EDWARDSVILLE - The Edwardsville Arts Center invites the community to a reception for the current exhibit, “Still Lives: Painters and Objects” on Friday, August 26th from 6-8pm! In the DeToye Student Gallery a display of submissions for this year’s “Out and About” Banner Contest which is hosted with the Campus to Community Committee. The winners’ banners will be hung on lampposts in downtown Edwardsville and throughout the SIUE Campus.
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“Still Lives: Painters and Objects” was curated by former SIUE Professor of Painting, Jane Barrow, and features 16 professional painters from all over the United States. Each artist is exhibiting only two or three paintings and have had their work exhibited in galleries and venues throughout the country. In choosing artists to invite, Barrow “selected contemporary painters whose interests are either perceptual, emphasizing the painterly illusions of light and form, or conceptual, focusing on ways objects speak to a range of contexts, topics, and concerns.” This exhibit showcases a wide range of the ways still life as a genre can explore ideas and sentiments. While each artist works from a unique standpoint, they each display great skill with their medium and select objects to study for their beauty, or pathos.
Samantha Slone is a Filipina American who uses still life painting to spark consideration of the connections and disparities between ecology, consumerism, economic stability in the first and third worlds, and sustainability. Her paintings are large, remarkable in their realism, and are often composed of groupings of food with other unexpected objects sprinkled throughout. In her artist statement, she writes, “These paintings engage the environmentalist movement through a lens of class and consumerism, noting the degrees of economic separation that serve as buffers between consumer and resource.”
Two artists working in the style of trompe l’oeil, a French phrase meaning “deceives the eye”, are Jason Bly and Tim Liddy. Trompe-l'oeil is a technique that uses paint to form an optical illusion that the painted objects are actually placed on top of the canvas or panel. Chad Alligood, Curator of American Art, said of Liddy’s work, “once you’ve discovered the truth, you are caught up in the astonishing detail and verisimilitude, and you’re drawn in to investigate more closely.” Some of Liddy’s works may not immediately present themselves as works of art – keep an eye out for a stack of books in the EAC gallery that may not really be a stack of books!
The Edwardsville Arts Center is a community visual arts center located in Edwardsville, Illinois featuring local, regional, and national artists in its exhibit space. Within the center, affordable, unique art pieces are also available for purchase in the gift shop. The arts center is dedicated to the community, offering regular art exhibitions and classes to enrich the area’s cultural experiences with affordable education and entertainment. EAC’s open hours: Wednesday-Friday, 9am-3pm, or Saturday, 11am-3pm. To learn more, call the Edwardsville Arts Center at (618) 655-0337 or visit their website, www.edwardsvilleartscenter.com.
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