Artists put human, animal behavior under microscope
The Student Exhibition Center will display the gallery exhibit, “The Recital of Flesh: Transcending Time and Transmutation,” Feb. 27 through March 20. Artists Jenni Lombardi, Ian Minich and Mateo Rueda use differing media—sculpture, wet-plate collodion tintype photographs and digital art, respectively— to investigate the intrinsic qualities of humans and animals.
Jenni Lombardi creates human/animal hybrids
Lombardi began as a painter but now fully embraces clay and ceramics as her primary medium. She is fascinated by how humans are connected to animals, specifically through primal instinct and genetics. Lombardi, working with malleable materials such as clay, explores mutation and genetic engineering as a metaphor to demonstrate how easily connected and interchangeable humans and animals are, whether instinctually or genetically.
Ian Minich brings tintype to a new age
Minich explores the wet plate collodion process, resulting in photographs made directly on aluminum or glass. Minich creates images with more narrative qualities, initiating a visual dialogue not only between the past and present, but also with regard to identity, race, class, and gender and how our perception of time. His work surpassing traditional portraiture, taking tintypes to a level rarely explored with the process.
Mateo Rueda offers taxonomic perspective
Rueda works with schematics in the form of Bitácora, a journal that is related to the observations explorers would make about their journeys, where he merges the schematics with a set of animal sketches. In a taxonomic manner, the work is exposed in different compositions. Each piece talks about a set of species or subspecies of the animal kingdom.
Event Details
Exhibition: Friday Feb. 27 – Friday, March 20
Artists’ Reception: 5–7 p.m., March 27
First Friday Art Walk: 6–10 p.m., March 6