CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Performance sculpture, endurance drawing and photographs that explore the ties between people and place will be featured in upcoming exhibitions at Figure One, the School of Art + Design‘s exhibition space in downtown Champaign.
Untitled, Archival Inkjet Print, 2010.
The school, a unit in the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois, established the exhibition space this fall as a learning laboratory to help students transition from the classroom to the rigors of the professional world.
The upcoming exhibitions are part of the “10 to Watch” series, which is introducing the public to intriguing student work throughout Figure One’s inaugural year. Students selected for the series confer with a curator throughout the year to develop work for the solo exhibitions.
Curating the series are Jorge Lucero, a faculty member in the art education program; Jimmy Luu, coordinator of Figure One and a professor of graphic design; and Tumelo Mosaka, curator of contemporary art at Krannert Art Museum.
The second round of exhibitions in the series, which opens Friday (Nov. 12), includes work by Will Arnold, Justin Farkas and Michael Smith.
Arnold’s large-scale photographs investigate rural and suburban America and the relationship between the physical landscape and its inhabitants. Although no people are present in the photographs, a human’s presence is latent in the traces that have been left behind, said Luu, the curator working with Arnold.
A former software developer from Elmira, N.Y., Arnold holds a degree in computer science from Bucknell University and is pursuing a master of fine arts degree in photography while teaching at Illinois.
Farkas will work on site on an evolving sculpture titled “Collapsible Systems: Y’all Come Back Now, Ya Hear.” Farkas will change the sculpture by adding and subtracting elements several times a week. Mosaka is the curator working with Farkas.
Although Farkas’ early work focused on painting, he is best known for his large site-specific installations and sculptural objects that use fragments of home décor and construction materials and for his vivid use of composition and color. The Urban Culture Project/Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., awarded Farkas a studio in 2008, and his work, along with that of artist Miles Neidinger, was featured in a show titled “The Ambivalent Nature of Things Around Us.”
Farkas is pursuing a master of fine arts degree in sculpture at Illinois, which awarded him a graduate fellowship and Academic Achievement Award in 2009. He holds an associate of fine arts degree from St. Louis Community College and a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Kansas City Art Institute.
A reception, “An Evening With Justin Farkas,” will be 6-8 p.m. on Nov. 19.
Smith is performing endurance art by working from 5 a.m.-8 p.m.
Tuesdays-Fridays from Nov. 9 until Dec. 3 on a piece called “Scrivener,” a continuous drawing composed of tick marks on a scroll of paper. His completion of the piece will occur during the opening reception, “An Evening With Michael Smith,” on Dec. 3 from 6-9 p.m. Lucero has been conferring with Smith on this work.
Smith’s work, which includes large-scale drawings composed of marks ranging from a thirty-second of an inch to less than half the size of a period in 12-point type, combine pure process with the mode of representation employed by the turn-of-the-century medical illustration. Smith also explores the relationship between emotion and repetitive motion as well as that of focus and patience within the definition of art “work.”
A student in the master of fine arts degree/studio program in FAA at Illinois, Smith holds dual bachelor’s degrees in fine art and in creative writing from the Kansas City Art Institute.
Located at 116 N. Walnut St., Figure One is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays 11 a.m.-4 p.m. and Fridays 4-9 p.m. More information is available online at http://seefigureone.org and at http://www.facebook.com/seefigureone.
Figure One is funded in part by a gift from alumnus James Avery as a tribute to former art and design faculty member James Ross Shipley, who influenced Avery’s life and career.
This article was imported from a previous version of the News Bureau website. Please email news@illinois.edu to report missing photos and/or photo credits.
