Opening Reception for DSU’s Annual Faculty Exhibition at Studio 230

Delta State University’s Art Department invites the community to the opening reception of its annual faculty exhibition on Thursday, October 17, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm at Studio 230, 110 B South Court Street, Cleveland, MS. 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.

Ted Fisher and Jesse Ryan Brown both take a documentary approach. Ted Fisher worked in photography, digital media, installation art, and curatorial work before turning to filmmaking. This background “complicated his approach to filmmaking” as the artist put it. It also taught him that “documentary is not a parade of fascinating encounters, but a revelation of a filmmaker’s wrestling match with the simple event in front of the lens.”

Brown will show a series of photographs that feature an abandoned farm he came across in North Carolina. For Brown, “The house, inhabited only by objects and memories, acts as a living time capsule of a family whose way of life was never digitized.” In this series, Brown is trying to come to terms with the loss of memories. He explains that with time stories are clouded through age. He regards his role that of a witness who captures and preserves these memories.
Ky Johnston also explores with memories in a new series of paintings. These paintings are based on experiences from his past and the personal memories he attaches to them but Johnston presents them in such a way that his audience can relate these experiences and memories to their own.

Cetin Oguz, Nathan Pietrykowski, and Robbyn Wall have been interested in the associations that places carry. Oguz has created a series of paintings of Jones Bayou which passes under his studio in downtown Cleveland Mississippi. According to Oguz, the bayou changes every day, it rises and falls, it expands and contracts. One day, the water beautifully reflects the skies, the plant life and one day it ripples with the rhythm of rain. Oguz explains that “While painting and witnessing the daily transformation of the bayou, I am more attached to the present moment while distancing myself from the anxieties of the future. My paintings are mental and physical interpretations of the scenery that I witness. They are transformative records of my engagement with time and place.”
Pietrykowski likes to take walks around town and document his excursions through photographs, notes, and drawings which he later collages together to construct narratives that examine the psychogeography of place.

Robyn Wall is a printmaker whose work explores the personal associations our surroundings carry, whether landscapes or structures. At the same, she makes the viewer aware that our memories can distort and recreate our images of these places.

Michael Stanley and Michaela Merryday are both interested in social and political issues. Michael Stanley will display two new sculptures that address social, political, and economic disparities. Stanley acknowledges that “these issues are also incredibly complex and it is difficult to filter out the truth. Instead of trying to find the answers to these issues, I am reframing them and posing the question to my audience. Truth is only true if we believe it to be so.”
Michaela Merryday’s research interests focus on sustainability and the role of culture in promoting sustainability. This year she is showing jewelry made from wood and stone dust waste produced by furniture making and sculpture classes at DSU.

Kayla Selby employs a combination of digital and traditional media to explore interactions and the pressure to appease others in the current social landscape.
Like Ted Fisher, Thomas Rasheed has a diverse background that includes painting, graphic design, illustration, and digital media. Rasheed creates high-contrast photo-realistic imagery.

While the faculty exhibition will be on view at Studio 230, the Sammy Britt Retrospective continues at the Fielding Wright Art Center Gallery on the DSU campus.

DSU’s Annual Faculty Exhibition will be on view at Studio 230 until November 14. Studio 230 is open Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday 1 P.M.-5 P.M. For more information about the faculty exhibition, please contact the Art Department at 662-846-4720. Visit our website at https://www.deltastate.edu/artsandsciences/art/gallery/ to join our email list to receive regular updates on upcoming events or follow us on Facebook.