John and Linda Friend Art Gallery
Art Exhibitions and Lectures 2007-2008
From the Universe of the Soul
An Exhibition of Paintings
Ben Marxhausen & Henry Hirsch
August 23 - September 28, 2007
Working in the studio arts throughout his career as an art educator, Ben Marxhausen has observed the intuitive process involved in expressing himself creatively and has learned to trust that intuition. Noting the transforming quality that occurs through the creative process, he has focused on freeing that spirit within himself. Marxhausen’s style of painting, which he calls Intuitive Abstract, invites and entices the viewer to free his or her own visual voice.It is the music that plays loudly and fills his studio which becomes the fountain of emotions from which Henry Hirsch begins most of his work. As forms evolve, it is the music that guides Hirsch to the fulfillment of what is pleasing. On occasion, the experiences of life, of professional training and the social order, emerge in the formation of certain abstractions that further fulfill his view of beauty and aesthetics. It is this universal combination that has been brought about through internal and external influences that allows Hirsch to express himself with freedom.
Heritage: An Exploration in Metal
An Exhibition of Jewelry
Jack Schultz
October 1 - November 2, 2007
Drawing on my family history and my experiences as a professional anthropologist, this jewelry collection represents an exploration of identity. The production of this work has been a dialogue with my relations. I have made conscious use of elements from my heritage (personal as well as familial), borrowing from a variety of sensibilities – Celtic, Viking, Roman, Germanic, Navajo, Seminole, Japanese and Christian liturgical – while trying to avoid the expected repertoire of symbols. I enjoy the immediacy of materials, how silver and gold respond to pounding and polishing, and I love to see the forms and shapes appear as I work. The collection is, as are each of us, an ongoing interplay of past and present, a continuous clarification of that base that makes us who we are.
Homeland Scrolls
An Exhibition of Photographs
Sandra Matthews
November 5 – December 7, 2007
“Homeland” is itself a term with a history. Adolf Hitler used its German equivalent “Heimat” to invoke a sentimental nationalism which masked the brutality behind it.Homeland Scrollsis an exhibition that combines composite images of photographs of the wooded landscapes near my home areas that are overgrown, but in fact have long been inhabited with photographs made in other parts of the world. Working on the computer, I arrange the elements of each image in visual strata to imply archeology, and embed a word in each layer. The relationships between the words and images are open to interpretation in personal, political and philosophical terms. In Homeland Scrolls, I reclaim a sense of the multiple histories, many of them painful, most of them forgotten, that are connected to any landscape available to human view.
Sui Generis
A Student Art Exhibition
December 10 – February 1, 2008
This exhibition highlighted work that was produced during the fall semester of 2007 in the following art courses: children's art, design, drawing, elements of art, graphic design, painting, and public art. Student artwork is also on display throughout the academic year in the Library Arts Building at CUI.
Rift of Existence
An Exhibition of Prints
Noriho Uriu
February 4 - March 7, 2008
In all of my work, I explore various rifts or ruptures of space. I create these rifts by breaking images, overlapping images, and combining multiple perspectives. I continue to manipulate the images by erasing, scraping, and burnishing, since these actions give the images a life of their own beyond my original attention. I have been exploring the relationship between positive and negative form, in other words, between the figures and the space surrounding them. I explore these objects as symbols of hope and vitality surviving in the face of nature’s disasters and human destructiveness to convey a sense of stillness and serenity.
Israel in Egypt
An Exhibition of Paintings
George Geisler
March 10 - April 4, 2008
Since beginning to paint, I have sought to produce work in the figurative, classical realistic style, making a connection into the sacred realm of theology and its connections with society. I work primarily from life, then reference photographs, in graphite drawings, and then oil. In approaching my present work, I choose as my subjects, the poor of Appalachia in the 1960’s, through an extended family of unemployed coal miners. The creation of the work carries with it themes of how we, in the Judeo/Christian world accept the myths which hold our faith together, and reexamine our long - held beliefs, placing these ideas into a different and unique context, thereby awakening a curiosity of what might be new meanings for us.
Au Courant
A Faculty Art Exhibition
Gretchen Beck, Rebecca Erbstoesser, Rachel Hayes, Niclas Kruger, Rachel Leising Soo and Erin Lopes
April 7 - May 2, 2008
This exhibition will feature new work by the faculty in the art department at Concordia University, Irvine, CA. The faculty’s work ranges from intimate drawings and illustrations to large scale mixed-media images, paintings and video art pieces. Artistic styles from abstractto representational and celebrate a group of committed and talented artists. The exhibition of their art in this annual event instills in the students’ minds that their mentors are actively engaged in the discipline they pursue.
Zeitgeist
A Student Art Exhibition
May 5 – May 30, 2008
This exhibition highlighted work that was produced during the spring semester of 2008 in the following art courses: ceramics, drawing, graphic design, painting and senior art seminar. Student artwork is also on display throughout the academic year in the Library Arts Building at CUI.