2008 Woodie Awards
Students' artwork celebrated in Carlotti Art Show
Jeff Sullivan
Issue date: 11/27/07 Section: News
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Brendan Sullivan won first place for his piece, "Moscow, Rhode Island," and Victoria Lockhard Morton won second place for her linocut work, "Practical Matter." Meghan Leinhouser won runner-up prize for her untitled watercolor landscape. They each received a $100 gift certificate to the Rhode Island Book Company in the Kingston Emporium.
Sullivan explained his painting as a surrealistic depiction of the landscape in a reservation in the town it was named after. He used acrylic paints on canvas, and said he wanted to incorporate the color wheel in his work, starting with the darker colors and then using the brighter end of the spectrum to bring out a vibrant and original perception of a real-life landscape.
"This was really experimental for me, so this was all about self discovery really," he said. "This painting honors Moscow, Rhode Island, because not only is it a beautiful place but it depicts the energy flowing through the habitat, but obviously this is more imaginative than the original landscape."
For Morton piece, she started with a photograph from good family friends taken in communist Russia from a youth camp. The piece shows several youths in a field with their camp counselor, and Morton said that she wanted to capture the feeling of the awkward teen angst that inevitably arises during adolescence.
"I'm interested in a lot of different subjects, but I spent most of my life being trained to be an artist," she said. "I'm an autodidactic person, so I'm interested in a lot of different themes. Cultural and sociological aspects, feminism, critical theory and neurology are very interesting to me and I try to incorporate them into my work."
Morton said that her Russian friend from whom she obtained the original photo is actually in the picture, which she did not know until she finished the piece. She said in total it took her a month to complete.
Raquel Lennerton and Dawn Spears were the featured artists at the show. Lennerton did a digitized work entitled "Self-Portrait," done with air brushing tools with a method called vectoring in Adobe Photoshop. Vectoring is a process of making an image appear more three-dimensional, and yields a product not based on pixels, which means no matter what the zoom level is, the resolution of the picture remains the same.
Spears' work, "Desperate Crossing," is a charcoal piece created on paper and illustrates the many complicated and misconstrued issues about relations between the Wampanoag Native American tribe and the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. The piece depicts the varied themes from a film entitled "The Mayflower," which focuses on the political reasons for the uneasy alliance between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims.
Robert Weygand, vice president of administration for the University of Rhode Island, interviewed Spears about the piece and said that the different images resonate the themes of the film. He said that it was from the point of view of the Native Americans, who were wary of their newfound Anglo neighbors. Because of threats from a neighboring tribe they forced to ally themselves with the strange newcomers.
Corn seed is one of the many symbols depicted in Spears' piece, which according to Weygand, represents the theft of seed from the very tribe that allied with the Pilgrims.
Leinhouser, who received the runner-up prize for her untitled watercolor monotype, went into college with no idea what she wanted to do, let alone become an exhibited artist within the school.
"You just have to follow your gut," she said. "You always hear a lot of people say you can't do much with art and you listen to them and you're not sure what to do. Personally, I'd have to say you just have to go for it."
Her recognized work depicts a landscape slightly reminiscent of ancient Japanese poets who used watercolors as the background of their calligraphic poems. She said that while she has used acrylic and oil-based paints, her favorite medium is watercolor, because it allows her to start a piece without fully planning it out; instead allowing it to flow freely and evolve.
Many other artists had their works put on display as well, including a piece by economics professor Art Mead, which was directly influenced by Saturday morning cartoons. Mead's acrylic piece entitled "Zombies!" used the bright monotone colors and stark contrast that anyone who grew up with cheaply animated and poorly written television shows of the past would immediately recognize.
"I love comic books and art that tells stories," he said. "So with a lot of my paintings, even though they don't look like Norman Rockwell, I try to make all my paintings tell a story. Even though [this piece] might be a little dark and weird with zombie arms looking for brains at the bottom, I still try to be a pretty optimistic and outgoing person."
Mead said that even though he does not try to add a political message in his works, he says that his work still permeates his sociological and cultural views.
The decision of ranking these pieces fell on Bob Dilsworth, Sharon Kenyon, Susan Sancomb and Barbara Pagh, who all served as jurors for the Carlotti show. The aforementioned works and many others will be on display outside room 108 in the Carlotti building until the next fall semester, and Weygand said that it is his intention to try to expand the exhibit all over the building by including other student or featured artists.
Weygand also said that some of these pieces may be up for sale later, but which ones and their prices have yet to be decided.