Markirah Shaw
Journalistic Writing
Narrative Non-Fiction
Body, Mind, and Hair Art Exhibit
Follow me.
Keep going straight along this sidewalk. Westby Hall is the building right next to parking lot A, near the railroad tracks.
Come around to the front side, where a sculpture of a soldier in uniform who is hugging his young daughter is. This is a piece done by sculptor Seward Johnson. Now we go through the glass doors, take the staircase going down, then take the first right, and we are at the entrance to the Rowan University Art Gallery.
Right inside the door, you may see Armando Ramirez, one of the art gallery assistants, sitting at a small welcome desk. He is hunched over a notebook, scribbling with a slight frown on his face, but when you walk through the door of the art gallery, he will look up, smile warmly and welcome you to the “Body, Mind, and Hair” art exhibit.
The Rowan University Art Gallery is a fairly small space, it’s about the size of two classrooms, but from Oct. 11 to Nov. 13 you can breathe in the aroma of canvas, wood and paint as you explore the multi-media exhibition of contemporary artwork.
The public can come to the gallery for free from 10a.m-5p.m. Monday through Friday and look at the paintings, sculptures, photography and videos of professional artists celebrating the female body.
The gallery is very quiet. It’s just you, me, and the artwork. Let’s go.
The first piece you will see is one done by Susan Moore called “Dragon.” This is a floor-to-ceiling canvas oil painting of a slightly overweight white female who is sitting on a chair but is twisted around so that you can only see her bare back.
On her lower back is a large tatoo of a red Chinese dragon that looks as if it is twisting and clawing its way off of the woman’s skin towards you. While every other part of this painting is in dull colors and slightly blurry, this dragon’s ruby scales, yellow whiskers, coal black eyes and shiny white talons are crystal clear.
Now, if you turn around you will come face-to-face with a wax sculpture of a nude black woman with curling yellow horns like a ram’s on her forehead and with her long pink tongue sticking out at you.
She is gripping her left breast with her right hand and since she is standing with one of her legs pulled up to her waist, you can see that her genitalia has been sculpted in great detail. This piece is called “Lust” and was created by Laura Frazure, a sculptor and teacher of Anatomy at the New York Academy of Art.
Let’s walk further into the gallery and see what else is here.
Be careful! Don’t trip on that sculpture displayed on the floor. That’s another wax sculpture done by Frazure called “Beauty is only the promise of happiness: Stendhal Reclining.” This woman is also nude but she is white and luxuriating on a bed made of curly blonde hair. Her sexuality isn’t as prominent as in “Lust,” but this is clearly another piece celebrating the female figure.
You can probably hear a song playing very quietly at the very back of the gallery. This music is coming from the small flat screen television hanging on the left wall.
This is where the digital artwork of artist Anastasia Owell Wong is playing on a continuous loop. The animated features are “Open Mouth,” “Same Two” “Owl Face” and “Dig Out.” Each feature is about 20 seconds long.
It’s difficult to describe these digital features, I know. The simple drawings move like a flip book, but the meaning behind them is not as simple. But the loop is very hypnotizing, first a nude woman fights off a snake and then a pile of people are falling out of a giant’s mouth.
Next to this display is another flat screen with a continuous loop of a video called “Haircut” by Yoon Cho. This video is split screen, the left side showing an Asian man getting his hair cut short, the right side showing an Asian woman getting her hair cut just as short as the man’s.
In between the two televisions, are two wooden picture frames. One contains a small amount of hair from the man’s haircut and the second frame is almost half full of the woman’s cut hair.
It looks like we’re almost done our tour.
Hanging on the very back wall is the reason for the woody smell you experienced earlier. Here are two oil on wood paintings. The first painting is of a young girl standing beside a pile of leaves and flowers as tall as she is. She is resting her head on this pile and her light blue eyes are looking out at you. This painting is called “Naiad” and was created by Jenny Laden.
The second oil on wood painting is called “Neath,” also by Laden, and shows just the head of a woman with jet black hair and green skin. She is looking skyward at something that is beyond our view, but in the background are hundreds of squiggling green lines like vines.
These paintings and sculptures might render you speechless by their abstractness and the careful detail that was put into them by the artists, but time seems to fly by as you stand before them and think about what each piece means to you personally.
Come back soon to the Rowan University Art Gallery on Nov. 17 for the “Skin Deep” exhibition.
Journalistic Writing
Narrative Non-Fiction
Body, Mind, and Hair Art Exhibit
Follow me.
Keep going straight along this sidewalk. Westby Hall is the building right next to parking lot A, near the railroad tracks.
Come around to the front side, where a sculpture of a soldier in uniform who is hugging his young daughter is. This is a piece done by sculptor Seward Johnson. Now we go through the glass doors, take the staircase going down, then take the first right, and we are at the entrance to the Rowan University Art Gallery.
Right inside the door, you may see Armando Ramirez, one of the art gallery assistants, sitting at a small welcome desk. He is hunched over a notebook, scribbling with a slight frown on his face, but when you walk through the door of the art gallery, he will look up, smile warmly and welcome you to the “Body, Mind, and Hair” art exhibit.
The Rowan University Art Gallery is a fairly small space, it’s about the size of two classrooms, but from Oct. 11 to Nov. 13 you can breathe in the aroma of canvas, wood and paint as you explore the multi-media exhibition of contemporary artwork.
The public can come to the gallery for free from 10a.m-5p.m. Monday through Friday and look at the paintings, sculptures, photography and videos of professional artists celebrating the female body.
The gallery is very quiet. It’s just you, me, and the artwork. Let’s go.
The first piece you will see is one done by Susan Moore called “Dragon.” This is a floor-to-ceiling canvas oil painting of a slightly overweight white female who is sitting on a chair but is twisted around so that you can only see her bare back.
On her lower back is a large tatoo of a red Chinese dragon that looks as if it is twisting and clawing its way off of the woman’s skin towards you. While every other part of this painting is in dull colors and slightly blurry, this dragon’s ruby scales, yellow whiskers, coal black eyes and shiny white talons are crystal clear.
Now, if you turn around you will come face-to-face with a wax sculpture of a nude black woman with curling yellow horns like a ram’s on her forehead and with her long pink tongue sticking out at you.
She is gripping her left breast with her right hand and since she is standing with one of her legs pulled up to her waist, you can see that her genitalia has been sculpted in great detail. This piece is called “Lust” and was created by Laura Frazure, a sculptor and teacher of Anatomy at the New York Academy of Art.
Let’s walk further into the gallery and see what else is here.
Be careful! Don’t trip on that sculpture displayed on the floor. That’s another wax sculpture done by Frazure called “Beauty is only the promise of happiness: Stendhal Reclining.” This woman is also nude but she is white and luxuriating on a bed made of curly blonde hair. Her sexuality isn’t as prominent as in “Lust,” but this is clearly another piece celebrating the female figure.
You can probably hear a song playing very quietly at the very back of the gallery. This music is coming from the small flat screen television hanging on the left wall.
This is where the digital artwork of artist Anastasia Owell Wong is playing on a continuous loop. The animated features are “Open Mouth,” “Same Two” “Owl Face” and “Dig Out.” Each feature is about 20 seconds long.
It’s difficult to describe these digital features, I know. The simple drawings move like a flip book, but the meaning behind them is not as simple. But the loop is very hypnotizing, first a nude woman fights off a snake and then a pile of people are falling out of a giant’s mouth.
Next to this display is another flat screen with a continuous loop of a video called “Haircut” by Yoon Cho. This video is split screen, the left side showing an Asian man getting his hair cut short, the right side showing an Asian woman getting her hair cut just as short as the man’s.
In between the two televisions, are two wooden picture frames. One contains a small amount of hair from the man’s haircut and the second frame is almost half full of the woman’s cut hair.
It looks like we’re almost done our tour.
Hanging on the very back wall is the reason for the woody smell you experienced earlier. Here are two oil on wood paintings. The first painting is of a young girl standing beside a pile of leaves and flowers as tall as she is. She is resting her head on this pile and her light blue eyes are looking out at you. This painting is called “Naiad” and was created by Jenny Laden.
The second oil on wood painting is called “Neath,” also by Laden, and shows just the head of a woman with jet black hair and green skin. She is looking skyward at something that is beyond our view, but in the background are hundreds of squiggling green lines like vines.
These paintings and sculptures might render you speechless by their abstractness and the careful detail that was put into them by the artists, but time seems to fly by as you stand before them and think about what each piece means to you personally.
Come back soon to the Rowan University Art Gallery on Nov. 17 for the “Skin Deep” exhibition.