SIUE’s Art & Design West Gallery Showcases Faculty and Emeriti Work
It has been a busy exhibition season for Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Art and Design West Gallery this fall semester. Recently, three Department of Art and Design faculty members exhibited ceramics, glass, sculpture, metalsmithing, textiles, photography, painting, printmaking and graphic design, produced during their sabbaticals.
The show “Art & Design Faculty Exhibition” featured Jayashree George, PhD, Assistant Professor and Art Therapy program director, Aimee Clinger, Associate Professor of metalsmithing and Abbey Hepner, Associate Professor of photography and digital media.
George’s sabbatical produced a narrative essay, “Attuning to Generational Relational Wisdom through Elephants,” published in Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice, along with an in-press book chapter on caste identity in therapy. Several of her paintings from the essay were on display, including “My Body as Text,” a cyanotype with embroidery.
“Using my elephant paintings as research, I explored connections between ecology and climate change, feminism, the history of caste oppression and what an anti-oppressive stance might look like,” George said.
Hepner’s featured work, “Dairy for the Downwinders,” came from her family’s history on a Nevada dairy farm. Between 1951 and 1992, the U.S. government conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests in the Nevada desert. Hepner notes wind carried harmful material from the tests onto the land where her family’s cows grazed, and the family drank the milk from those cows. Two of Hepner’s great-uncles later died of leukemia, a cancer linked to nuclear testing. The gallery installation paired milk jars bearing portraits, made through a darkroom process called Liquid Light, with archival family photographs framed in handmade beads made from cow’s milk. A larger collection is on view in the Singapore International Photography Festival.
“I question how historical events reverberate in the present day and how learning about our ancestors and their connection to the land provides opportunities for healing,” Hepner said.
Currently, the SIUE Department of Art and Design presents “One More Look,” an Emeriti faculty show. The exhibition runs through Monday, Nov. 3, and features artwork and presentations by John DenHouter, MFA, Professor Emeritus of Foundations, Danny Holder, Professor Emeritus of Art History and Laura Strand, MFA, Professor Emerita of Textile Arts.
PHOTOS: From left: SIUE Department of Art and Design faculty Associate Professor of Metalsmithing Aimee Clinger, Art Therapy Program Director Jayashree George, PhD, and Associate Professor of Photography and Digital Media Abbey Hepner.
