Therese Zemlin, Instructor in Art, creates a vivid image of her thought process in simple, fragmented piec-es, rather than complete artworks. One of her subworks consists of in-tertwined stone shapes drawn with black ink pen on four separate piec-es of rice paper, Zemlin’s artistic in-terpretation of the uniquely shaped neurons in the human cerebral cor-tex.

According to Zemlin, her piece is a compilation of unfinished artworks that are representations of interrupt-ed thought and spontaneous action. She was inspired by patterns and ra-tios that appear in nature, such as the dimensions of the human body or the structure of a tree.

Q: What exactly are you are pre-senting? What kind of artwork is this?

A: I put this stuff up because I don’t have any finished work at the mo-ment. In some ways it’s nice to have a break where you can just go and practice over and over again. With my pieces I’m asking the audience to intersect with my process. The cre-ative process is unlike the time mu-sicians or dancers spend practicing.

Q: What was your inspiration?

A: A friend of mine gave me this book on histology. I read it a little bit [and I became] really interested in the pictures. I was fascinated by the structure of the nerves and how the pattern replicated itself in so many aspects in nature. We, as individuals and as groups, make the same pat-terns. It’s because, whether we like it or not, we are nature.

10 | ARTS & LEISURE T h e P h i l l i p i a n February 8, 2013

LEISUREARTSAND

Josh Kim // Photos by Zoe Gallagher

Faculty Exhibition Highlights Inspiration and Artistic Process

Therese Zemlin

In this year’s annual Art Faculty Exhibition, seven Instructors in Art present different artistic works that range from Mycenaean-iwnspired terracotta pots to an abstract and creative interpretation of neurons in the human brain.

Each individual piece combines a variety of media to create a cohesive exhibition that showcases the artist’s dexterous skills as well as the aesthetics and innovative thoughts that come to play in the artistic process. The exhibition will be on display in the Gelb Gallery

in the Elson Art Center until the end of February.

Elaine Crivelli, Instructor in Art, showcases five of her multiple “Col-lage Studies and Collage Composi-tions” pieces at the exhibition. Her collages feature photos of lines, ob-jects and textures on transparent film. As these photographs overlap with each other, certain parts are stressed depending on the degree of opacity, emphasizing the effects of transparen-cy and texture on viewers’ emotions.

Through these collages, Crivelli

experiments with various textures by combining rigid shapes with soft-er images or smooth curvatures with sharp angles. She also adds leaves to the collage to add a naturalistic feeling and a transparency element.

Q: How would you describe your collages? What is the meaning be-hind them?

A: Sometimes my work tells a spe-cific story, but other times I work with the pure formality of developing im-ages that simply play with the inter-action of transparency, form and light.

The collages that are on view in the Gelb Gallery are small studies for larg-er works that I will eventually create for upcoming exhibitions.

Q: What do you think is the uni-fying theme of your collages?

A: As with all of my artwork, wheth-er two-dimensional or three-dimen-sional, I consistently work with the idea of layering form or image using transparency, color, light and texture. In my early three-dimensional works, I created large scale installations with mixed media for exhibitions, com-missions or for the stage. Form was non-representational and my con-cern was to activate large spaces and transform them through the use of transparent media, light and color. The same concerns I had as a sculptor carried over into my two-dimension-al work when I began to incorporate photographic digital media and print-making.

Gail Boyajian, Instructor in Art and an architecture enthusiast, is exhibiting two compositions, “Three Painting Studies based on Anatolia” and “Interdisciplinary Sky,” that uti-lize a variety of vivid and rich colors to depict the landscape and the va-riety of birds found in the anatolian region.

Boyajian creates a wide variation of tonal values by casting the back-ground in painted sunlight and the foreground in shadow. This stylistic choice creates the illusion of an im-pending storm.

Q: What are you trying to con-vey through “Three Painting Studies based on Anatolia”?

A: These three panels that com-pose [this piece] are an attempt to convey various landscapes that I saw in Turkey, all of which were studded with remnants of great, old cities and religious structures. I travelled to eastern Turkey in 2008 and was struck by the extraordinarily rich history of that region. I went with

my architect’s eyes as much as my painter’s eyes. I have always loved ruins; my thesis as a graduate stu-dent in Architecture at MIT was to study and document the form of a ruined medieval village in the south of France.

Q: How did you decide to call your second piece “Interdisciplin-ary Sky?”

A: “Interdisciplinary Sky” is real-ly supposed to be “Multidisciplinary Sky.” I might have typed it incor-rectly or it was reformatted. In any case, the title evolved as I thought about what is in the sky, both figura-tively and literally. It is where gods reside, including angels and saints, and airplanes, satellites, helicopters and other kinds of technology that fly, as well as birds and insects. It is also where we observe planets and stars. I started the painting eight years ago, and it has evolved so much since then. I decided to change the position of the birds so they look somewhat predatory; they’re inten-tional.

In her versatile exhibit, Shirley Veen-ema, Chair and Instructor in Art, uses still-life techniques to convey a sense of mortality in “Marilyn: After the Dance” and a sense of depth in a three-dimen-sional space in her three-piece mixed media collage “Secret Gardens.”

“Marilyn: After the Dance” captures the various images of Marilyn Mon-roe using pencil and gesso on paper, creating the effect of a blurry memory. Veenema portrays Monroe’s allure and flexibility as an actress in the fluidity of the white dress, which she places in the middle of the piece.

Q: What do you think makes “Mar-ilyn: After the Dance” distinctive?

A: “Marilyn: After the Dance” uses pencil, gesso and transfers. The faces of

[Monroe] that you see are still transfers from Monroe’s old movies. This draw-ing is actually a part of an eight drawing series “Channeling Marilyn Monroe.” In this series, I use clothes to connect to wardrobe choices to an icon who is long dead but still very much alive within a culture.

Q: What about “Secret Garden?” What are you trying to say with it?

A: The “Secret Gardens” collages were inspired by the novel “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The three [pieces displayed] in the show are part of a series of nine collag-es, each suggesting a hidden, private space and magical garden. While there are repeated elements in each garden, each one feels quite different and tells a different story.

Shirley Veenema

Peg Harrigan, Instructor in Art, specializing in photography and mo-tion picture, presents “Time Lapse Photography 2012” as her faculty exhibition piece. The project shows multiple photos taken successively of the same subjects in several-sec-ond time intervals. She utilized the effect of time-lapse photography to elicit different reactions from au-diences as the photos become less connected as the video goes on.

“I think the long exposure time that blurs the people trying to get into the train really is the highlight of the video. It also kinds of focus-es on how these people are so hasty and eager to get to places,” said Tyler Tsay ’15 about a video segment that portrays a busy metro station in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Q: What was your inspiration for this project?

A: I was inspired by the concept of time itself and the contemplative nature of landscape imagery. The el-

ement of time passing is an essential quality of camera arts. The single photograph generally represents an instantaneous time, and video/mo-tion picture time is often referred to as real time, flowing in a seemingly natural continuum. In a time-lapse sequence, time is represented in an interesting hybrid state as selected interval time may excite the view-er’s experience of recorded time or create a more contemplative experi-ence when time is extended.

Q: How did you choose the ex-posure and time interval between successive photos? How do they affect your work?

A: Decisions about exposure, in-tervals and number of shoots per interval were determined largely by trial and error experimentation. Time-lapse photography requires setup ahead of time and then is not at all interrupted, if possible.

Peg Harrigan

Gail Boyajian

Elaine Crivelli

Emily Trespas, Instructor in Art and a painter and a printmaker at heart, showcases a richly colored set of paintings that captures the animals and scenery she encountered during her Fall Term sabbatical at Ellis Hol-low, New York. Her paintings are comprised of animal portraits that she feels she has close relationships with, all of which she has given imaginary identities.

Her series “Understories: The Sound Sketches” is accompanied by audio tracks of natural sounds, record-

ed by the artist on a Flip Camera in New York, New Hampshire and Cali-fornia. Trespas’ dramatic use of bright colors accentuate the painting’s focal points like the fungi or the lizard. The audio track contributes to a more vivid experience.

Q: Are there unique anecdotes be-hind any of your animal paintings?

A: The bird [in one of my paint-ings,] which I named Robin, flew into my studio window one day. It was very alarming for us both. I went outside with my camera to see how the stunned bird was doing and if she would make it out. After a few min-

utes, the terrified bird took flight. I did what any artist in retreat would do: I drew a portrait study of Robin, the bird. These will be in my upcom-ing exhibit in March. The painting of Robin started from one of my photos I took that day, and I paired it up with a painting of Doug, a Douglas squirrel. I left them mid-painting and returned to them the week the show went up, especially Doug. “Doug and Robin” were intentionally painted as a dip-tych, where two canvases come to-gether to create one. It appears there is a moment happening between them.

Q: What relationship did you have with the animals that you drew?

A: I was an outsider in their world trying to gain access by studying their behavior, their appearance and possi-ble character or stereotypes. For ex-ample, the reputation of a groundhog is that of a nuisance, especially to gar-den owners. My garden in New Hamp-shire, where my version of a ground-hog, Chuck, is depicted in the painting, was captured and relocated.

Emily Trespas

Thayer Zaeder, Instructor in Art, specializing in ceramics, brings six pieces, inspired by Mycenaean arti-facts, to the exhibition. Among them are “Segmented Pot” and a collec-tion titled “Cannot be Round Trilo-gy: Stoneware and Glaze.” According to Zaeder, he finds Mycenaean arti-facts as sources of great inspiration.

“Segmented Pot” is composed of three different segments which converge into a single body at the base.The red earthy color of the pot brings a rustic, Middle Eastern touch to the piece.

Q: What was the inspiration for them?

A: I own a book about Mycenae-an art and artifacts, and inside that book there is a photograph of a large

bulbous pot. I have used that pho-tograph and that form as a starting point for many pieces. It has served as a great inspiration. I still have not managed to get the proportions just right. The Mycenaean pot is stun-ning; mine still misses the mark a little.

Q: How did you make these pots?

A: All of these large forms were thrown on a potters wheel in sec-tions. Once the main form was com-plete, they were trimmed and then altered. In the case of the “Segment-ed Pot,” the main pot was simply sliced open and then reassembled. These pots all explore the relation-ship between form and surface dec-oration.

Thayer Zaeder