John and Linda Friend Art Gallery
Art Exhibitions and Lectures 2007-2008
From the Universe of the Soul
An Exhibition of Paintings
by Ben Marxhausen & Henry Hirsch
August 23 - September 28, 2007
An artist’s lecture and reception will be held on Wednesday,
September 12th at 7:30 p.m. in the John and Linda
Friend Art Gallery and CU Center.
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
by Jack Schultz
October 1 - November 2, 2007
An artist’s lecture and reception will be held on Wednesday,
October 3rd at 7:30 p.m. in the John and Linda
Friend Art Gallery and CU Center.
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
by Sandra Matthews
November 5 – December 7, 2007
An artist’s lecture and reception will be held on Thursday,
November 8th at 7:30 p.m. in the John and Linda Friend Art Gallery.
“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 Scrolls is 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
An opening reception will be held on Monday,
December 10th at 6:30 p.m. in the John and Linda
Friend Art Gallery.
This exhibition will highlight 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
by 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
by George Geisler
March 10 - April 4, 2008
An artist’s lecture and reception will be held on
Wednesday March 12th at 7:30 p.m. in the John and Linda
Friend Art Gallery and CU Center.
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
by Gretchen Beck, Rebecca Erbstoesser, Rachel Hayes,
Niclas Kruger, Rachel Leising Soo and Erin Lopes
April 7 - May 2, 2008
An artist’s lecture and reception will be held on Wednesday,
April 9th at 7:30 p.m. in the John and Linda Friend Art Gallery
and CU Center.
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 abstract to 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
An opening reception will be held on Monday, May 5th at 6:30 p.m.
in the John and Linda Friend Art Gallery.
This exhibition will highlight 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.