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Department Spotlights Art Instructors’ Work

The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History proudly presents its Studio Art Instructors Exhibition, October 26-November 17, 2020, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery, in 109 Woods Hall on UA campus. Exhibitors are Katie Adams (sculpture), John Klosterman (printmaking), Amy Smoot (ceramics), Mark Sniadecki (digital art), Charlotte Wegrzynowski (drawing), and Tom Wegrzynowski (painting).

Images from the exhibition will also be viewable on Flickr.com.

Tom Wegrzynowski, "Delta Force," 2015, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches.
Tom Wegrzynowski, “Delta Force,” 2015, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches.

Tom Wegrzynowski teaches courses in studio art and art history. The paintings in this exhibition, from his Entertainment series, are an investigation of culture as experienced through the fragments of the digital age. Wegrzynowski said, “Translating these fragments into paintings creates strange ambiguities and asks if meaning is really necessary or even desirable.”

Charlotte Wegrzynowski, "Salt," 2020, charcoal, 24 x 32 inches
Charlotte Wegrzynowski, “Salt,” 2020, charcoal, 24 x 32 inches.

The work of Charlotte Wegrzynowski is about her personal exploration of faith, identity, calling, and belonging. Wegrzynowski represents her own hands, which she finds as expressive as faces, but without the burden of identification or “likeness.” The images in her work are inspired by a number of sources, including the experience of spiritual invocation as a function of ritual. “Some of these pieces are a call for renewal, guidance, and blessing. Others are expressions of isolation, frustration, and longing. All come from a very personal response to the conditions and challenges of everyday life,” notes the artist. Stepping up to the drawing on her easel offers her a way to channel her thinking and questioning.

Wegrzynowski received her BA from The University of the South and the MFA from The University of Alabama Book Arts Program. She has been an instructor of drawing and design at The University of Alabama since 2008 and shows her work in regional and national exhibitions.

Mark Sniadecki, "Cells (Image 1)," series of still images generated within Adobe Photoshop.
Mark Sniadecki, “Cells (Image 1),” series of still images generated within Adobe Photoshop.

Mark Sniadecki teaches courses in digital media. He received the MFA in Digital Art and the BFA in New Media (Video and Motion Media) from Indiana University. His works in this exhibition are viewed on a television, sequenced one after the other.

“Cells,” writes Sniadecki, “is presented as a slideshow of sixty digital images, an ongoing series developed entirely inside of Photoshop with no external imagery involved. Typically beginning with a simple layer of painted-on pixels (never photographs) my process ranges throughout the software’s library of functions.” In addition to the freeform application and repetition of actions via the software, Sniadecki writes that he uses “Content-Aware, a generative function of Photoshop, becomes my collaborator, often sending me in unexpected directions.”

“Happy Memory Disc 1” is a digital animation, accompanied by an original audio composition. Sniadecki writes that the work, in part, “focuses on attention, emotional well-being, and the survival mechanism of optimistic hope. This digital animation and its accompanying audio are a reaction to the current sociopolitical atmosphere of chaos and desperation, which has been brought about by a crumbling American democracy, the stresses of living through an ongoing pandemic, and the exacerbation of longstanding social divisions by malicious leadership. Sniadecki said that he intends the work to be experienced as an “interval of solace.”

John Klosterman, "Gar," 2020, linoleum cut, 18 x 24 inches.
John Klosterman, “Gar,” 2020, linoleum cut, 18 x 24 inches. SGAG

Amy Smoot is a part-time instructor in ceramics. She has been included in group exhibitions including ArtFields 2019, Lake City, S.C.; Small Favors, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, Penn.; Currents 2018: An Honest Attempt, Gary R. Libby Gallery, Gainesville, Fla.; and After School Special, an NCECA Pop-Up Exhibition, Pittsburgh, Penn. Smoot received the MFA in ceramics from UA and the BFA in ceramics from the University of West Georgia. Her awards include the Dr. Judith Temple Scholarship at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Most Outstanding Graduate Student in Studio Art, and a Graduate Council Fellowship at UA. She was one of three artists selected for Air Air in 2017, an artist residency where artists make art on airplanes.

John Klosterman is a full-time instructor of drawing. A native of Daphne, Ala., he grew up with a fondness for machines and the tinkering that came along with them. His love of tinkering now takes on a two-dimensional form as he transfers ink to paper. Instead of the turn of a wrench, it is now the carving of a block with a gouge. Layers of each print, much like parts of a car, are assembled in a manner that creates a functioning vehicle for the message of each piece. Klosterman has had a solo exhibition of his prints at Coastal Alabama Community College in Monroeville, Ala. Most recently his prints were juried into 1st Edition Online Printmaking Exhibition, in Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, India, and the 40th Annual National Print Exhibition at the Artlink Contemporary Gallery in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Katie Adams, “Biomimetic Breath,” 2020, silicone, embroidery thread, 18 x 10 x 5 inches.

Katie Adams is a part-time instructor in sculpture. She works primarily with metal, wood, and glass components. Adams says that she searches to understand and combine nature’s physical elements and systems with emotional connections.

Adams writes: “By manipulating naturally established structures and repeated arrangements, I borrow metaphorical meaning from non-human organisms to expand conversations concerning health and disease. These forms are a visual manifestation of the emergence of patterns from complicated interactions within the body, the disruption of those patterns, and how both influence our sense of self. Connotations from natural architecture, function, and relationships are utilized to project ideas about communication, movement, and convergent designs. Through the integration of traditional craft, contemporary practices, and biomimetic design, I explore ancestral ties while promoting community support for advancements in research and engineering.”

Adams’ work has been included in numerous juried and group exhibitions including Height x Width x Depth in Kettering, Ohio; 51st Annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture Show, Corpus Christi, Texas, and 24th Annual Jack Lunt Memorial Juried Art Exhibition, Bowling Green, Ky. She has presented woodturning demonstrations at Sculpture Objects Functional Art and Design Convention, 2016-2018, and was invited to demonstrate woodturning at the 2017 and 2019 Tennessee Association of Woodturning Chapter Meeting in Nashville.

The Sella-Granata Art Gallery is an essential part of the education and development of UA students and our community. Hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission to the gallery is free. The gallery is open to the public with reduced capacity, limited to ten (10) visitors at a time. Visitors must wear face coverings inside the gallery and maintain a minimum distance of six feet from others. 

 

Information about visitor parking is available on the UA parking services website. Parking is free on campus in a legal space after business hours. For more information, contact the gallery at (205) 348-1893. Have questions or need assistance? Call (205) 348-1893. 

For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, visit our Degree Programs page.