2022 Bertha Lear Annual Student Art Exhibition

April 11 – April 22, 2022

Exhibition is on view in the Art Gallery, Woodland Lobby and 2nd Floor Cafe, Library, and Woodland Corridor outside the Art Studios.
Web-based artwork can be found at this link:https://sites.psu.edu/learexhibition/

Reception and Awards Ceremony
Wednesday, April 20th, 2022

Room 112 Woodland and Virtually on Zoom.
Zoom Link: https://psu.zoom.us/s/98200554423
12:30 – 1:30pm

The 2022 Bertha Lear Student Art Exhibition features sculpture, painting, drawing, ceramics, photography, printmaking
and new media work completed in the 2021-22 academic year by students enrolled in studio art courses at Penn State Abington.
The public is welcome to visit the exhibition during library and art gallery hours.

Image: Sierrarose Biello, Sierrarose, Oil on canvas

2022 Bertha Lear Award Winners

BERTHA LEAR PURCHASE AWARD FOR BEST IN SHOW
ZOE BROUSE

Title: The Gazing Trials
Medium: Webcomic
LINK: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-gazing-trials/trial-begins/viewer?title_no=749155&episode_no=1&webtoonType=CHALLENGE

Nesting + Navigation

January 18 – March 4, 2022

Reception / Artist Talk / Demonstration
Monday, February 7th, 2022

Reception: 12:30 – 1:15pm in the Penn State Abington Art Gallery, 116 Woodland Building
Artist Talk: 1:35 – 2:30pm, Room 112 Woodland Building
Demonstration: 2:45 – 4:00pm in the Sculpture Studio, 136 Woodland Building

Installation photos by Jaime Alvarez jaimephoto.com

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

Nesting + Navigation is about family, coupling, bird migration and constellations and highlights the work of Deirdre Murphy, painter and Scott White, sculptor, a married couple who frequently collaborate. Ursa Major, a skydome in the exhibition, represents the Milkyway and the Big Dipper, which is one of the most common constellations and includes Polaris, one of the major stars that make up this star shape. Song Birds navigate by Polaris on their annual Spring and Fall migration to their breeding and feeding grounds. Deirdre’s work on bird migration has heavily influenced the design concept; she usually takes the concept and makes a scaled drawing while Scott sculpts the metal shape that becomes the canvas for their narrative.

Deirdre Murphy and Scott White met in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1998 and married in 2002. Their most creative and important collaboration is their family:  Liam / 17 and Fiona / 12. After graduate school they collaborated on drawings and showed together but it wasn’t until 2015 when they were awarded a public art commission from California that they officially made artwork together. Warbler Migration was a two year project from concept to drawing, to build and installation of the 26’ sculpture. Temple University’s Fox Business School and Charles Library also have sky dome pieces. They have shown their collaborations at Esther Klein Gallery, Main Line Art Center, NoBA gallery and the Zillman Art Museum University of Maine.

Scott and Deirdre will often work on the design process over coffee at the kitchen table, drawing on a napkin or sketchbook. Scott brings his technical knowledge of hand built car design and his expertise in 3D modeling and fabrication to create the elegant domes. Once the drawing is finished  it is then transposed to the form, then the drilling and polishing begin. There are countless hours that go into fabricating a dome shape which is all handmade by sheer strength and engineering. No digital machining is used in the process although due to their perfection many people think otherwise.  After many critiques and design iterations,  and hours of fine grit sanding their collaborations are lit, fine tuning the lighting until it has the correct aura and then it is complete.

This exhibition and related events are generously supported in part by the Humanities Institute’s Humanities in the World Initiative.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Deirdre Murphy

Migration Celestial Map Printing Blocks, Work in Progress. Mixed Media prints. 24” x 48” / diameter prints on Japanese Rice paper. 2021-2022

DEIRDRE MURPHY is a Philadelphia based artist whose art encompasses painting, printmaking, collaborative sculpture and public art, Deirdre Murphy’s artwork is informed by biological patterns in nature and scientific data visualization. A decade of interest in avian migratory patterns, climate change and molecular biology led to residencies at Winterthur Museum (2019), Integral Molecular (2018), Lacawac Field Lab / Drexel University (2018), Powdermill Nature Reserve/ Carnegie Museum of Natural History (2016) and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary (2015), Vermont Studio Center (1998). This deep creative inquiry has led Murphy to grants from the University of Pennsylvania Environmental Humanities, Lehigh University’s Humanities Lab, Leeway Foundation, Pennsylvania Council for the Arts and Percent for the Arts (California). Murphy has exhibited extensively in the United States in museums, galleries and institutions in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Washington, Oregon and Vermont. Solo and selected museum venues include Zillman Art Museum (Maine), Biggs Museum of American Art (Delaware), Palm Springs Museum of Art (California), New Bedford Art Museum (Maine) and Tacoma Art Museum. Her work has been published in numerous publications, Symbiosis Journal, New American Paintings, Fresh Paint Magazine, Antique and Fine Arts Magazine, and Broad Street Review.

Murphy received her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Lehigh University and has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. Visiting artist positions include the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Kent State, University of Texas (Tyler), University of Maine, and Dickinson College. Her work can be found in public collections at Temple University, Zillman Art Museum, Bank of WIlmington, AlphaMed Press, Independence Seaport Museum, Glenmede Trust, University of Pennsylvania and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Museum among others. Murphy is represented by Boxheart Gallery (Pittsburgh), Gross McCleaf Gallery (Philadelphia) and Zinc Contemporary (Seattle).

Scott White

Ursa Major Skydome. 48” diameter steel, LED lit. 2019- 2022

SCOTT WHITE‘s public art sculpture, animation, and designs have been show nationally and internationally in Design Philadelphia, Boxheart Gallery (Pittsburgh), Woodmere Art Museum, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Abington Art Center, and The Main Line Art Center.  He has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants most notably a Percent for the Arts commission (Dublin, CA) and the 40^th Street Artist residency.

White is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania where he teaches 3D Modeling and sculpture and received the Distinguished Teaching Award (2009). He has been a visiting artist at the Simenone Automotive Foundation, University of the Arts, Philadelphia University, Moore College of Art, and Wilmington University and is the owner and operator of Preservation Coachworks LLC. He received his B.S. Skidmore College (1995) and M.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (2000).

as within, so without

November 1 – December 10, 2021

Virtual Artist Talk Wednesday, November 10th, 12:15 – 1:15pm

https://psu.zoom.us/j/96408387341?pwd=Z0ZmcHZ1TzFTdnMrSHI3UEhTbVdHdz09

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

as within, so without brings together paintings from Rebecca Saylor Sack’s ongoing series; Bird Beast Flowers (2014 – present).  These works draw from the history of still life painting, and are informed by the artist’s interest in natural history, literature, science fiction, film, and open-world video gaming.

The works in this exhibition are painted from life.  Sack assembles structures in her studio from bones she has collected; flowers she has cultivated and harvested.  Uninterested in a literal translation of forms, she responds to the circulation and transformation experienced over the process of creating her work.  Drawing upon the genre of vanitas paintings, the works explore anxieties of the body through the materiality of paint.

As an artist, Sack is fascinated by how the biological expresses itself through the body in an increasingly digitized landscape. She is interested in the slippage between haptic and virtual experience, the lived and the imaginary, with particular attention to the temporal aspects of perception and how sensation is mediated through form and matter. She processes these new technologies and configurations of experience through one of the oldest media of artistic making: paint. She returns to paint repeatedly because of its ability to invoke the physicality of the body and its ephemeral and messy presence through an inherent materiality, and a capacity to mark the traces of touch.

Sack seeks to create works that ride the threshold between beauty and violence, and insist upon a slower read from the viewer. Working with oil on panel, she consciously uses the liquidity of paint and color as a means of invoking sensations that seduce and repulse by turns. Paint is layered and then cut away to create passages of broad brushstrokes that are contrasted with seemingly impossible delicate passages of paint in order to force a telescopic viewing experience. Much of her palette is gleaned from film or open world video games, where sensual color and the visual sublime are juxtaposed with the threat of impending violence.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Rebecca Saylor Sack earned her MFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University and her BFA from The Cooper Union.

She is a recipient of the Fleisher Wind Challenge, and the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship from the United States Department of Education. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions nationwide, including Nicelle Beauchene Gallery (New York, NY); Westbeth Gallery (New York, NY); Seraphin Gallery (Philadelphia, PA); Fette’s Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); and Silas Marder Gallery (Bridgehampton, NY); The Michener Art Museum (Doylestown, PA); West Chester University (West Chester, PA); Stockton University (Galloway, NJ); The University of Delaware (Newark, DE) and internationally at the National Art Museum of China, (Beijing, China); Galleria Glance (Torino, Italy); and Donn Roca Gallery (Odense, Denmark). Sack’s work is in the collection of the National Art Museum of China, Alter Hall Collection, and Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, in addition to national and international private collections.

She is currently the Fine Arts Program Director and Painting emphasis coordinator at The University of the Arts.

To find out more about Rebecca Saylor Sack please visit https://www.rebeccasaylorsack.com/

Penn State Abington College
2021 Art Faculty Exhibition

August 30 – October 1, 2021

Reception Thursday, September 23rd, 12:00 – 1:00pm

As we return to campus after nearly 18 months of remote and hybrid learning, the Penn State Abington Art Gallery is pleased to present the work of faculty who teach in the Art Department. Works on view showcase the broad range of formal and conceptual explorations by faculty who teach in a variety of disciplines including Drawing and Painting, Sculpture and Installation Art, New Media and Digital Art, Printmaking, Photography, Ceramics, Graphic Novel and Narrative Arts, Wooden Boatbuilding, and Art History.

Nearly all work in this exhibition was made during the 2020 and ongoing pandemic. Although not all work deals with the pandemic directly in terms of content, this exhibition does reveal the thinking and work-processes of a sampling of artists, scholars, and educators who are active in their disciplines during a time of upheaval and uncertainty.

Including work by Chris Bonner, Bill Cromar, Dawn Kramlich, Bonnie Levinthal, Yvonne Love, Katie Mato, Daniel Oliva, Walter Plotnick, Paul Rider, Emily Steinberg, H. John Thompson, and Ricardo Zapata

Chris Bonner
Assistant Teaching Professor of Art, Ceramics

Bill Cromar
Associate Teaching Professor of Art, New Media
Makerspace Director
interactive: http://www.personal.psu.edu/wrc11/meme_n_to_ma_ga_m_or_i/

Dawn Kramlich
Lecturer of Art, Drawing and Painting, Sculpture

Bonnie Levinthal
Professor of Art, Printmaking, Drawing and Painting

Yvonne Love
Associate Professor of Art, Sculpture
Art Program Chair

Katie Mato
Assistant Teaching Professor of Art History

Daniel Oliva
Lecturer of Art, Drawing and Painting

Walter Plotnick
Lecturer of Art, Photography

Paul Rider
Lecturer of Art, Photography

Emily Steinberg
Lecturer of Art, Narrative Arts and Graphic Novel

H. John Thompson
Associate Teaching Professor of Art, Foundations
Art Gallery Director

Ricardo Zapata
Lecturer of Art, Drawing and Painting, New Media

For questions, and if you would like to include this exhibition in your course content and/or programs
please contact H. John Thompson, Art Gallery Director at hjt106@psu.edu.

Photos by Penn State Abington students reflecting the 2020 experience.

March 2-19, 2021

on view Monday through Thursday (and most Fridays) 9am – 4pm

Photo by Moira Connelly

This exhibition includes work by:
Megan Close
Moira Connelly
Wanqing Feng
Can Guo
Lunwei Li
Yujun Liu
Tais Morais
Dana Patrone
Tais Morais
Chuyi Zhang
Ziqiong Zhang

For questions, and if you would like to include this exhibition in your course content and/or programs
please contact H. John Thompson, Art Gallery Director at hjt106@psu.edu.

background photo by Megan Close