Exhibitions: Francesca Baldarelli: 54 Phillips Way | Tobias Layman: Grinding Away Dates: February 2-16, 2017 Where: Sella-Granata Art Gallery, 109 Woods Hall, UA campus Reception: Thursday, February 2, 4-6 p.m., Sella-Granata Art Gallery The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present the Master of Arts exhibitions of Francesca Baldarelli and Tobias Layman, February 2-16, 2017, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. Layman's exhibition, titled Grinding Away and Baldarelli's exhibition, 54 Phillips Way, will have their opening reception on Thursday, February 2 from 4 to 6 p.m. Join us then to meet these artists and experience their work first hand! In her exhibition, 54 Phillips Way, Francesca Baldarelli salvages and reuses discarded or re-gifted materials. As she describes it, she combines the objects “to create curious moments of memory,” for herself and the viewer. “As time passes,” Baldarelli explains, “they transform. A crack here, a bend there, they slowly become different.” Changed, the objects move into the future, to create an open-ended experience for the artist and viewer alike. In this exhibition, Tobias Layman creates wood and metal sculptures that celebrate motion. Shaped like gears and other moving parts, Layman presents a sensory experience to the viewer, of sound, sight, texture, as well as an experience of the art works’ imperfection. “The gears are not cast from a mold or cut with state-of-the-art technology," Layman explains, "They are created by hand. Over and over. The gears do not align perfectly and they do not spin effortlessly.” In fact, Layman says, their flaws transform them beyond the realm of machines. “The imperfections warrant a sense of mortality. Their life span is unknown, and that unpredictability helps augment them and give them life.” About the Artists Tobias Layman is a graduate student in sculpture, with an assistantship teaching Ceramics I and Drawing I. Layman received the BFA, cum laude, in ceramics, from Jacksonville State University in 2014. He has exhibited in national and regional exhibitions including 35 Live: CoCA Member’s Show, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA; DAMNED IX, Detroit, MI; A Different Vision, Plymouth, MA; The Big Dance Exhibit, a juried exhibition in Des Moines, IA; and Abstracts Art Exhibition, Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery, where he received an honorable mention. Layman has been a studio assistant for the Department of Art at Jacksonville State University, an assistant instructor at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, and an instructor and ceramic technician at Earthworks Pottery Studio in Rome, GA. He is a recipient of the Thames Endowed Scholarship and the Joseph and Allen Sella Endowed Scholarship at UA. His art website is http://talceramics.weebly.com/. Francesca Baldarelli is a graduate student in printmaking with an assistantship. She currently teaches Introduction to Printmaking and assists in Color Theory. She has assisted in Drawing II and Intro to Printmaking. Her work combining printmaking and ceramics will be in the group exhibition, Clay Review 3 at the Abernathy Arts Center in Sandy Springs, GA, in January and February, 2017. She has exhibited her work in the Chautauqua Institution Student Exhibition at the Fowler Kellogg Gallery, Chautauqua, NY. Her Graduating BFA Show was held at the John J. McDonough Museum, Youngstown, OH and she has been included in several group exhibitions at Bliss Hall Gallery at Youngstown State University. Baldarelli received the BFA, cum laude, in painting and printmaking from Youngstown State University in 2012. She attended the Chautauqua Institution School of Art in Chautauqua, NY, in 2014 and the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice in 2010. She received a UA College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Council Fellowship in 2015, the CISA Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institute Scholarship in 2014. At YSU, Baldarelli received a four-year American Legion Auxiliary Scholarship, a Study Abroad Grant, Venice, Italy, in 2010 and the Student Art Association Painting Award in 2009. Her art website is http://fmbaldarelli9.wixsite.com/portfolio. A thesis exhibition is one of the requirements for the successful completion of the Master of Arts program in the UA Department of Art and Art History. For more information about our graduate programs, visit this page: http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/. GALLERY VISITOR PARKING ON UA CAMPUS The Campus Drive Parking Deck at the corner of Hackberry Lane and Campus Drive provides visitor parking at a nominal cost, and is only a five-minute walk to Garland and Woods halls. Buses also run on varying schedules from the deck. To walk to Woods Quad from the parking deck, exit the main doors of the parking deck and cross Hackberry Lane southwest to Margaret Drive. Follow Margaret Drive to Capstone Drive, which runs between Gorgas Library and Garland Hall. Follow Capstone Drive to Garland Hall and the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, and to Woods Hall and the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. For more information on bus schedules, go to http://crimsonride.ua.edu/
Passage: Celestia Morgan MA Exhibition
Exhibition: Passage: Celestia Morgan MA Exhibition Dates: April 18-May 3, 2016 Where: Sella-Granata Art Gallery, 109 Woods Hall, UA campus Reception: Thursday, April 21, 5-7 p.m., Sella-Granata Art Gallery The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present Celestia Morgan's master of arts exhibition, Passage, April 18-May 3, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery in Woods Hall on UA campus. There will be a reception for the artist on Thursday, April 21, 5-7 p.m. The public is cordially invited to attend. Artist's Statement: Passage explores the connections between social landscapes, memory, history and identity. Private and public perceptions of landscape are explored through a series of tondo (round format) photographs and carved wood block panels. These photographs and maps depict personal historical landmarks and GPS map lines within urban neighborhoods in the surrounding areas of Birmingham, Alabama. The private landscape points to a subjective experience. These tondo photographs shift the perspective between myself and my mother, providing a passageway to the past. The emphasis is focused on specific details that recall history and offers an opportunity for the viewer to gain a sense of what has been lost. The public explores the qualities of a map line as an indexical mechanism of power. These map lines anchor each landscape in a social, historical frame, serving both as a metaphor and referent, to welcome a larger public to decipher and experience this journey, both collectively and individually. These maps also suggest a personal timeline and progression during a period of social and economic change. -- Celestia Morgan Celestia Morgan is a photographic-based artist working primarily in the area of retrospect imagery. She writes that she found a love for photography in high school with a 35mm camera. "After high school I hesitated to attend college, but was inspired to be the first member of my family to receive a college education. With great endurance and my faith in God I accomplished my goal." Morgan received the Associate Degree in Elementary Education at Lawson State Community College. She earned a BFA in photography at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is currently pursuing her MFA at The University of Alabama. Her work is currently exhibited at Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minneapolis, Minn.; State of the Art: Discovering American Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark.; Alabama Artist: Birmingham Museum of Art; Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; South X Southeast online feature; UAB Hospital Palliative and Comfort Care Unit and held in numerous private collections across America. Her artist website is here: http://www.celestiamorgan.com/. Facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/222994454729282/ Crimson White profile of the artist: http://www.cw.ua.edu/article/2016/04/passage-mfa A thesis exhibition is one of the requirements for the successful completion of the Master of Arts program. For more information about the graduate programs of the UA Department of Art and Art History, visit these links: http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/. GALLERY VISITOR PARKING ON UA CAMPUS The Campus Drive Parking Deck at the corner of Hackberry Lane and Campus Drive provides visitor parking at a nominal cost, and is only a five-minute walk to Garland and Woods halls. Buses also run on varying schedules from the deck. To walk to Woods Quad from the parking deck, exit the main doors of the parking deck and cross Hackberry Lane southwest to Margaret Drive. Follow Margaret Drive to Capstone Drive, which runs between Gorgas Library and Garland Hall. Follow Capstone Drive to Garland Hall and the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, and to Woods Hall and the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. For more information on bus schedules, go to http://crimsonride.ua.edu/
“So Long as I Am:” Liam Ward MA Exhibition
Exhibition: So Long as I Am: Liam Ward MA Exhibition Dates: March 21-31, 2016 Where: Harrison Galleries, 2315 University Boulevard, Tuscaloosa Reception: Friday, March 25, 6-9 p.m., Harrison Galleries The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present Liam Ward's master of arts exhibition, So Long as I Am, March 21-31, in the Harrison Galleries in downtown Tuscaloosa. There will be a reception for the artist Friday, March 25, 6-9 p.m. The public is cordially invited to attend. Liam Ward’s photographs form a personal mythology that develops from his complex and contradictory relationships with the world. Ward explains that his work explores “the frustrations of indexical labels, personal beliefs, and expectations and how they have shaped my identity. I am also investigating natural life cycles and how they parallel and inform my personal history.” He writes that his images are “notations of time…to remind us that nature has its own time frame.” He has “learned to trust in the calm junctures of these primal cycles in the face of contradictory environments,” but ultimately, Ward says, “timelessness…reveals who I am.” Liam Ward, a photographic artist from Syracuse, New York, received his BFA in studio art from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh in 2013, graduating with honors. Ward has been a teaching assistant at the Maine Media Workshops in Camden, Maine, SUNY Plattsburgh, and at Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa. During his candidacy at UA he has taught and assisted multiple classes in photography. He has published work in BOAAT, Photographers Forum, and Onward Forward and has exhibited at the 2015 Society for Photographic Education South Central Conference Exhibition in Oklahoma City. He serves as a graduate ambassador for UA’s Graduate School and is a member of the Society for Photographic Education (SPE). More of his work can be viewed here: liamward.co. A thesis exhibition is one of the requirements for the successful completion of the Master of Arts program. For more information about the graduate programs of the UA Department of Art and Art History, visit these links: http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/.
“Seconds:” Joani Inglett MA Exhibition
Exhibition: Seconds: Joani Inglett MA Exhibition Dates: February 5-20, 2016 Where: Harrison Galleries, 2315 University Boulevard, Tuscaloosa Reception: Friday, February 5, 6-9 p.m., Harrison Galleries The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present Joani Inglett's master of arts exhibition, Seconds, February 5 through 12, in the Harrison Galleries in downtown Tuscaloosa. There will be a reception for the artist Friday, February 5, 6-9 p.m. The public is cordially invited to attend. In the works in this exhibition, Inglett hopes to uncover what we as viewers assume about the ubiquitous "cup and saucer" and to explore through humor and surprise the ways this object group represents social and economic divisions in our culture. Inglett said, "My particularly irreverent treatment of [the cup and saucer] plays on a postmodern approach highlighting the downfall of a middle class." In her creations, she "also asks the viewer, in a playful way, to acknowledge the subjectivity of taste by highlighting my own definition of a tasteful, sensual, and feminine display. I chose to call this work Seconds in reference to giving the objects a second chance, look, or purpose than to which they were born." Joani Inglett is a ceramic artist from Athens, Georgia. In her second year as a graduate student at the University of Alabama, she is exploring the possibilities of material through experimentation with porcelain slip and ceramic glazes. She received the BFA in ceramics from Kennesaw State University in 2013. Inglett has participated in invitational and juried exhibitions around the Southeast and was awarded a fellowship to Arrowmont School of Arts and Craft, Gatlinburg, TN. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. Inglett's website is www.joaniinglett.com. A thesis exhibition is one of the requirements for the successful completion of the Master of Arts program. For more information about the graduate programs of the UA Department of Art and Art History, visit these links: http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/
“It’s There, I Swear:” Sydney Ewerth MA Exhibition
Exhibition: "It's There, I Swear:" Sydney Ewerth MA Exhibition Dates: February 1-12, 2016 Where: The University of Alabama, Sella-Granata Art Gallery, 109 Woods Hall Reception: Thursday, February 4, 5-7 p.m., Sella-Granata Art Gallery The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present Sydney Ewerth's master of arts exhibition,"It's There, I Swear," February 1 through 12, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. There will be a reception Thursday, February 4, 5-7 p.m. in the gallery. The public is cordially invited to attend. View a slideshow of the exhibition on Flickr.com View photos of the exhibition on Facebook.com Atlanta native Sydney Ewerth received her BFA with a concentration in sculpture and ceramics from Augusta University (formerly Georgia Regents University) in Augusta, Georgia. During her candidacy for the MFA at the University of Alabama, she has taught and assisted classes in various topics of ceramics and drawing. In 2015, Ewerth was juried into five ceramics exhibitions from New York state to Louisiana. She won an honorable mention in the Lux Center for the Arts’ Mug Shots Juried Exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) and secretary of UA's student organization, Crimson Clay. Ewerth describes the sculptures in this exhibition as coming out of her “oscillating sense of identity and daily insecurities.” That self-image has led her to “connect and create a physical dialogue between lived and imagined space." She continues, "Physical mapping of line and shadow reflect dissonant repetition and my interpretation of true and secret self. Exposing the cross section of a fantastical vibrant landscape or investigating the dependency between objects growing out of both sides of a plane intrigue me. Bright colors and a crude touch present a humorous front that mask coy, obsessive behaviors.” Ewerth's website is here: http://sydney-ewerth.squarespace.com/. A thesis exhibition is one of the requirements for the successful completion of the Master of Arts program. For more information about the graduate programs of the UA Department of Art and Art History, visit these links: http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/ Funding support for the Sella-Granata Art Gallery comes from the Department of Art and Art History and the College of Arts and Sciences. Admission to the gallery is free. Hours are Monday through Thursday 10:00 – 4:00 p.m. The gallery is located at 109 Woods Hall in the heart of the UA campus on Woods Quad. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/. Parking is free on campus in a legal space after business hours. For more information, contact the gallery at (205) 348-2783 or go to http://art.ua.edu/gallery/sgg/.
Dual Exhibition Features Photography, Painting and Sculpture
The UA Department of Art and Art History cordially invites you to two exhibitions by degree candidates in studio art. The Sella-Granata Art Gallery will be host to Unapologetic, an MA exhibition by Sarah Ann Austin and Contact, a BFA exhibition by Ali Hval. The dual exhibition begins April 13 runs through April 24, 2015. Please join us for an artists’ reception April 17 from 5:30-8:00 pm. Sarah Ann Austin's photographs recently have been juried into nationally recognized exhibitions. Two works were selected for the 2015 SPE Combined Caucus Juried Exhibition at the Society of Photographic Education Conference, Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. Another photograph was chosen for the 2015 Joyce Elaine Grant Photography Exhibition at Texas Woman's University juried by April Watson, curator of photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. More of Austin's photography is here. Austin’s exhibition is in partial fulfillment of the Master of Arts degree. For more information on the graduate programs of the UA Department of Art and Art History, visit this link: http://art.ua.edu/site/programs/graduate/. Ali Hval exhibited her large textile sculptures in March at the BFA Juried Exhibition in the UA Gallery at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in Tuscaloosa. Hval’s exhibition is in partial fulfillment of the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. The BFA is the professional degree for the artist; it is also the foundation for the masters program in studio art at UA. For more information about the BFA degree, go to http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/babfa-in-studio-art/ or contact the department at (205) 348-5967. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 10:00 – 4:00 p.m. The gallery is located at 109 Woods Hall in the heart of the UA campus on Woods Quad. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/. Parking is free on campus in a legal space after business hours. For further information, contact Rachel Dobson, communications specialist, 205/348-1893, rachel.dobson@ua.edu.
Student’s “Upcycled” Sculpture Reflects the Contradictions of Life
Resurface – MA Exhibition by Meredith Randall September 30 – October 25, 2013, Sella-Granata Art Gallery Reception Thursday, October 3, 5-8 p.m. in the SGG The UA Department of Art and Art History is pleased to announce Meredith Randall’s MA exhibition, Resurface, will open September 30 and run through October 25 in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery in Woods Hall on UA campus. There will be a reception Thursday, October 3 (Art Night) from 5 – 8 p.m. Meredith Randall, a Tuscaloosa native, has spent her life working in art, both creating her own and helping others, especially children, find their creative sides. Born and raised in the midst of the folk art and self-taught art resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, Meredith Randall has taken found materials to the next level: “upcycling” and using post-consumer waste products. “I grew up going to Kentuck [Festival of the Arts] and I was influenced by those artists,” she explains. She admires the way artists like Charlie Lucas, Woodie Long and Jimmy Lee Sudduth use found elements in their work, although, she notes, their choices of materials tend to be more organic, closer to their original components, and with an intrinsic harmony. “Those artists make everyday materials lyrical,” says Randall. Using synthetic found and recycled materials gives a different feel to her work, she observes. Her three-dimensional art work alludes to the natural processes of growth, erosion and decomposition that occur over time. “Using synthetic materials to create pieces that refer to those natural processes sets up a dissonant relationship between the idea of the work and what it is made of. Materials like packaging foam are often thought of as disposable although they do not decompose.” “My sculptures are made of Styrofoam pieces, bubble wrap and plastic grocery bags that I have collected myself and with the help of those around me. In several of my pieces I create structural components and then embed the discarded materials in reinforced concrete.” A very human, communal element remains important to her work because her family and friends often contribute those “upcycled” materials to her collection. Meredith Randall has also given back to her community in several ways. Since 2010, she has worked with Black Belt 100 Lenses project, first as a volunteer, then as curator and co-director in 2011 and 2012. In 2012, she served as the Visual Arts Summer Program Manager at the MacDonald Hughes Center in Tuscaloosa. She has also taught art to elementary school children as part of the Arts Renaissance in Tuscaloosa Schools program at Matthews Elementary and Woodland Forrest Elementary schools in Tuscaloosa. At Black Belt 100 Lenses, founded by Elliot Knight, Randall and co-director Kristin Law helped high school students from Alabama’s twelve Black Belt counties take photographs to “capture the images in your life that you see as significant in both positive and negative ways.” She also worked at the five-day Black Belt 100 Lenses Summer Camp on UA campus, helping students to develop their skills and ideas about their photography and helping organize and curate the final traveling exhibition of their work. Randall received her BFA in sculpture from The University of Alabama in 2011, where she graduated summa cum laude with a minor in psychology. She has exhibited her work in juried and invitational exhibitions throughout the southeast, including the Rymer Gallery Juried Exhibition Units of Measurement in Nashville; University of Mobile Sculptors of Alabama Invitational Exhibition; and von Liebig Art Center Juried Exhibition in Naples, Florida. She will have work in the Alice Sabatini Gallery Juried Exhibition in Topeka, Kansas, upcoming in 2014, and she will participate in Springhill College Gallery’s Invitational Exhibition in Mobile later this year. Locally, she has exhibited at the Pie Lab in Greensboro and at Harrison Galleries in Tuscaloosa. Randall has exhibited her raku work in the Turmoil & Transcendence exhibition sponsored by Kentuck Art Center after the April 27, 2011, tornado, and her ceramics have been included in the UA student organization Crimson Ceramics' booth at Kentuck Festival. Her website address is http://www.meredithrandall.com/. The MA exhibition is in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree and a requirement for the student’s acceptance into the Master of Fine Arts degree program. For more information on the graduate programs of the UA Department of Art and Art History, visit this link: http://art.ua.edu/site/programs/graduate/. ### For further information, contact Meredith Randall mlrandall@crimson.ua.edu