By Linda Luise Brown<\/p>\n
A sense of genuine camaraderie was palpable on the stage and in the auditorium during the March 15 reception for the inaugural Roderick MacKillop Memorial Alumni Art Exhibition, which honors \u201cthe legacy of the beloved art professor\u201d at UNC Charlotte. And in the galleries at Rowe Arts Building, the work of talented alums was strong and well crafted. Some of it glowed with accomplishment.<\/p>\n
This Alumni Exhibition ran from March 15-30, 2018, and showed work by 32 alumni at the Department of Art & Art History. This event also formed a major part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the founding of the College of Arts + Architecture. <\/p>\n
A group show of this nature is bound to be varied, and this eclecticism reflects the breadth of the faculty who guided the alumni artists through their undergraduate years. The variety of media spans from traditional oil and acrylic painting to photography and video; to diverse freestanding sculpture along with 2-D and 3-D mixed media wall pieces — prints, etchings, and \u201ctradigital\u201d blending traditional and computer-generated techniques. Also in evidence are realistic figural approaches to portraiture, expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, contemporary fiber-based work and quilts. This panoply of creative production adds up to something worthy of serious study.<\/p>\n
At a short introductory program, Eldred Hudson, Chair of the Department of Art & Art History and Professor of Graphic Design at UNC-Charlotte, described Professor MacKillop as being \u201c\u2026a prolific artist and dedicated teacher,\u201d who believed in connecting to alumni. It was fitting that in honor and memory of Rod MacKillop, four of his former students in the Alumni Exhibition were also on stage. All had fond memories and personal responses to their studio experience.<\/p>\n
Sharon Dowell, well-known locally and beyond for her public art installations, including the brand-new installation on the Blue Line Extension of CATS light rail, and whose eye-catching canvas \u201cTruss II\u201d 2015 a\/c, is displayed on the staircase in the show, described her initial frustration working with Rod until she realized that he was teaching her very successfully, albeit in an indirect way. Professor MacKillop found it very important for art students to develop critical thinking skills, and to be able to talk and write about their work intelligently. He clearly passed this along to painter Dowell.<\/p>\n
Nathaniel Lancaster was enrolled in a figure-painting studio with Rod,<\/em> and he paraphrased a comment Rod<\/em> made when critiquing his work about some brushstrokes looking \u201clike you\u2019re trying to make art marks,<\/em>\u201d \u2013 that is, trying too hard to look like art by adding unnecessary elements –. This is something that many a former art student can relate to! Some ten or 15 years along in his career today, Lancaster, who sometimes dares to leave his painting looking unfinished, is now producing large, layered paintings that often have a realistically rendered figural base beneath a layer of scribbled writing in black or white. In \u201cFrame 1348, 1349,\u201d <\/em>(2017 oil, acrylic, spray paint and graphite on canvas) Lancaster combines figurative elements that obviously have personal meaning into a layered and painted collage with a foreground image with the look of a blurry photo. The painting \u201cRe\/liv\/veal\/vil\/ing Your Youth<\/em>\u201d is another combination of drawing, photography, layered, visceral, and mysterious. There is narrative content here, but its meaning is open for interpretation.<\/p>\n In his figurative painting, Jeremy Okai Davis, whose acrylic-on-canvas portraits of African-Americans are rendered in a loose, painterly and neo-Impressionist style that\u2019s expressive and textured. Davis\u2019 \u201cInside\u201d features a disconcerting head and shoulders image with the top and bottom halves of the head rotated in different directions, inviting multiple interpretations. Davis said that Rod led by example and had a \u201csteady hand.\u201d He described seeing an exhibition of MacKillop\u2019s work at a commercial gallery that made him \u201cwant to be able to fill a gallery like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Ceramic sculptor Margaret McAdams, professor emerita of art<\/em> at Ohio University, Chillicothe, received a Bachelor of Creative Arts from UNC Charlotte in 1977, and her two narrative painted ceramic table-top sized sculptures in the show, \u201che remembers,\u201d and \u201che journeys,\u201d both from 2017, contain folk elements. \u201che journeys,\u201d which adds tassels to the camel-centric sculpture, features a small wood house atop a cast ceramic camel. Influenced by Margaret\u2019s recent travels to India, these works are based on her reflections about Rod as painting professor and former colleague.<\/p>\n In 2017, Ms. McAdams received the CoA+A Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Art & Art History, and acknowledged how Professor MacKillop\u2019s guidance during her first year as an art student at UNC-Charlotte led her toward painting.<\/p>\n There is always a hazard of an eclectic show becoming too scattershot in approach, but this one avoids that pitfall with apparent ease. For an eclectic show to really \u201chang together,\u201d some continuity builds when a few individual artists display more than a single work. Carla Rokes, for example, shows two pieces, entitled \u201cCB#1\u201d and CB#2\u201d, elegant pieces designated as \u201ctradigital-acrylic prints\u201d. Some other gorgeous, \u201cdecorative,\u201d well-handled pieces by Brandon David Henrie, show good graphic capabilities, resulting in sophisticated imagery. <\/p>\n Assemblage artist, Shelley Sloan Ellis also shows two recent pieces, both using \u201ctailors\u2019 dummies\u201d torsos. \u201cProzac,\u201d and \u201cRoofies\u201d utilize porcelain shoulder pads and other attachments depicting large pills and capsules incorporated into \u201cmonotype assemblages\u201d as soliloquies on drug use.<\/p>\n One of the most exquisite examples of wonderful craftsmanship is Ali Wieboldt\u2019s 3-d mixed media piece, \u201cCherry Blossoms for Abe-San\u201d, 2013, which combines different elements into a small jewel-like, sculptural form. Delicate leaves rendered with acrylic paint and graphite on faux bone, this pin-cum-pendant is embellished with sterling silver, \u201cfireworks obsidian,\u201d and garnet.<\/p>\n Beverly Y. Smith\u2019s mixed media quilt \u201cCherry Picking,\u201d 2017, contains an undercurrent of bottled-up protest in the explicitly rendered face of an African-American woman\u2019s portrait. Smith\u2019s excellent craftsmanship is also vital to the success of this work, and is visible in her earlier piece, \u201cWhite Plains\u201d, from 2005.<\/p>\n Using mixed media cotton and acrylic, another fine quilt artist, Margaret James, shows \u201cGladys,\u201d 2016, an illustrative portrait of a woman.<\/p>\n This critic wishes she could describe all of the works in the show. As always, in a group of individuals this large it\u2019s difficult to generalize and impossible to give each artist their due. Worthy of much longer discussions are Elizabeth Arzani\u2019s constructivist, 3-d collages and Lydia Goldbeck\u2019s challenging \u201cLover Song (Receiving), from 2017. And paragraphs could be written about Sapun Ngoensritong\u2019s teeming shapes and colors that energize the surface of \u201cA Manuscript from Value Village,\u201d 2016, that incorporates lithography and mixed media on panel.<\/p>\n Thomas Cornell\u2019s weaving of uncountable small bits of wood into a dense panel is inviting and warm. Amanda Britton\u2019s delicate 3-part 3-d wall piece, \u201cRecollections\u201d from 2016 utilizes vinyl, silk, organza and hand-woven remnants, and contrasts beautifully with Laura Alma McCarthy\u2019s sturdy mixed media canvas \u201cMaybe the Dead Weight of my Arm is a Wing,\u201d 2017, that utilizes tar, oil, and mixed media in her signature \u201cnatural\u201d palette of ivory and ochers.<\/p>\n This fascinating show is eclectic though somewhat on the conservative side. There is worthy and exemplary craftsmanship in large measure, and it may seem contrary to wish that the show\u2019s well-balanced presentation would be enhanced by something a bit more confrontational and non-traditional. Myself, I like calm settings, but to get closer to the bone of what young artists are thinking about in 2018, the show might have welcomed some active \u201cdisruption\u201d. While art that is deeply experimental, or takes on the active presence of performance art is obviously hard to stage in the Rowe galleries, it\u2019s not impossible. Dare I suggest that from this solid, attractive, and professional foundation future alumni shows explore more avant-garde boundaries?<\/p>\n