UHCL Art Gallery exhibits graduate students’ sculptures and ceramics
The UHCL Art Gallery opened its 2017 UHCL Graduate Student Exhibit June 1 showcasing former and current students’ pieces in sculpture and ceramics. Graduate candidate pieces are featured and will be on display through Aug. 10.
The exhibition was curated by Clay Leonard, assistant professor of art, and features work by past and present graduate students Natasha Gallagher, David Gonzalez, Holly Gottula, David Moya, Wyatt Schultz, Margaret Solomon-Bird and Colleen Steblein.
This is the first graduate student exhibit since 2013. Leonard invited the artists and selected the works to be presented. Together, Leonard and the artists worked to arrange the room to best showcase each of the artists’ pieces.
“We paid close attention to how the pieces related to each other and the stories they tell across the gallery,” Leonard said.
The art on display was a series of striking and thought-provoking statues and ceramics. The arrangement guides the viewer around the room from icons of childhood to faces of age and works of deeper interpretation.
David Gonzalez, whose works have been previously featured in the UHCL Art Gallery, returns with ceramics and bronze castings. Gonzalez’s Plea of the Last Faun, a large bronze casting of a satyr’s head, stares up at the guests as they enter.
David Gonzalez, notes how his piece, Plea of the Last Faun, involves talking about the artists and how he or she feels during the creative process.
“It is often the stories of how people relate to my work that make everything worthwhile,” Gonzalez said. “While I have a reason to make [pieces of art] and a story behind them, the way the audience looks and perceives it is so unique that listening to how they are affected by it can sometimes change how I view my own work.”
From the back of the gallery Natasha Gallagher’s Physiognomies of Power, a porcelain triplet of busts, looks down on the patrons as they walk the room. Colleen Steblein’s Slinky Dog and Not So Little People, both stoneware, evoke impressions of childhood with bright swatches of color.
Jeff Bowen, coordinator of audience development at the UHCL Art Gallery, commended Leonard for his curation of the show and the art chosen to be on display.
“This is a strong exhibition,” said Bowen. “Professor Leonard did an outstanding job putting it together. Overall, I think the showcase demonstrates the limitless possibilities available to artists working with a given medium – in this case, mostly clay.”
Leonard said he was very proud of the work chosen to fill the gallery, and how the students’ pieces fit together around the room.
“The work was chosen to represent the diversity in expression and highlight each artists’ individual research ideas,” Leonard said. “I feel like this is a great representation of what we do here at UHCL.”
Admission to the UHCL Art Gallery is free. For more information about the exhibits, contact UHCL Coordinator of Audience Development Jeff Bowen at 281-283-3376 or visit the art gallery website.
Also published on Medium.
