an invisible node, connected by infinite tentacles by digital networks, thereby displaying the borderless qualities of the sonic medium. As sound flows through space it has the ability to navigate geographically, placing and displacing, bouncing in all directions and always occupying more than one position. Over the past century, this art form has emerged by extracting from the worlds of visual art and music. Sound art’s foundation can be traced to the innovative work of Italian Futurism, Dadaism, and of composer and artist John Cage, as it gradually began to mature into a movement, artists further explored the interactive possibilities of sound and in turn created entirely new modes of experience and engagement. This cross-pollination has inspired some of the most important art being produced today, including work by Janet Cardiff, Rodney Graham and Christian Marclay, among many others. In his book Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art, author Brandon LaBelle beautifully illustrates the purpose of this complex medium: “Sound is intrinsically relational: it emanates, propagates, communicates, vibrates, and agitates; it leaves a body and enters others; it binds and unhinges, harmonizes and traumatizes; it sends the body moving, the mind dreaming, the air oscillating. It seemingly eludes definition, while having a profound effect.” In this exhibition, we hope to reveal these unique properties that sound imparts as an artistic medium, and its relational abilities as a creative practice. Because sound can be both borderless and site-specific and imply immediate involvement upon its reception, the physical construction of the exhibition is a reflection of its universal and relational qualities. Presenting the work as a weather vane of sorts, using St. Louis as the central axis, listening stations will be installed marking the North, South, East and West, a compilation of sound works spanning the globe from artists working locally and in Berlin to Los Angeles to Sydney to Toronto. Ultimately extending the notion of sound’s current location as multiple and expansive, the intention is to play on the structure and diverse nature of sound by setting up an environment where the “visitor” is asked to enter the space and simply listen.

2010-01-01T17:05:00.000-08:00

WORKS ON PAPER
DRAWN FROM THE COLLECTION
January 15 - 29, 2010

Opening Reception: Friday, January 15 6pm-8pm

The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition Works on Paper: Drawn from the Webster University Art Collection. Consisting of art works pulled from the collection, the exhibition focuses on the numerous works on paper, including drawings and prints by well-known artists. The collection has grown in recent years with very generous gifts from local collectors and artists. Even though the University displays a large portion of these works around its many campuses, there are still beautiful and interesting works in storage and this particular exhibition allows for these wonderful pieces to be viewed within a lightly themed context. Works on Paper will feature almost thirty drawings and prints by many of the artists who have made their mark during the course of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, from Susan Rothenberg, David Hockney, Red Grooms, Claes Oldenberg, Mary Cassat, Nicholas Africano, Philip Evergood, Salvador Dali, and Ford Beckman among others. This two-week exhibition hopes to focus on the many aspects of the practice of drawing, collage and printmaking, recognizing the fundamental stage that these mediums represent in an artist’s creative process. The core of this exhibition focuses on the human figure and includes a combination of fully realized works and preliminary studies related to painting, sculpture, and printmaking.

2009-11-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

Asma Kazmi
November 13 - December 18, 2009

The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by local artist Asma Kazmi. A performance artist and sculptor, she is not limited to any one media but maintains an approach of building an unrestrained community of objects, images, and bodies, all in a dialogue with each other. During a recent cultural research trip to New Delhi, India, Kazmi documented the inventions and contraptions that allow the handicapped and homeless people of city to walk, move or navigate for themselves. Kazmi was taken with the heroics, resourcefulness and creativity of these amazing people in their plight for self-reliance. Through a series of large photographs, each device is observed and photographed as a singular object, and set in the studio as if props for a family portrait, these inventions for mobility have a sentimental, yet isolated sculptural presence. Through separation from its owner/creator, the photographs provide the viewer a close examination and to imagine their utility. In addition, Kazmi continues her theme about the questions of one’s condition and “how they surface through exposure to perceptual and situational irregularities.” This personal understanding is an outcome of a work that creates room for the association of ideas and for the possibility of alternative interpretations. In the video, Kazmi is in conversation with the owner’s of these strangely beautiful apparatus. One sees only the talking head of her collaborators as they tell their story through a very animated and emotional dialogue. This approach continues on the subject of communication and what she hopes: “has the ability to generate an esthetic of socially shared meaning through open-ended and complex interactions among people.”

This exhibition made possible by generous support of the MissouriArts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.

Kazmi received a B.F.A. from the Massachusetts College of Art and an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In May 2007, she received the At the Edge: Innovative Art in Chicago Award. She has performed and exhibited in St. Louis, Boston, New York, Chicago and Puerto Rico and will be included in a forthcoming exhibition in Brussels, Belgium. She has been a part of the Boston Underground Film Festival, Balagan Film and Video Series, Women in Film and Video/New England. Asma Kazmi was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan.

2009-10-09T10:08:00.000-07:00

Grant Miller
October 9 - November 6, 2009

Opening Reception: Friday, October 9, 6pm-8pm

The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Kansas City based artist Grant Miller. We live in a blitz of information and of overexposure: two-dimensions are replaced by three-dimensions, and absence appears larger than presence. For the past few years, Grant Miller’s aluminum and panel paintings have been engaged in a continuing dialogue with the structures and architecture of our advancing and increasingly transparent technological world. The dichotomy of Miller’s hard, slick-edged structures and his lush areas of liquid residue emphasize the battle between the organic and the artificial. Miller builds up layers through a combination of accumulation, which act as mimicry on the current theme of technology and information. In these new, large-scale paintings, Miller continues his complex abstract language. Applied to the panel is an infinite overlay and energetic fields of frames, armatures and architectural structures seen from multiple perspectives that provide varying entry points. The work specifically molds and shapes this architecture and uses it as the basis for invented constructions existing in the space between the abstract and the representational. Drips and large gestures of paint play a more prominent role in this new body of work, flattening space in some areas while on another plane create depth and confusion as the eye works through many linear obstacles. By employing a multiple-perspective technique, Miller restrains the viewer with a network of diagonal lines creating a pervasive energy that can be read as both virtual and actual spaces. The physical process of layering is used to echo the development of information and functions as a stage for visual saturation and the implication of excessiveness.

Watch the video of his lecture, click on the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/v/wU3v_7_xe4c&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

This exhibition made possible by generous support of the Missouri Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.

Grant Miller is a graduate of the Washington University, St. Louis, MO with MFA in Printmaking and Drawing (2003). He studied Printmaking at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO. In 2007 Miller’s work has been included in “More is More: Maximalist Tendencies in Painting” – group exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL and in New American Paintings, Book #71, 2007 Midwest Edition. He has been awarded residencies in Millay Colony of the Arts in Austerlitz, NY and Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, France.

syllabus:video series
Qian Li
October 9 - November 6, 2009

"The video titled Epilogue is the life story of two humanized dots discovering love and hardship within today's society. The piece intends to evoke personal memories that are emotionally tied to the viewer's own experiences. The visuals are strongly influenced by traditional Chinese painting. The rising and falling life of the dots is synchronized with the music, with the intent they empower one another." -Qian Li

Qian Li was born and raised in China, where she was educated at The Central Academy of Arts and Design (now the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University) in Bejing, China. She earned her MFA in 2003 at UMass Dartmouth. Her video work was recently shown at MOCA Cleveland, Boston Cyber Art Festival, 12th International Video Festival Videomedeja in Serbia; Transhift08 in Tennessee; SIGGRAPH; "Kinetic Image" in Virginia; International Video Festival in Indonesia; and Electronic Language International Festival's in Brazil.

2009-08-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

The Unobserved World
August 28, 2009
Screening: 6:32pm - 6:47pm
Reception: 6pm - 8pm

The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present, The Unobserved World, an exhibition where the gallery will function as a laboratory for an experiment that will ultimately bring together elements of documentation, performance, and video while pushing curatorial boundaries. The Unobserved World poses the age-old question to its potential audience: If a tree falls in a forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?

This philosophical riddle raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality. The skeptic might conclude that: “one can’t be certain of anything until it is perceived or that the tree doesn’t exist at all unless someone is looking at it.” This particular stance has inspired this project’s concept and symbolizes the ineffectiveness of perceived unheard opinions or thoughts or in this case, an unseen art exhibition. This idea also alludes to the writings of George Berkeley, whom in the 18th century developed the concept of subjective idealism, coining the phrase: “to be is to be perceived.” He continues with: "A truly unobserved event is one which realizes no effect on any other it therefore can have no legacy in the present or ongoing wider physical universe. It may then be recognized that the unobserved event was absolutely identical to an event which did not occur at all."

By way of limitation and documentation, The Unobserved World will either answer the commonsense answer as “yes, it did happen and there were a few people there to see it!” or prove the metaphysical answer as “no, because I didn’t go to the Hunt Gallery to witness the tree falling, so therefore it doesn’t exist!” This project also hopes to create a conceptual vibration by poking fun at the possibility of its unperceived existence; it is not the absence of “artwork,” the sound of a tree crashing to the ground or the taste of cold beer that should be considered, but rather the absence of awareness of objects and personal physical perception of these events.

Continuing on this theme, the Scottish philosopher David Hume introduced the idea of Causation and Inductive Inference, on this he wrote: “Causes and effects are discovered, not by reason but through experience, when we find that particular objects are constantly conjoined with one another…we realize that an (absolutely) inexperienced reasoner could be no reasoner at all.” With this in mind, the second part of The Unobserved World physically illustrates this idea. The film recorded during the course of the project will generate a new video using only the imagery from the viewers and their reaction to what they have witnessed, which is to specifically highlight the ephemeral nature of performance and event and the sound it makes through observation, participation and experience.

Video by Robert Goetz, Daniel McGrath and Sherman S. Sherman,
The Induction Problem/Tree Logic, 2009.

syllabus:video series

Alex Gene Morrison
August 28 - September 25, 2009

2009-03-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

Karin Hodgin Jones
March 27 - April 17, 2009

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present recent work by this year’s visiting artist Karin Hodgin Jones. Using a variety of media, such as motors, microcontrollers, wood, fabric, thread, solar panels and generators in her sculpture and installation work, Hodgin Jones focuses heavily on the feeble lines that connect the organic to the mechanical. Utilizing kinetics, she creates sprawling and odd installations, that both, tug, breathe and wave, all in an effort to mimic technology’s interference in our natural landscape and its altering relationship to the human body. Her interest lies in systems analysis, language translation and the role of machines in the human condition, the combination of these elements creates the context for meaning in her work. She states that: “the machine begins to stand in opposition to the body in competitive ways and casts a different light on its function.” Building on this idea, the philosopher, Martin Heidegger terms “standing reserve” as: “the relationship of the desires of humans to bring forth from the landscape energies to service the standardized grid of power.” As a point of reference for this new work, Hodgin Jones also believes as technology advances, the ways that we understand nature is inevitably altered. Interested especially in our continuation to form new and complex relationships with a variety of machines, this site-specific installation will utilize the luminosity of the gallery lighting system, to set her work in motion. Concerned with our disability to recognize the landscape for its contour, color, texture and vitality, her work intends to somehow distance the machine from the human body, but simultaneously make the elements that bind them more dependent and more visible.

Biography: Karin Hodgin Jones received her MFA from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign in 2008 and her BFA is from the University of Utah. She has exhibited throughout the U.S. and has received funding and support for a variety of projects. Exhibitions venues include: a solo exhibition at: Lightwell Gallery, Oklahoma University, Norman, OK; Group shows at: I Space Gallery, Chicago, IL; Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL; Mass Gallery in Austin, TX; New Visions Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT; Gittins Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT. IN 2005 her work was featured as one of the 9 collections in the Ninth Letter Art and Literary Journal.

2009-02-14T08:34:00.000-08:00

Fi Jae Lee
February 20 - March 20, 2009

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present recent work by South Korean based artist Fi Jae Lee. Since participating in the reality show Art Star Season Two last year, in which film crews chronicled the life of MFA students from the Art Institute of Chicago, Fi Jae Lee has moved back to her native Seoul to concentrate on new sculpture. Using several stories like the Garden of the Eden, The Wine-Lake and Meat Forest of the Yin Dynasty, The Great Whore of the Apocalypse, as a point of reference, Lee uses sculpture to give physical incarnation to what she describes as “the unbreakable and fundamental energy, which established and maintains the world–our selfish desires.” Her creative quest is to share her realization that people rarely attain this knowledge because of “the skin”, which wraps and hides their desire. Using soft materials, collage, performance and installation, Lee enters a strange realm that references both religion and mysticism. Through stuffed grotesque, surrealistic creatures perched on office furniture and pools of red wine as centerpiece to mad celebration, she actively invites the viewer inside her world of strange ritual and an embodiment of her personal belief systems. Seen in its entirety, the work also represents human desire, she asks viewers to “shed their skin” in order to not only witness the barbarous orgy, but to take an active role in realization and transformation. Her sculpture and performance will help move toward an understanding of the fundamental idea behind her work in which she feels that as human beings we cannot be absorbed in the true energy of the universe because of the obstacles of love and fear received from the body.

Biography: Fi Jae Lee received her MFA in 2007 and her BFA in 2005 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include: Le Massacre de Jesus Egoïste, Aix-en-Provence France, 2007; Skin & Out, Caladan Gallery, Beverley MA, 2006; My Shrine, Base Space, Chicago, IL, 2006; A Person Searching for Eyes, a Nose and a Mouth, Gallery Batang Gol, Seoul, Korea, 2007. Her recent group exhibitions include: Scope Miami Art Fair, Miami FL, 2007; M. F. A. Exhibition, Gallery 2 and Project Space, Chicago, IL, 2007; Gallery 2 and Project Space, Chicago, IL, 2007; International Assemblage Artists Exhibition, Berlin, Germany, 2006; Birth of World, Caladan Gallery, Beverley MA, 2006; Wrestling with the New Science, Around the Coyote, Chicago IL, 2005; B. F. A Exhibition, Gallery 2 and Project Space, Chicago, IL, 2007; Art Bash, Gallery 2 and Project Space, Chicago, IL, 2005.

This exhibition made possible by generous support of the Missouri
Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.

Fi Jae Lee Catalog

2008-12-27T12:56:00.000-08:00

Brigham Dimick
January 16 – February 13, 2009

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present recent work by artist Brigham Dimick. Based in Edwardsville, Illinois, Dimick’s new work combines personal and collective narratives about imminent and occurring danger, both real and imagined. In his works on paper, he invents a context surrounding his body, playing on ideas of effacement and chance. The use of charcoal in the work draws a parallel between his subject matter and the physical material used to create, providing a record of the body. Dimick is also concerned with the tensions between intellectual and emotional responses to forceful disruptions, and the varieties of visual systems we employ to both measure and portray natural forces. Shifts in scale relationships are utilized to engender metaphoric interpretations. In his paintings, he employs arterial systems such as highways and branches to suggest collective culture and embody personal allegory. The works are responses to a personal experience of anaphylactic shock and serve as a creative outlet in order to explain his brush with mortality. Both compositionally and conceptually, he approaches the organization of these “branches” as a point toward the effects of anaphylaxis within the vascular system. Ultimately, the form of a human body and/or remains acts as a memorial site in order to create empathy for catastrophic events experienced both personally and collectively.

Biography: Brigham Dimick earned his MFA in 1991 in Painting at the School of Fine Arts, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. In 1985 he earned his BFA in Painting from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Elkins Park, PA. His selected recent solo exhibitions include: Brigham Dimick: Mortal Bodies, Jacoby Art Center, Alton, IL, 2008; Brigham Dimick: Waxworks/Drawings, University Art Gallery, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN, 2007; Confluences Invitational Exhibition, Center for the Arts, Lungwha University, Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C., 2005; Brigham Dimick: Constructions/Entropies, Catich Gallery, Galvin Fine Arts Center, St. Ambrose University, Davenport, IA, 2005. His selected recent group exhibitions include: Plane/Text, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA, 2007; In Our Own Backyard, Lancaster Museum of Art, Mainline Art Center, Erie Art Museum, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art at Altoona, Sharadin Art Gallery, Kutztown University, 2004-05.

This exhibition made possible by generous support of the Missouri Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.

Brigham Dimick Brochure

2008-11-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

Eamon Colman
November 21 – December 19, 2008

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present recent work by Irish artist Eamon Colman.
Eamon Colman’s paintings explore the interdependency of nature and nurture in landscape painting. Using striking luminescent colors, each of which compiles landscapes of organic forms and delicate painterly strokes, Colman speaks in a personalized visual language. Each painting tells of a specific physical journey or exploration of both familiar and exotic landscapes—Africa, Ireland and the United States—yet each painting is ambiguous enough to allow the imagination to wander. As a devoted colorist, he also explores the painting’s “otherness” through defining a sense of place, both personally and historically through a layering of symbolic gestures. His work presents a flattening ‘topography’ of symbols, but also a multi-layered cartography of paint. The work then acts as a way of articulating his personal relationship to his chosen subject.

Biography: His selected solo exhibitions include: River Run Pass Tumble Down, Greenacres Gallery, Wexford, 2008; Vantage, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin, 2007; Breath of the River, Galeri Caernarfon Cyf, Wales, 2006; Between Bog and a Sagging Wall, Vangard Gallery, Cork, 2006; Knot of Souls, South Tipperary Arts Center, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary Salt River, St. David’s University, Lampeter, Wales, 2004; Africa 22 - 35 S, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin, 2004; Walking Vermont, Vermont Studio Centre USA, 2002; Rain on Water, Rubicon Gallery , Dublin, 2000. Selected group exhibitions: Colour Fields, Draiocht, Dublin, 2007; Nicholas Gallery, Belfast, 2007; Art Miami, Hillsboro Fine Art, USA, 2007; Eigse, Carlow, 2005; Boyle Arts Festival, 2005; Kilcock Art Gallery, 2005; Amber Arts Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2005; Eigse, Carlow, 2004; RHA Annual Exhibition, Dublin, 2004. He lives and works in Kilkenny, Ireland.

This exhibition made possible by generous support of the Missouri
Arts Council, the Regional Arts Commission and Culture Ireland.

Eamon Colman Catalog

2008-09-14T13:35:00.000-07:00

Jason Hackenwerth
September 26 - October 31, 2008

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present recent work by New York – based artist Jason Hackenwerth. Hackenwerth rigorously constructs complex balloon creations, which a spirit of wonder and oddity. Inspired by the forms of sea creatures, fossils, and giant prehistoric creatures, Hackenwerth’s forms evoke universal themes of life, birth and death. To build his monumental biomorphic sculpture, Hackenwerth knots and shapes hundreds of brightly colored inflated balloons into magical and ephemeral configurations and forms of lively cobbled creatures. The kinetic installations are made up of organic, latex neon forms, reminiscent of anemones and urchins. In addition, his large-scale photographs are meant to capture the sculptures in their most vibrant condition. They are set in what could be post-apocalyptic landscapes while simultaneously functioning as costumes they capture a moment of the performance. As wearable sculpture, he temporarily inserts a soul into his creations, the works are at-once full of life and breath. As predictable each tendril loses both the trapped air and their sense of vibrancy, the work visibly wilts over the course of the exhibition, their ephemeral nature reflects our own lives,. They employ an eerie cinematic quality, portraying animated attack scenes, all acting as a philosophical inquiry into the nature of mortality.

Jason Hackenwerth Brochure

2008-07-22T14:01:00.000-07:00

For Educational Use Only...
(Film and video from the art department library)
August 29 – September 19, 2008

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present For Educational Use Only. The gallery will host an interactive learning environment to view the film and video works by well-known modern and contemporary artists collected to date by Webster University’s Art Department library. The works will be displayed as part of an exploratory teaching method for the taught Art Forum class as part of the art department’s curriculum and are adapted to create a new, temporary learning environment. As a direct response to traditional higher education teaching methods, For Educational Use Only will provide a learning and resource center for the collected works along with related books, videos, websites and other media. Designed as an improvised classroom, the gallery will be utilized for these multimedia artworks in order to integrate and share these instructional resources and to provide a conceptual framework that allows flexibility in both teaching and learning. This multimedia project has been created as part of an organized learning activity and to provide a setting for research of modern and contemporary film and video through a series of weekly non-traditional instructional activities and viewing programs.

Materials are included under the fair use exemption of the U.S. Copyright Law and have been prepared according to the educational multimedia fair use guidelines and are restricted from further use.

2008-03-01T14:10:00.000-08:00

Exchange: Prints from Nagoya Japan
March 21 – April 18, 2008

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present Exhange: Prints from Nagoya Japan. This international exhibition brings together a group of artists exploring contemporary Japanese printmaking and denotes a unique blend of refined traditional methods, emerging techniques and new technology. The artists represented in this exhibition include work by internationally recognized artists: Terou Isomi and Seiichiro Miida, as well as prints by emerging artists. While grounded in a clear Japanese aesthetic, the work in this exhibition pushes the boundaries of printmaking using radical techniques, to create dynamic compositions and complex layers that also incorporate visual concepts that are crisply contemporary. The works in this exhibition also represent the foundation of an exchange between the Department of Art at Webster University and the Department of Art at Aichi University in Nagoya Japan.

2008-02-01T13:03:00.000-08:00

Odavde/Otuda (from here/from there)
An International Exhibition of Contemporary Bosnian Artists
February 8 – March 14, 2008

Alen Basic - Isak Berbic - Zlatko Cosic - Sejla Kameric
Margareta Kern - Damir Niksic - Nebojsa Seric Shoba

Curated by Jeffrey Hughes and Dana Turkovic

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present Odavde/Otuda (from here/from there): An International Exhibition of Contemporary Bosnian Artists. This exhibition will be an opportunity to engage the St. Louis public in a dialogue addressing the Bosnia-Herzegovina diaspora and will include works by seven contemporary artists born in Bosnia, including representatives of those who emigrated as a result of the Bosnian War (1992-1995). To date, about 50,000 Bosnians settled in the St. Louis area in the 1990s after the war in the former Yugoslavia and is thought to be the largest outside of Bosnia. The exhibition brings together work by artists who incorporate issues of individual and group identity, land and politics, the laws of art and war, tradition, belonging and place. An exhibition of this nature is particularly pertinent as a means to examine and emphasize the important contributions made to the broader fabric of St. Louis cultural life by the local Bosnian community. Odavde/Otuda will also aim to not only bridge a gap but open a door of consideration on an important new community in St. Louis of people rebuilding their lives in the aftermath of one of the twentieth century's most brutal conflicts. One way to better serve this community is to understand its culture and religion through the work of these international artists, as the events of the war are undoubtedly now part of the history of the city of St. Louis.

We are indebted to the Arthur and Helen Baer Charitable Foundation for its major financial support for this exhibition. Our thanks also go to the Whitaker Foundation, the Missouri Arts Council, and the Regional Arts Commission for their generous support.

Odavde/Otuda Catalog

2008-01-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

Enshroud
January 18 – February 1, 2008

Part 1: Cecille R. Hunt Gallery
Part 2: Snowflake/Citystock

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery and Snowflake/Citystock are pleased to present Enshroud, an exhibition organized by students in Webster University’s Introduction to Curatorial Studies course. This exhibition brings you a commentary on the current state of the university’s “private collection” of art, whereas by using two separate venues, the installations are to be viewed as a balanced diptych. As part of the practical element of the course, Enshroud was developed from a discussion about the continued relevance of Walter Benjamin’s writing from 1935: “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” resulting in a dialogue about this collection and a means in which to present it. Enshroud is named as such given much of the collection is in storage and is “hidden”, “covered” or “concealed” from public view. Using a violent subtext, the deconstructed installation of a selection of works from Webster’s collection in the Hunt Gallery, presents this concept both physically and metaphorically as a “crime scene” with direct reference to Benjamin’s writing on a new stage of photography. “The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuse for the cult value of the picture.” Alternatively, the installation at Snowflake/Citystock directly refers to Benjamin’s concerns about the withering away of the “aura” of an artwork: “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” By presenting the ambience of a “wake” and using photographic reproductions of chosen work from the collection with pieces by artist’s such as David Hockney, Tim Rollins and Georges Braque, among others, Enshroud is pointing directly to the absence of the work while simultaneously comparing it to the loss of a human “soul” and what was a “unique existence”.

This exhibition has been organized as a practical element of the Introduction to Curatorial Studies course at Webster University in which students were encouraged to explore alternative processes and approaches to curating as an artistic, social and critical activity and as part of group collaboration.

2007-11-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

Mary Lamboley
November 16 – December 21, 2007

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present recent work by this year’s artist in residence Mary Lamboley. Using paper in a physical way, Lamboley’s paintings, drawings and sculptures play with the transference of images intended as a thematic overlapping, and an insight into how abstraction happens. With particular emphasis on the materiality of the medium, her work attempts to trace this process and to become a catalyst for new experiences, pinpointing a personal understanding and inquiry into the laws that govern, how things are supposed to be organized, and looking into history and its importance in everyday occurrences. In the work, Lamboley possesses the power of suggestion, pairing ideas such as politics and religion; a statement on the separation of church and state is accomplished by combining text from the Bill of Rights with a stylistic layer of reference to an illuminated manuscript. This method allows Lamboley to create an uncertainty of and between two disparate movements, Lamboley comments: “it is the idea we hold in front of the world that is, I believe, where the binary oppositions, contradiction, confusion and conflict arises.” She is also driven by the belief in the power of art as an expression and reflection of life, viewing art as “a way of being, a science, a practice for self-transformation and social change, and a life choice” and using the role of art as an implement and a motive for constant discovery. These elements have become the principal foundation for her creative process by consistently questioning the limits to allow for a possibility of aligning with what she calls “a more sustainable underlying order.”

In 2004, Mary Lamboley received her MFA from John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, Californina. In 1997 she earned her BFA from the University of Kansas – Lawrence, KS. Her recent exhibitions include: Paintings and Drawings, Haley Martin Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2004; Overlapping Territories, & Ampersand International Arts, San Francisco, California, 2001. Her selected group exhibitions include: Art Fiera of Bologna, Galleria Contemporanea of Pescara, Encyclopedia Pedagogica, 2007; Il Male e Il Male (Double Negative), Galleria Contemporanea, Pescara, Italy, 2006; INSIGHT, Claremont Graduate University Art Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 2005; Engage, Haley Martin Gallery & Ampersand International Arts, San Francisco, California, 2004; In Parentheses (from habit to habitat), MFA Thesis Show, JFKU Arts Annex, Berkeley, California, 2004; Scapes: A Binocular Experience, Berliner Kunst Projekt, Berlin, Germany, 2004; nuit blanche: lost in translation, & Ampersand International Arts, sister space Paris, France, 2004; non solo cartoline I, II e III, small art works gallery, Florence, Italy, 2002; EmergeNcY, group show for the Tides911 Association, New York City, NY, 2001.

2007-10-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

W. C. Richardson
October 12 – November 9, 2007

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.” -Albert Einstein

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present recent work by Washington D.C. based artist W.C. Richardson. An associate professor of painting and drawing in the Department of Art at the University of Maryland-College Park, Richardson’s recent work presents an intersection of layered systems, seeking an intricate unity established through the act of painting and inviting an active engagement with his volatile color and figure-ground relationships. His oil and alkyd canvases explore predetermined geometric structures that interact with free-drawn forms, and harmonious systems of paint are influenced by both science and politics. Intentionally subverting our need for a “cause and effect” relationship, Richardson pushes his formal schemes as he moves from what he describes as “a mechanistic order to an imaginative one” as the successive layers flip and reconfigure in a boundless space. Using inundated color palettes and growing patterns he shifts our perception, playing with asymmetry by covering and interlocking large and small-scale shapes, the viewer is left to decipher between inside and outside, foreground and background. Simultaneously concrete and permeable, the intersection of these passages create a visual puzzle highlighting the underlying structure, where, complexity and energy are defined and weakened by layers of opposing grounds. Richardson’s paintings investigate the non-hierarchical association between his systems, ultimately to discover that they appear to be both independent and symbiotic.

Richardson earned his MFA from Washington University, in 1977. His recent solo exhibitions include Set. Fusebox, Washington, DC. 2005; Paintings. Kiang Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2004; Transit. Art Gallery, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD. 2004; Baumgartner Gallery, New York, NY. 2000. His selected group exhibitions include: Art in Embassies Exhibition. United States Embassy, Amman, Jordan. Three year installation 2006; Order(ed). Gallery Siano, Philadelphia, PA. 2006; Engaging the Structural. Broadway Gallery, New York, NY. 2005; ArtScape: 20x20. Decker Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art. 2002; Summer Selection. Kiang Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2000; The Hirshhorn at Twenty-five: Celebrating Modern and Contemporary Art. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. 1999; Hyper Salon. Emerson Gallery, McLean Project for the Arts, McLean, VA. 1999; Chance and Necessity. Kennedy Museum of Art, Ohio University, Athens, OH. 1999; Material Forces. American Center for Physics, College Park, MD. 1998; Remote Sensing. Numark Gallery, Washington, DC. 1997. Richardson is in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

2007-09-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

Elaine Bradford

Recent Work

August 24 – September 21, 2007

Organized by Dana Turkovic

In Elaine Bradford's recent sculptural work she explores implications associated with the handmade. Her sculptures suggest an enthusiastic hobbyist, pairing carefully crafted sweaters, meticulously constructed of yarn, with taxidermied animal heads. The works are homey in their conception, and are both warm and blank, sad and amusing while displaying a labor-intensive craft that teeters on the edge of absurdity. Exploring how each could live in a domestic setting, she works to conceal and reveal these forms simultaneously by pairing peculiar moments with familiar surroundings. The combination of materials and her imagery blend masculine and feminine associations, highlighting the social commentary inherent in her production as they both come from a world of home craft, leisure activity and sport ultimately infusing these everyday objects with a surreal comfortability. The act of making sweaters brings to mind hours of labor, she is particularly interested in referencing something that is unwanted and unneeded, with concepts of comfort and warmth. Her work evokes traditionally feminine pursuits such as quilting, yet her imagery would most readily invoke unsettling masculinity. Using crochet, Bradford has also made sweaters for items including trees and vacuum cleaners. Utilizing familiar items and referencing the domestic, she introduces the viewer to an uncanny reality that is strange but equally morbid and pathetic but also brings them new life and altering the way we view these truncated forms.

Biography: Elaine Bradford received her Bachelor of Arts degree from The University of Texas - Austin in 2000. She received her MFA in 2003 from California Institute of the Arts. In 2006, Bradford had her first solo exhibition titled Outside In, Okay Mountain, Austin, TX. Her group exhibitions include BEAST, Finesilver Gallery, Houston, TX, 2006; BMG Artists' Annual, BLK/MRKT Gallery, Culver City, CA, 2006; Domestic Camouflage, Cirrus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.; 5x7, Arthouse, Austin, TX, 2005; Texas Biennial, Austin, TX;, 2005 Incognito, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, 2004; In the Nursery, Armory Northwest, Pasadena, CA, 2003.

2007-02-01T14:08:00.000-08:00

Paper Working

February 23 – March 24, 2007
Curated by Ann Krone

Cecille R. Hunt Gallery present’s Paper Working, an exhibition curated by Ann Krone. The participating artists are Shirley Sharoff, Gaelle Pelachaud, Alfredo Garzon and Anne Vorms.
Visitors to France, interested in contemporary art are often surprised and delighted when they see an exhibition of works by artists who do not figure in big museum shows or exchanges. They have the pleasure of discovering themes and ways of working that are different from those found in the United States. Despite the ease of international travel and the internationalization of certain art concepts, works of art are still influenced by cultural traditions and ways of seeing. Paper Working is a cultural visit to Paris where an American audience in the St. Louis area can have an opportunity to compare, contrast and enter a world they would have little access to unless they travel to France. In a world of virtuality, here are four artists of different origins, backgrounds and horizons; living and working in Paris and who share a common interest in work with paper as their artistic medium. Whether medium or surface, paper takes on a new life, whether in the form of a book, shaped and sculpted into paper maché, or cut and glued into a collage. Paper Working is paper doing “its own thing.”

Shirley Sharoff makes color prints and artist’s books on the themes and traces inspired by the writings of various 20th century authors using etching techniques, collage and letter press typography. Gaelle Pelachaud has been making artists' books for several years. Her process is one of dedicated research on the type of paper, the architecture of the book, and the type of print to be used. Currently, Pelachaud has started working with video enabling her to concentrate more particularly on images. Images from the videos are then incorporated into her books combining both traditional and contemporary techniques. Alfredo Garzon captures the intricacy of paper in its structure and texture as he explores the intimacy of paper that enables him to express himself in a novel way by creating completely new images. His works are show a particular interest in the way figures appear spontaneously when paper tears and the mystery of its unpredictable nature. Anne Vorms uses the technique of collage and paper maché, as her subject matter deals with serious games where military men become playing pieces in the game of war.

2007-01-02T14:36:00.000-08:00

The Northwest Corner:

Four Seattle Printmakers
January 19 – February 16, 2007
Curated by Tom Lang

Jean Behnke, Bruce Botts Karen Kosoglad and Deborah Mersky.

Printmaking provides a vehicle for personal commentary from humble observations to profound insights. The processes of making prints often lead artists to unexpected results. The mix of intention and discovery becomes a magical interface for the viewer. The printmakers in this Hunt gallery exhibition live in, on, and around the San Juan Islands. The works, although quite distinctive in appearance contain a common thread that asks us to see the self from a universal perspective. In these more than 20 works, raw animal representations act out slices of life dramas and patterns from nature present themselves as calligraphic and cryptic messages.

2006-11-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

Megan and Murray McMillan
Bruc Fugue

November 17 – December 15, 2006

Cecille R. Hunt Gallery present’s recent work by artist’s Megan and Murray McMillan. Bruc Fugue is an audio and video installation that plays on the idea of a fugue, which has two disparate meanings, both psychological and musical. A dissociative fugue is a rare condition in which a person suddenly, without planning or warning, travels far from home or work and leaves behind a past life. In music, a fugue is a contrapuntal form in which a subject theme (‘part’ or ‘voice’) is introduced and then extended and developed through some number of successive imitations.

Bruc Fugue invokes both meanings through a dreamlike video exploration of memory and childhood, seen through the lens of highly crafted cast-off trash collected on hikes through the mountainous Spanish village of El Bruc. The audio portion of the work is a composed vocal fugue, sung to the text of a poem written exclusively with the words of a found pamphlet on nuclear contamination. Together the audio and video installation attempts to evoke a meditation on remembrance, cast-offs, and the overlaps between.

Jessika Miekeley

2006-10-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

Jessika Miekeley
October 13 – November 10, 2006

Organized by Dana Turkovic

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

-William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Cecille R. Hunt Gallery present’s recent work by artist Jessika Miekeley. A fresh transplant to St. Louis from Berlin, Miekeley’s video and photographic work bring a new voice to the city’s art scene. The work explores the space between the still life and the moving image. In Birthday, Miekeley physically scans a still image of a Birthday party, adding a twist of motion. As she glides the camera around the photograph, previously unseen narratives and emotional poignancy are added to the frozen memory of a birthday celebration photograph. Pool, filmed with the same process, creates an incipient threat of drowning; at other times the view is like that of the shark in Jaws as she stalks human prey. Pluto has recently been downgraded in status to a dwarf planet by the international astronomy society; Miekeley’s photogram series Sky instead elevate the sweepings of the studio floor to that of celestial bodies. If a ball of ice can be a planet one day and then an oversize comet the next why not misrepresent a small ball of dust and lint as a cosmic body? The difference as Miekeley suggests is the small matter of seeing the world in a grain of sand.

Born in Berlin, Germany. Lives and works in St. Louis. In 1999, Miekeley completed study at Meisterschuelerin Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. In 2002, she received her M.F.A. from Goldsmiths College – University of London. She has shown in numerous group exhibitions including: A Beautiful Game, Roebling Hall, NYC, 2006; Flatfiles, Contemporary Art Museum – St. Louis, 2006; Co-Dependent, The Living Room – Miami Art - Basel, 2005; Temporada de Projetos, Paço das Artes, São Paulo, 2003 ; Park 4 DTV, Amsterdam; 2002. This is Miekeley’s first solo exhibition in St. Louis.

2006-09-01T13:11:00.000-07:00

Spectacle of Power:
New Work by Jay Lizo

September 1 – 29, 2006

Organized by Dana Turkovic

Inspired mainly by DJ culture, Jay Lizo's paintings are an explosion of text, vibrant color and abstracted images. His obsession with mixing, sampling and phenomenology become focal point in most of his paintings and sculptures, referencing movies, books, and pop culture in general. Mostly taken from his immediate surroundings, such as geography or places with historical significance, text and images are collected and gathered, and beautifully remixed into one experience and one final form. Lizo's newest body of work is an even more intense study of text, type and the roots of slang and street talk. Dialogue from films such as Red Dawn and Fight Club provide his initial layer of images and color. Nothing is sacred or without comparison, layering the words of Nietzche with the poetics of Ice Cube, Lizo produces extremely detailed and decorative works. Writers such as Guy Debord, Dick Hebdige and Ludwig Wittgenstein, influence Lizo's process of choice and application, and always haunted by their words, Lizo builds architecturally around them. By taking images from different histories and remixing into a new context creates new dialogues for an absurd yet possible worldview as it reflects on ideas of Power. It's a collection of words and images that are related to some form of power, such as Remington's rifle, Robert McNamara's "Thoughts on War", Heart's typewriter, Delacroix's spears, Wu-Tang's lyrics on capitalism, Debord's text on the Situationists, and many others images culminate in the paintings and sculptures to immerse a viewer in a Spectacle of Power.

Born 1975 in Sarasota, Florida. Lives and works in Los Angeles. Lizo received his B.F.A. from Ringling School of Art and Design in 1998 and in 2005 he received his M.F.A. from University of California - Santa Barbara. He has shown in numerous group exhibitions including: High Desert Test Sites 5, Joshua Tree, CA, 2006; Supersonic, Los Angeles, CA, 2005; LA Tap - Curated by David Pagel, Melbourne, Australia, 2004; and Stray Show, Chicago, IL, 2003. This is Lizo's first solo exhibition.

2006-03-01T13:13:00.000-08:00

I-70 Series: Kansas City

Rebecca Dolan, Leo Esquivel, Peregrine Honig, Miles Niedinger, Davin Watne

March – April 2006

Curated by Dana Turkovic and John Watson

Ethereal Locations

Interstate-70 is spattered with fresh road kill, porn stores and modest churches. The route linking St. Louis and Kansas City is a threateningly dangerous and bumpy car ride, through a raw level plain. Punctuating this --at expanse, exit signs guide the eye to gun-marts, XXX stores, chapels and run down strip malls. Fellow travelers, proudly sporting their "W" bumper stickers and the litter of burst open skunks, possums and stray dogs drive home the reality of the area's thinly concealed violence, isolation and confusion. The Interstate hovers unapologetically between the piety of the Sunday service and the vulgarity of the whorehouse. Is this cultural landscape a result of hard-pressed farmers --finding a precarious economic niche or enterprising ex-urbanites making a quick easy buck? Pick either and you would be right. It's a mix of bleak desperation and vibrant commerce. The I-70 is a modern pastoral vision. The intention of the series was to merely introduce two art scenes and provoke an ongoing dialogue that will produce complimentary exhibitions in both cities. But while daydreaming beneath the wide blue sky and the green pastures, I momentarily glimpsed the subconscious preoccupations of this violent terrain. Our shared experience of Missouri via this lethally rutted asphalt path connects Dolan, Esquivel, Honig, Neidinger and Watne to each other as artists. The outcome is an exhibition of the impression embossed on the mind by this stretch of road revealing the nature of the two cities it connects: open sky, crushed mammals, litter, wrecked cars, and spent passion. The I-70 show is a wild drive through the tension of this peculiarly dark but optimistic place.

2005-07-29T17:09:00.000-07:00

Coming Home: Deborah Sigel
August 26 - September 24, 2005

Feels Like A Natural Woman:
Whitney Lee and Allyson Mitchell
September 30 - October 28, 2005

Paper: Denise Green
November 4 - December 2, 2005

Threads of Protest: Robert Strobridge
December 9, 2005 - January 13, 2006

Brittany Lueken: New Work
Mayumi Sarai: Sculpture
January 20 - February 17, 2006

2005-01-01T17:05:00.000-08:00

Drawings and Prints from the University Collection
September 3 – October 1, 2004

Golden Hour: Danny Yahav-Brown
October 8 – November 5, 2004

Painting:
Chris Dorland, Lauren Portada, Anne Seidman, Shane Simmons and Jered Sprecher
November 12 – December 10, 2004

Three Sculptors:
Joe Chesla, John Watson and Stephen Yusko
January 21 - February 18, 2005

Constructing a Narrative: Kip Deeds
February 25 - April 1, 2005