WILLIAM RULLER: ALL THAT IS SOLID MELTS INTO AIR

Delta State University’s Art Department invites the public to the opening of its new exhibition William Ruller: All That is Solid Melts into Air. Ruller who was born in Gloversville, NY explains that “the abandoned mills and tanneries of my youth and the dilapidated areas of metropolitan and rural sites, with its rust grey tones inform the visual and aesthetic language present in my work. These residual sites serve as the foundation for the work, which allows for a reinterpretation of the space into abstracted images.”

Ruller received a B.A. in painting and ceramics from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh in 2007. Following his undergraduate degree, Ruller moved to Oregon where he worked as a production potter and ceramics instructor. In 2014 he received is MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Ruller has been exhibited throughout Europe and the United States in numerous group and solo exhibitions. His paintings have been featured in Friend of the Artist, Whitewall Magazine, New American Paintings, and Studio Visit Magazine Issues. His work is in private and public collections such as Hyatt Hotel Corporation, Savannah College of Art and Design, and Museo Riso.

William Ruller: All that is Solid Melts into Air will be on view in the gallery from November 2 to December 7. A reception at which light refreshments will be served will be held on November 2 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm to mark the opening of the exhibition. A presentation by the artist via Zoom is scheduled for 4:00 pm that day. The public may join the presentation via Zoom or view it in the gallery surrounded by his work.

DSU’s art faculty are practicing artists, designers, and filmmakers who regularly exhibit in venues across the nation. The annual faculty exhibition offers us the opportunity to showcase new work created by these artists.

Several faculty members are exploring aspects of the human condition. Cetin Oguz’s abstract paintings are allegories of the human condition with line, color, and texture carrying the meaning. While the work is informed by his own history, beliefs, and observations, Oguz strives to create images that have a timeless appeal. Korkut Akacik’s work is similarly informed by personal experiences, in this case, memories and yearnings, which he translates into sensory multi-media installations that invite viewers to probe their own memories and yearnings. Jesse Brown’s photographic work examines the social construction of masculinity. The artist argues that in a society that extols stoicism as a masculine virtue, males find themselves navigating a labyrinth of unspoken rules valuing toughness, self-reliance, and authoritative control. These hegemonic systems frequently lead to the adoption of dissociative strategies in order to preserve a calm exterior and maintain a sense of power. Lawson King is also interested in the issue of control, but he investigates the internal conflict between the need to stay in control and the liberating potential of letting go of control. Lawson represents these ideas in sculpture, paintings, and collages.

Nathan Pietrykowski, Robyn Wall, and Ted Fisher are interested in the associations that places carry. Pietrykowski likes to take walks around town, the observations from these walks form the basis for his prints, artist books, and installations which amount to a psychogeography of place. The focus of Robyn Wall’s work is the home whether the physical structures of homes which she recreates in paper constructions or the narratives she constructs about her neighbors in prints. These narratives are pieced together from the objects left outside their homes. Ted Fisher’s documentary film I Want to Be at the Meeting: Sacred and Secular in the Mississippi Delta highlights the unique relationship of Gospel and Blues music in the culture of the Delta. The documentary was created in collaboration with DSU students and co-produced with Don Allan Mitchell from DSU’s Department of Language and Literature.

The work of Ky Johnston, Ron Koehler, and Michaela Merryday is rooted in craft. Ky Johnston creates pottery that shows respect for his materials, for the people and pieces that have taught him, and for the people who might come to own the objects he makes. Recently, Johnston began to decorate his pottery with imagery that he had previously used only in paintings and prints. Ron Koehler has created a series of complex multi-axis wood-turned vessels for this exhibition. These unique vessels have a natural, flowing quality comprised of intricate curves and shapes that would be impossible to achieve with traditional woodturning. Michaela Merryday, on the other hand, creates wood furniture that promotes harmonious cohabitation with cats.

The Annual Faculty Exhibition will be on view in the gallery from September 28 to October 26. An opening reception at which light refreshments will be served will be held on September 28 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. 

 JENNIFER SEO: PAPERWORKS

Delta State University’s Art Gallery opens its 2023-2024 season with an exhibition of delicate paper sculptures by Jennifer Seo. 

Jennifer Seo painstakingly recreates everyday objects such as teacups, bowls, tables, flatware, eyeglasses, cross necklaces, and embroidered handkerchiefs she discovers in old family photographs as ghostly paper constructions. The artist says that she remakes these “objects to better understand what we find important about them and why.” According to the artist, “objects go from being simply a thing we interact with as utility to a thing that embodies a philosophy and culture.” For Seo who is of Korean descent and was born in Florida, the process of fashioning these paper sculptures is a way of connecting with her distant family and imagining their day-to-day lives. The fragile and abstract nature of these paper sculptures becomes a metaphor for her thought process, for the difference between her projections and actuality, between observation and perception.

Seo was born in Florida and grew up in Los Angeles. She received a BFA degree from Baylor University, then worked as assistant for the sculptor Karl Umlauf before earning an MFA degree from the University of Texas San Antonia. She currently is an Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA. Her work has been featured in group and solo exhibition in the United States and South Korea.

Jennifer Seo: Paperworks will be on view in the gallery from August 24 to September 21, 2023. An opening reception at which light refreshments will be served will be held on August 24 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.

I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Please join us to celebrate our graduating seniors at the opening of their Senior Thesis Exhibition on Friday, May 5, from 4:00 to 6:00 pm following the commencement ceremony. The graduating seniors are

Nicholas D. Curry

Mov Etheridge

Will McCluskey

Kady Smith

Mason Smith

Max Steuer

Laken Templeton

Iya-Marie Turner

Claude Wright

The Senior Thesis Exhibition will remain on view until Thursday, June 22.

The Annual Juried Student Exhibition allows the department to highlight the work our students have produced in the past year and affords students an opportunity to gain professional experience by preparing work for exhibitions and submitting it to a jury process. Students submitting work are also eligible to win monetary awards in a variety of categories. The awards are made possible through the generous support of art patrons from the Cleveland community.

This year’s juror is Greely Myatt, a professor of sculpture at the University of Memphis and a DSU alumnus.  He has exhibited widely across the United States, Europe and Japan. In 1994 he was awarded the Mississippi Arts and Letters Visual Arts Award. In 2009, a twenty-year retrospective of his works was exhibited across Memphis in nine museum and gallery venues.

As every year, we will also feature Salon des Refusés in the Holcomb-Norwood Annex which will display a student-curated collection of the artwork that did not make it into the main event.

Please join us in celebrating our students’ success on Thursday, March 9, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Awards will be presented at 6:00 p.m. The Annual Juried Student Exhibition will remain on view from March 9 to April 20.

SPONSORED BY

Dave Alford and Adventure Frames

Maureen and Bucky Brooks

Danny Whalen and Cleveland State Bank

Katie Cofer

Charlene B. Graham

Ron Koehler

Kayla and Jeremiah Matthews

Carmen and Cetin Oguz

Marcella Small

Stephen and Jamie Smith

Carol Tatum

Dr. Robert Tibbs, III

Kendra J. Whitehead

Dr. Ellen Green, DSU’s Dean of the College of Arts and Science

President Caston, and the President’s Cabinet

Selection of Japanese Woodcut Prints from the Permanent Collection will be on view 19 January to 16 February, 2023

In conjunction with the exhibition of Japanese Woodblock Prints at Delta State University’s art gallery, Mizuki Umebara, Japan Outreach Initiative (JOI) Coordinator at DSU, will discuss the history and function of Kimonos, a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan.

February 9, 4:00 pm, Fielding Wright Art Gallery

Regular Gallery Hours

Monday through Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Closed weekends, holidays, and semester breaks.

 Sarah Nguyen is a multimedia artist living and working in rural Missouri. Story-telling is central to Nguyen’s art practice. She creates large-scale paintings overlaid with hand-cut fiber panels inspired by folklore and literature. As the artist explains, “Using stories as the source of my artistic inspiration I mean to return the viewer temporarily to a state of childhood, dwelling in the senses, immersed in the images of stories.” The paintings combine abstract and representational forms and evoke the sentiment of rather than illustrate their sources. While the layering of media suggests the transformation of these stories in our memories and the passage of time. Nguyen is less interested in directing her audience toward a particular interpretation of the work than in inspiring the exploration of one’s own memories.

Nguyen received a BFA in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Painting from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibits and publications nationally and internationally. Most recently she had a solo exhibition at George Caleb Bingham Gallery, University of Missouri, Columbia MO; Flora Kirsch Beck Gallery, Alma College, West Superior- Alma, MI; Fitton Center For Creative Arts, Hamilton, OH; and Rosemary Duffy Larson Gallery, Broward College, Davie, Florida. In the last two years, she completed residencies in Athens, Greece, Ontario, Canada, Belgrade, Serbia, and Sofia, Bulgaria.

Sarah Nguyen: Abecedarian For The Dangerous Animals will be on view in the gallery from November 3 to December 8, 2022. The artist will introduce her work via Zoom on November 3 at 4:00 pm.

2022 DSU ANNUAL FACULTY EXHIBITION

Delta State University’s Art Department presents its annual faculty exhibition in the Fielding Wright Art Gallery on campus from September 29 to October 27. DSU’s art faculty are practicing artists, designers, and filmmakers who regularly exhibit in venues across the nation. The annual faculty exhibition offers us the opportunity to show work created by these artists over the past year.  The artwork on view reflects the diverse interests of DSU’s art faculty.

Participating artists are Korkut M. Akacik, Jesse Ryan Brown, Ted Fisher, Ky Johnston, Lawson King, Ron Koehler, Michaela Merryday, Cetin Oguz, Nathan Pietrykowski, Kayla Selby, and Robyn Wall.

The department invites the public to an opening reception on Thursday, September 29 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm

YOSHIKO SHIMANO: DAR SALAAM

Delta State University’s Art Gallery opens its 2022-2023 season with an exhibition of prints by Yoshiko Shimano entitled Dar Salaam. 

Yoshiko Shimano is a Japanese-born artist who lives and works in Albuquerque, NM. Shimano creates large-scale prints that are informed by the tradition of Japanese woodcut prints but incorporate a variety of different printmaking techniques. Shimano believes that an artist has a responsibility toward society that expands beyond the studio and the gallery. Not only does her work address social and environmental issues but she has also collaborated on various outreach projects and produced prints for the victims of natural disasters with her students at the Department of Art at the University of New Mexico.

Shimano’s print series Dar Salaam, which means “Place of Peace,” was inspired by a trip to the Kedougou Region in the southeast of Senegal in West Africa. The prints focus on the living condition of the inhabitants of the small village Dar Salaam. While the village suffers from a dearth of resources such as food, water, goods, transportation, and education, the villagers have used creativity and empathy to develop a sustainable lifestyle. The series includes images of women who grow vegetables which they sell at a market an hour’s walk away to supplement their families’ income and others who manage to prepare hearty meals for their families with the limited ingredients available. Other prints show the children of Dar Salaam who lack toys, books, and school facilities playing in and learning from the environment.

In Senegal, as in other parts of the world, the socio-economic gap between rural areas and metropolitan centers is enormous and growing. While Shimano’s series addresses social issues in Senegal, she is concerned about similar socio-economic trends in the U.S. Shimano explains that “I introduce the images of the villager’s everyday lives living with hope and strength in Dar Salaam, to express how human beings can be creative and humble, appreciate what they have, and feel fulfilled. The people of Dar Salaam made me think of what real wealth and happiness are. I would like to celebrate Dar Salaam’s strength of life, spirituality, and beauty in my prints.”

Yoshiko Shimano: Dar Salaam will be on view in the gallery from August 25 to September 22, 2022. The artist will introduce her work via Zoom on August 25 at 4:00 pm. Use this link to join Yoshiko Shimano’s Zoom presentation: https://deltastate.zoom.us/j/95047031551. An opening reception at which light refreshments will be served will be held on August 25 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.

The Annual Juried Student Exhibition allows the department to highlight the work our students have produced in the past year and affords students an opportunity to gain professional experience by preparing work for exhibitions and submitting it to a jury process. Students submitting work are also eligible to win monetary awards in a variety of categories. The awards are made possible through the generous support of art patrons from the Cleveland community.

This year’s juror is Justin Bryant. Bryant is a painter and teaches at the University of Arkansas Pulaski Tech. He received his BFA in Studio Art from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and his MFA in Studio Art from Louisiana State University in 2018. He was a 2019 Interchange Artist Fellow for the Mid America Arts Alliance and was awarded a summer residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He has had solo exhibitions at the Thea Art Foundation, Little Rock, AR, Arkansas State University, Beebe, AR, and Michigan State University, Lansing, MI, and participated in numerous group exhibitions. His work was included in the 2019 New American Painting South Issue.

As every year, we will also feature Salon des Refusés in the Holcomb-Norwood Annex which will display a student-curated collection of the artwork that did not make it into the main event.

Please join us in celebrating our students’ success on Thursday, March 10, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Awards will be presented at 6:00 p.m. The Annual Juried Student Exhibition will remain on view from March 10 to April 21, 2022.

We would like to express our gratitude to the following for sponsoring student awards:

Dave Alford and Adventure Frames

Vickie Bingham

Maureen and Bucky Brooks

Cleveland State Bank

Travis “Chip” and Janet Cooper

Scott and Cindy Coopwood and Coopwood Communications

Patrick Davis for State Farm

Ron Koehler

Bill Lester

McCarty family

Kayla and Jeremiah Matthews

Carmen and Cetin Oguz

Lisa B. Percy

Planters Bank of Cleveland

Gunner Sizemore

Dr. and Mrs. Hugh C. Smith

Carol Tatum

DSU’s Dean of the College of Arts and Science

President Bill LaForge

President’s Cabinet

Katrina Majkut, Medical Abortion, Thread on aida cloth, 2015

Katrina Majkut is an artist who investigates how social traditions impact civic rights. The ongoing series In Control which she began in 2009 consists of embroidered renditions of products related to women’s reproductive health. The work and her choice of medium are intended to raise questions about who has authority over women’s bodies and choices. According to the artist, “Historically, embroidery prepared women for marriage. Samplers represented domestic skill levels and specific cultural and religious values to potential husbands who sought a woman with the right skills to establish a household – make clothes, darn socks. Cross-stitch was used to advertise and represent womanhood, wifedom and motherhood but bodily functions, autonomy and diverse lifestyles was not part of this textile practice. The ‘domestic craft’ of In Control attempts to counter this by attempting to stitch all products related to women’s health and needs with a fully comprehensive, bipartisan, educational and medically honest approach.”

Katrina Majkut was listed as one of four international artists starting a new chapter in feminist art by Mic Media and highlighted as a must-see artist by Hyperallergic. You can view more of her artwork at katrinamajkut.format.com. Majkut organized an Instagram art takeover for Planned Parenthood, exhibited at Spring Break, A.I.R. Gallery, Victori + Mo Gallery, CUNY College of Staten Island, Babson College, the Mint Museum, and was an artist in residence at MASS MoCA. Majkut published her first non-fiction book in 2018, The Adventures and Discoveries of A Feminist Bride (Black Rose Writing), which aims to make weddings more egalitarian. Her art catalogue is in the library at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, D.C.

In Control will be on view at DSU’s Fielding Wright Art Center from January 13 to February 17. Due to the rising Covid-19 cases, we will forgo an opening reception, however, the artists will discuss their work and take questions via Zoom on Thursday, January 13 at 4:00 pm. Check the art department’s website or email mmerryday@deltastate.edu for a link. The gallery is open Monday through Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on weekends, holidays, and during semester breaks. Masks are required in all DSU facilities.

Delta State University’s Art Department is proud to present an exhibition of recent paintings by an alumnus of its program, Tommy Goodman. Tommy Goodman is a painter and retired architect based in Carrollton, MS. Mr. Goodman graduated from DSU with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1968. He taught art at St. Andrews Episcopal Day School in Jackson for a few years before returning to school to pursue a degree in architecture at Auburn University, Auburn, AL. Mr. Goodman went on to build a successful career in architecture working as architect and design principle with architecture firms in Jackson, MS and Birmingham, AL. His projects earned numerous regional, national, and international awards. After retiring from his architectural practice, Mr. Goodman taught art and architecture as an adjunct professor at Mississippi State University. He still serves as consultant for historic restoration projects, but since 2009 he has dedicated himself fully to his painting practice. He recently published a book surveying his paintings titled Delta Artist Tommy Goodman: Painter/Architect.

Mr. Goodman creates abstract paintings and large-scale landscapes inspired by the Mississippi Delta. He explains that “Growing up in the Mississippi Delta, I have always been intrigued by the haunting horizontal vastness and variety in Delta panoramas, particularly the skies. As I paint from memory and past observations, the completed image is always an abstraction of the original experience.” His landscapes paintings done in acrylic on paper offer sweeping panoramic views of the Delta. The unusual format of these landscapes recalls the work of 19^th-century American landscapists such as Jasper F. Cropsey and George Inness but also betray Mr. Goodman’s background as an architect.

An opening reception for Mr. Goodman’s exhibition will be held on Thursday, November 4 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. The opening reception is free and open to the public.

Recent Paintings by Tommy Goodman will be on view at DSU’s Fielding Wright Art Center from November 4^th to December 2nd.

 2021 DSU ANNUAL FACULTY EXHIBITION

Delta State University’s Art Department presents its annual faculty exhibition in the Fielding Wright Art Gallery on campus from September 30 to October 28. DSU’s art faculty are practicing artists, designers, and filmmakers who regularly exhibit in venues across the nation, in fact, three of our faculty members are included in the 2021 Mississippi Museum of Art’s Invitational exhibition.  The annual faculty exhibition offers us the opportunity to show work created by these artists over the past year.  The artwork on view reflects the diverse interests of DSU’s art faculty.

Participating artists are Korkut M. Akacik, Jesse Ryan Brown, Ted Fisher, Ky Johnston, Michaela Merryday, Cetin Oguz, Nathan Pietrykowski, Kayla Selby, Michael Stanley, and Robyn Wall.

As one would expect, a recurring theme in this year’s faculty exhibition is the pandemic. Ted Fisher, a film director specializing in arts and culture documentaries, produced a short film that reflects on the realities of artmaking amid a pandemic. Cetin Oguz contributed a series of drawings that explore how COVID-19 has redefined our personal and physical spaces with personal interactions mediated through electronic media. The drawings were created during virtual meetings with his students. Their multiple layers mimic the emotional turmoil many of us experienced in the last year.

Although not directly related to the pandemic, the theme of Kayla Selby’s work takes on new relevance under current circumstances. Selby uses unpredictable processes to simulate the complexities and potential awkwardness of human interactions, especially those that are overthought.

Nathan Pietrykowski’s work documents his ramblings about town through photographs, notes, and drawings which he later collages together to construct narratives that examine the psychogeography of place. Pietrykowski eventually developed a zine to allow others to experience their environment in the same manner. The zine contains instructions on what to look at, how to interact with the environment, and how to leave a mark on that place.

Robyn Wall is a printmaker whose work also focuses on her surroundings. Wall is interested in the narratives we construct about neighborhoods based on the structures and remnants we encounter there – pizza boxes that reveal a neighbor’s favorite pizza brand, discarded toys that betray the age of children living there, or abandoned furniture that announces a neighbor’s move. 

Jesse Ryan Brown explores the relationship between objects and the passing of time in a different manner. His Nothing, Having Arrived, Will Stay uses appropriated 35mm slides as a meditation on the cyclical nature of time.

Michael Stanley’s large-scale steel and LED sculpture is a commentary on the pressures imposed upon us and our responses to them.

Korkut Akacik works in digital and new media. His work addresses political and social issues. He is trying to engage his viewers through unexpected encounters with seductively beautiful imagery or, alternately, with disturbing images and sounds. Frequently, Akacik projects these images onto crumpled surfaces, the resulting distortion serves as a metaphor for the distortion of facts.

Ky Johnston’s new work presents a reflection on his roots in pottery and a continued attempt to blend influences from various sources into functional pottery. The work shown here is based  on functional forms which have been altered or stretched, sometimes cut or faceted. The glazes use common materials including various clays, wood ash, and some raw pigments, and are fired with gas. His goal is to allow the materials, processes, and long history of the craft to inform the end result.

Michaela Merryday’s research interests focus on sustainability and the role of culture in promoting sustainability. The jewelry shown here was fashioned from wood waste produced by furniture making and sculpture classes at DSU.

DSU’s Annual Faculty Exhibition will be on view until October 28. A closing reception will be held on Thursday, October 28 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. The gallery is open Monday through Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on weekends, holidays, and during semester breaks. Masks are required in all DSU facilities. 

PlantBot Genetics, an artist team comprised of Wendy DesChene and Jeff Schmuki uses art and humor to encourage a dialogue about environmental issues such as the pros and cons of genetically modified food and the decline of pollinators such as moths. PlantBot Genetics impersonates a biotech corporation engaged in the satirically misguided research, development, and marketing of transgenetic products. Their work takes the form of public performances as well as gallery exhibitions. During performances, the scientists clad in white lab coats demonstrate their products to the audience. Their gallery exhibition features drawings of potential transgenetic products, photographic documentation of performances, and the actual product – remote-controlled hybrid robot plants.

At Delta State University, PlantBot Genetics will show examples of their hybrid robot-plants as well as work from their ongoing Moth Project. Moth Project is the artists’ response to the decline of pollinator populations. While the decline of the bee population is well publicized, the effect insecticides have had on the moth population rarely makes the news. Moths play a vital role not only as pollinators but also in providing clues about the health of our environment. Moth Project consists of a solar-powered outdoor installation designed to attract moths and allow visitors to observe and learn more about the variety of moths that exist in their environs. One of the tents designed to attract moths, large-scale photographs of moths native to the Delta, paintings, and a series of videos related to Moth Project are on view in their exhibition.

To facilitate their interactive public installations and reach audiences beyond traditional art spaces, the team adapted an 18-foot trailer into a portable, off-grid exhibition, classroom, and community space called The ArtLab.  

PlantBot Genetics was founded in 2009. Highlights of PantBot Genetics’s exhibition record include the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Goethe Institute in Egypt, and the Bach Modern in Austria. Wendy DesChene and Jeff Schmuki also have successful solo careers, DesChene as a painter, Jeff Schmuki as a ceramic artist.