Please join us in the RSM Art Gallery on Thursday, September 13, from 5:00-7:00 p.m, to celebrate artist John Wawrzonek and his exhibit of large-format photographs, The Hidden World of the Nearby. Meet the artist, view the art, and enjoy some light refreshments!
The Hidden World of the Nearby: Photographs by John Wawrzonek
Artist’s Reception Thursday, September 13 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Now on view in the RSM Art Gallery is The Hidden World of the Nearby, an installation of large format photographs by John Wawrzonek. All are invited to attend an opening reception for the artist on Thursday, September 13, from 5:00-7:00 p.m. Please visit the gallery to view the show before it closes on September 30.
The Hidden World of the Nearby: Photographs by John Wawrzonek August 20 – September 30
Artist’s Reception Thursday, September 13 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Artist’s Statement
I started photographing as a hobby when I was 8. I was 30 and working at Bose Corporation when I got the urge to make really good large prints of nature. I bought a view camera in 1974. I did not want my pictures to give themselves away as photographs by being out of focus or failing to show fine detail. I liked finely detailed texture and color and worked for the most part by finding these qualities in nature, and only then working on making the composition.
I also began to realize that making my own prints would be important. The best printing method I found was called dye transfer which was invented in the 1930s. Besides giving me control over contrast and saturation it was capable of extraordinarily brilliant color. I used the process for 19 years until the materials were discontinued. By then Epson had started to make extraordinary digital printers with archival inks.
The subjects I reacted to most strongly were like tapestries, extending from corner to corner and often with little in the way of a center of interest. I wanted the viewer’s eye to wander so I put in only hints of a “subject” or center of interest.
After 28 years with the view camera I found it more and more difficult to find new subjects. But soon a new very good digital camera perked my interest again. I found many mums with extraordinary colors at a local nursery and began to enjoy creating the subject in a sense as well as photographing. When photographing the mums, I had made a trundle that allowed me to put several pots side-by-side with the camera shooting straight down. Shooting digital involved photographing in sections and using focus stacking to get really good detail with everything in focus. The large “mélange” required about 120 exposures.
The “musical” images are created in Photoshop from studio photographs made for me by Douglas Saglio. All but one of the images is almost entirely based on edges, so the instrument becomes in a sense transparent so I can create a foreground (the melody) and a repeating background (a continuo). There are just two instruments: a saxophone and a French horn in the images on display. What is next I am not sure, but there are many more musical instruments to work with.
My original collection of landscapes I called “The Hidden World of the Nearby” since all the images were made from ordinary roadsides (often Interstate Highways) where one would usually not think of photographing. In a sense, the flowers and musical instruments are also hidden images, only revealed after much experimenting.
Locally I have been seeing the effects of global warming. At the moment I am obsessed with a website on global warming that blends my various careers and skills to try to teach about what is happening and to warn that we are on the edge of warmth that we must find a way of stopping. The website is inanothersshoes.com. More of my work can be found on my website wawrzonek.com.
By day Debra Kennedy is the Director of Executive Education at Bentley University; at night and on weekends she paints! Opening on January 20th in the RSM Art Gallery is an installation of Debra’s paintings she has titled Color – Light – Passion. We are very pleased to host a reception to celebrate the opening of the exhibit on Wednesday, January 24, 2018 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. We hope you can join us!
Color – Light – Passion
Paintings by Debra Kennedy
January 20 – March 2, 2018
Artist’s Reception:
Wednesday, January 24, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Artist’s Statement:
Debra Kennedy is a representational artist and has been a painter most of her adult life. Her paintings document places she spends time: in Boston, on Cape Cod, and in southern Florida. For many years Debra worked solely in watercolor and loved the loose fluidity of the paint and the challenge of the experience. For the past several years she has been working in oils, enjoying the texture and the richness of color. By day Debra is the Director of Executive Education at Bentley University. At night and on weekends she paints! For Debra, “creative pursuits have a way of stretching all aspects of thinking and seeing challenges. Painting is play – it is good for the soul.”
Opening on October 5th is an installation of paintings and sculpture by artist Robert Collins. An opening reception for the artist will be held on Wednesday, October 18, from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Robert Collins Paintings and Sculpture
October 5 – November 10, 2017
Opening Reception
Wednesday, October 18
5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Artist’s Statement:
This body of work represents four years of an investigation of still life painting and sculpture. You will not find a defined table top, beautifully placed romantic objects, or even a defined light source. Instead, you will experience the relationships between objects, vertical compositions, controlled space and design. You will discover, as I did, a more complex love for two-dimensional design and composition.
I look long and hard for relationships between objects, vertical movements, and value balance. These are the harmonious relationships I see in an everyday still life situation. In this work, the paintings and sculptures come first, with their own vocabulary and style. Second, comes a slight glimpse of formal still life concerns. Spirit and a poetic thought communicate to the viewer before the actual look and feel of a traditional still life. This emphasis on two-dimensional concerns and vertical relationships takes the viewer to new experiences in still life viewing. This creates an abstracted view of the still life, putting the emphasis on the design and sensibilities of the artist.
These two-dimensional design concerns actually allow me to express a more authentic still life, one created with emotion and feeling that can be set aside from the traditional literal approach to this classical subject matter.
My Brother’s Black Body
Exposition of Photographs by Malakhai Pearson
April 10 – April 21, 2017
Opening Reception
Monday, April 10, 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Now on view in the RSM Art Gallery is an exposition of photographs by Bentley University student Malakhai Pearson titled My Brother’s Black Body.
An opening reception for the exhibit will be held on Monday, April 10 at 4:00 p.m. in the gallery. Guests will have the opportunity to hear Malakhai speak about his photographs. Rev. Emmett Price and Professor Kiana Pierre-Louis will offer additional remarks reflecting on the artist’s work.
Artist’s Statement
My Brother’s Black Body
“The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, of confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from ghosts and girded me against the sheer terror of disembodiment.”
— Ta Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
The images in this exhibition are a celebration of the life and body of the young black male in America today and serve as a meditation on the public depiction of the black body. For me, these images are also a reflection of how I view my own blackness, touching on issues of masculinity and self-love.
My Brother’s Black Body was originally funded by and curated for the Boston College Libraries in collaboration with the Boston College Women’s Center as a part of Love Your Body Week in the fall of 2016.
Now on view in the art gallery is Ghost Space, a sculptural installation by ceramic artist Josephine Burr. Please join us at the opening reception on Thursday, March 23rd, from 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Burr, a Boston-based artist, creates objects that she calls “markers for the invisibilia that underlie our experience of the world: the shifting terrain of memory, faith, and relationship.” Ghost Space presents a series of “still life” tableaux referencing the familiar, evocative language of domestic space – wallpaper and textile patterns, utilitarian vessels – abstracted into quiet meditations on memory and loss.
More information about Josephine Burr and her work can be found on her website and in the artist statement below.
Josephine Burr Ghost Space March 12 – April 6, 2017
Opening Reception:
Thursday, March 23
5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Artist Statement:
From my perspective, the history of clay is mute and absorbent. It exists as a foundational, constant, and yet invisible presence – as pot, as brick, as toilet and basin, as earth. I respond to its silence and its capacity. It is a holder of time and of the unnoticed, of the underpinnings of consciousness and of daily life.
As an artist and a maker, I am interested in probing at this unnoticed space, exploring how the temporality of experience can be distilled into visible, tactile form. The objects and drawings I create are in a sense markers for the invisibilia that underlie our daily experience of being: the shifting terrain of presence, memory, and relationship. The body of work presented in Ghost Space makes reference to familiar and ubiquitous objects – a still life of pots, buckets and basins, wallpaper and textile patterns – while simultaneously carrying a sense of fluidity, fragility and porousness. The empty space between and within these objects is as central to the work as the objects themselves.
The ceramic medium is a tool for drawing, much like a pen or a brush. Clay offers both a malleable material for “drawing” form in space, pinching and coaxing it into form; and a surface on which line, color and light can be manipulated. It is my hope that this work carries with it the freshness of the drawn mark, a fleeting moment captured; and offers the viewer a point of entry to linger and contemplate this floating and uncertain space.
Josephine Burr is an artist living and working in Boston. She has exhibited and lectured nationally, and taught at University of Massachusetts, Harvard University, and Babson College as well as numerous craft programs in Boston and New York. She is represented by Lacoste Gallery in Concord, MA and Cynthia Winings Gallery in Blue Hill, ME. Her work can be found at www.josephineburr.com.
The Bentley Campus: From Boston to Waltham Bentley University Centennial Exhibit January 17 – March 5, March 2, 2017 [Note new closing date]
Opening Reception Wednesday, January 18 at 12:30 p.m. Remarks by trustee emeritus and Centennial Committee chairman George Fantini ‘64
The Historical Subcommittee is proud to present the second in a series of three Centennial exhibits in the RSM Art Gallery. The Bentley Campus: From Boston to Waltham traces the university’s history from a small room in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood to the sprawling suburban campus we know today.
Find out more about what life was like for Bentley students in the early decades of the 20th century – the classrooms on Boylston Street, early dormitories on Commonwealth Avenue, and the ever-present sound of the Prudential Center being built! Discover how Bentley’s leaders made the bold decision to move to Waltham, and get a glimpse of “Cedar Hill” before our now iconic buildings were constructed.
This exhibit is now interactive, thanks to the addition of a video viewing tablet located in the gallery. Come see historic footage of our founder Harry C. Bentley and hear him give a speech! Watch as construction workers lay foundation for the Waltham campus, or see what dormitories looked like in the 1980’s. A wealth of new footage from the Bentley Archives will premiere with this exhibit.
George Fantini ’64, trustee emeritus and chairman of the Centennial Celebration, will offer brief remarks at an opening reception for the exhibit on Wednesday, January 18 at 12:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served. We hope you can join us!
Now on view in the RSM Art Gallery is Genetic Passages: The Genotype Phenotype Project of Helen Donis-Keller, a collection of works by scientist and artist Helen Donis-Keller. An opening reception for the artist will be held on Tuesday, November 15, from 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. At the reception, Dr. Donna Blancero, Bentley University’s Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs in Business, will briefly speak on the themes of Dr. Donis-Keller’s art and how it relates to issues of diversity.
To learn more about the exhibit please read the artist’s statement below. More information about Helen Donis-Keller and her work can be found on her website.
Genetic Passages: The Genotype Phenotype Project of Helen Donis-Keller
October 27 – December 2, 2016
Opening Reception with Helen Donis-Keller and
Dr. Donna Blancero, Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs in Business Tuesday, November 15, 2016 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Artist Statement
Genetic Passages: The Genotype Phenotype Project
Most of the art that I make is inspired by my engagement with the natural world. As a biologist my world-view is based on an understanding of the unity of all organisms throughout evolution on our planet. Traversing the natural world from the molecular level to the biosphere I feel a deep appreciation for the complexity of life and for how much there is yet to learn. The ways I interpret the world as an artist and my choices for subject matter are inextricably linked to my life as a scientist.
The Genotype Phenotype Project originates from my research in human genetics and the human genome project. My lab group studied the relationship between genotype, one’s genetic potential embodied in the inherited DNA genome, and the phenotype, the outward appearance of an individual that can be observed and described. The phenotype is the product of the interaction between genes and environment. I used the vehicle of self-portraiture as an accessible metaphor for the complex relationship between what one inherits and what one becomes over time. An identity photograph, my Sam’s Club card photograph, served as the foundation and this image was deconstructed into six digital images of varying resolution. The six images formed the genotype from which many phenotype images were created. By printing one image over another using aluminum plate photolithography many phenotype images resulted. The work in this exhibition shows the culmination of the project whereby two self-portraits are printed then combined by physically weaving them together, underscoring the dependence of past on present. Each resulting phenotype has a title that is similar to how we would name a lab specimen. The project continues as more phenotypes emerge from the single progenitor identity card image.