SUNY ADK Faculty Exhibit
The Widlund Gallery at Tannery Pond Center presents: SUNY Adirondack Art Faculty Exhibition
Tuesday | March 12 - Saturday | April 20
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM | Sat, 12:00 - 4:00 PM | additional hours by appointment
Reception: Friday, March 22 | 5-7 PM
SUNY Adirondack programs of study are taught by dedicated faculty who are professional artists exhibiting locally and nationally. Students study courses across the spectrum of art in order to lay the foundation for careers in art and design. Study areas such as drawing, painting, art history, photography, design and graphic arts using cutting-edge software and equipment are instrumental in the development of a young artist. Through their own prestigious art making, SUNY Adirondack Faculty provide a rich experience for art students. The faculty work in a variety of mediums and techniques which seamlessly carries over into the classroom inspiring student creativity.
Arts, Media & Culture Division Academic Programs at SUNY Adirondack: Broadcasting Media Production AAS, Culinary Arts AAS, Fine Arts AS, Media Arts AAS, Micro Credential: Intermediate Spanish in Global Communications (www.sunyacc.edu/academics/degree-programs)
Faculty artists included in the exhibition: Nicholas Ameden, Matthew Destefano, Christopher Evans, Jessika Erickson, Kelly Girard, John Hampshire, Rhianna Hogan, Renee O’Brien, Katherine Patterson and Brandon Segal.
ARTIST STATEMENTS
Nicholas Ameden
My goal is to capture the beauty that surrounds us. I am inspired by nature and being outdoors. There are too many moments spent with our head down, on our phones, or just being distracted by everything else in life.
My passion for hiking, camping, paddling, and other outdoor activities leads me to various locations, mostly throughout the Adirondacks. It is these locations that motivate me to capture the magnificence of the wilderness. It’s where I can explore and search for a shot with a strong composition. I tend to have to scout out, revisit, or wait for that moment where the lighting, colors, clouds, wind etc. all align. I have learned that timing is everything and there is never a guaranteed great shot. When I am able to bring all the components together I am hoping to motivate others to want to experience these sights for themselves. Growing up in the Adirondacks has taught me to go out and explore our surroundings and to become comfortable with the outdoors. I am always happy to embark on a journey with my camera. Even if the result is not profound I will still have a lasting experience and better understanding of myself to expand upon in the future.
Matthew Destefano
My work explores the manufacturing of American mythologies through themes such as masculinity, labor, wilderness, art making, and the cultures surrounding outdoor recreation. The work employs traditions of realism and the trompe l’oeil to replicate the current American condition and point out strategies of deception that maintain the performance of cultural myths. I implement the processes of casting and fabrication, as well as the materiality of paint, to explore these ideas.
Christopher Evans
My artistic exploration is driven by the unique perspective of an autistic artist, delving into the intricate dynamics of our capitalist world. Through my work, I shed light on the often hidden, personal toll of economic systems, which I refer to as "economic violence." This exploration takes the form of a meditative response to the relentless onslaught of media consumption, targeted marketing, the constraints of socially embedded masculinity, and the dehumanization demanded by capitalism's relentless pursuit of profit.
Rooted in the traditions of Dadaism and Magical Realism, I venture into the fusion of text and image, treating language as a powerful medium for my artistic expression. Within this creative tapestry lies a juxtaposition of the macabre and the whimsical, humorously self-deprecating but concealing a deep well of fear and pent-up frustration.
I utilize vibrant, almost saccharine colors in excess, mirroring the world's obsession with extravagance. This visual abundance serves as a stark reminder of the uncomfortable truth: our society thrives on excess. I painstakingly layer and rework my drawings and paintings, embedding in them the anxiety, nervousness, and trepidation that permeate our grim reality. The textures in my work evoke the sensation of layers of cheap varnish applied to a slowly decaying palace, symbolizing the facade of opulence that surrounds us.
I invite viewers to lean in and immerse themselves in the intricate details and labor invested in creating such decadence. It serves as a direct juxtaposition to the luxury that often surrounds us, a visual commentary on the stark contrast between creation and consumption.
My artistic mission hinges on a delicate balance between engaging my audience with seemingly light-hearted humor and then forcing them to confront the harsh realities of our world. The closer they scrutinize my work, the more apparent it becomes that our lifestyle of wealth, leisure, and luxury is sustained at the expense of exploitation, greed, and even death. I acknowledge that many of my viewers may be participants in the very culture I critique, and their presence and engagement with my art serve as a source of cheeky irony in the reception of my work.
In essence, my art offers a unique perspective on economic violence, capitalism's hidden costs, and the often grotesque realities masked by the pursuit of abundance and prosperity. It is an invitation to reflect, question, and provoke thought, all through the lens of an autistic artist's unfiltered viewpoint.
Christopher Evans, Grade A USDA Approved Beefy Boys 30" x 30" Pen, archival ink, gel pen and watercolor on paper
Jessika Erickson
I have always had a love for the geometry of repeating patterns. In high school, Geometry was the only math class I have ever passed without a struggle. Throughout my education as a Graphic Designer, I kept exploring geometric shapes. It’s a motif that I have used in a lot of my work over the last ten years. Geometric shapes can be arranged and overlaid in infinite patterns to create infinite possibilities. This is something that has always appealed to me visually.
During the pandemic, I began to struggle with my mental health. My mind would race and I found it hard to concentrate on anything that wasn’t a worst case scenario. I was advised to look for a repetitive action that would help occupy my mind and my hands. I just started by folding little pieces of paper into cranes, hearts, or other little animal shapes. Before I knew it, I was finding more and more complex patterns and creating large origami tessellated shapes. When I ran out of paper, I started cutting up old books, magazines, and junk mail that were destined for the recycle bin. In this way, I began to explore the process of creating interesting geometric design elements in the real world that exist outside of my computer.
This piece was created using paper cut from an issue of the magazine Shonen Jump from May 2005. It is built from hundreds of smaller units called Sonobe Units invented by Toshie Takahama and Mitsunobu Sonobe in 1968. The Sonobe Units attach together to create concentric hexagonal rings expanding out from the center.
Jessika Erickson, Shonen Jump, 2005, Folded paper
John Hampshire:
“Labyrinth: Bruno”, is a work from 2009. It is made with a sharpie marker on a Masonite panel that was prepared so its surface was akin to a dry erase whiteboard. For years, while teaching architectural perspective for interior design students at Sage Albany, I created in-class demonstration drawings on dry erase boards and I subsequently wanted to mimic those qualities and experiences in the studio. I also wanted to make drawings that could be presented unframed and unbound from being behind glass, like a painting would be. Hence the choices of materials. The subject is Bruno LaVerdiere, who I had the privilege of teaching alongside at SUNY Adirondack for some years. His intellect, energy, wit and joy were always great to be around.
John Hampshire, Labyrinth (Bruno), sharpie on paper, 2009
Rhianna Hogan
In my work, I question visual culture and social media's effect on how we connect to others. I explore selfie culture and how it has many of us turning the camera on ourselves, actively participating in keeping a focus on appearance and the body. I explore ways to alter my view of perfection—often using tools that reinforce stereotypical gender roles in a way that they are not intended—as a path to empowering others to ignore constructed ideals and to see more clearly that their power is not in their appearance, but in their ability to make connections.
Renee O’Brien
Renee O’Brien is an artist-photographer-educator. She completed her Ph.D. at New York University and authored the seminal dissertation, The Post-Romantic Vision of Contemporary Pinhole Photographers, a study of pinhole (lensless) photography within the framework of photographic history and aesthetics. Dr/ O’Brien is Chair of the Arts, Media and Culture Division and Professor of Photography at SUNY Adirondack and adjunct instructor at Empire State University. She is a member of the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA), the oldest women’s fine art organization in the country.
The photographic selections are part of an extensive pinhole photography portfolio and this particular grouping is from a series that examined the landscape in the broader sense of the term. It is a contemporary landscape veiled in timeless human experiences such as work, leisure, and daily ritual. The photographs were made with a 1924 Brownie camera converted to pinhole (lensless) camera then hand-colored with photo oils. (Https://rcreagerobrien.smugmug.com)
Renee O’Brien, Beetle on Broadway, Hand-colored pinhole photograph
Brandon Segal
As a professional photographer, I have and continue to work in many different genres of the field. While my background is in fine art photography, the journey of life has currently led me in a more commercial path with primary focus in the lines of weddings, events, portraiture, and branding. When creating couples portraits for weddings, I strive to create not just a portrait, but rather a work of art which celebrates love in a beautiful dynamic image that belongs framed on a wall. I regularly express to my students, that any form of photography, when done right, can hold its place on a gallery wall next to any other medium or style and be looked at as ART. To practice what I preach I have chosen to display part of a series of wedding portraits which I title “Love Is Art. Love As Art.” To ensure I keep that spark always ignited, I make a point to at least once a year set aside time to travel or adventure with my camera and no agenda whatsoever. I allow myself to be inspired to create in the moment, rather than commissioned in advance.
I have also chosen to include small samples of two reoccurring themes I continue to revisit. The sub series of “Near Desert [ed]” has been probably one of my deepest obsessions behind my lens for the last 20 years. Ever since spending days camping in the middle of the Sahara Desert, the desert climates and surrounding areas around the world have become one my favorite places explore. The other ongoing sub series of Herpetofauna came to be by a much different means. Herpetofauna by definition is ‘the reptiles and amphibians of a particular region, habitat, or geological period.’ I have always been uncomfortable by most reptiles and amphibians. I have chosen to challenge myself to both study them further and to try to create beauty in something that I genuinely disliked. It is my hope that the extreme versatility of these 3 sets of work, which in many viewpoints would have no place next to one another, prove a point that when you stop labeling something as what it is, and nearly look at the beauty within things, that any and all subjects and scenes can stand together as equals on a gallery wall.
