One night the dream changed/ video work by Kelly Sears at the HECG

Montana State University School of Art and the Helen E. Copeland Gallery are excited to present One night the dream changed, an exhibition of stop animations by Kelly Sears, experimental filmmaker.  Six short pieces will be screened and cycled from Tuesday, February 4 – Friday, February 21 in the Helen E. Copeland Gallery. Sears appropriates and collages motion imagery from American history and culture, often creating mythical narratives and thereby social commentaries on mass culture and society.

 

Sears’ sources images from a myriad of photographic Americana– the type of old manuals and magazines that are usually laid to rest in unkempt thrift stores, or the forgotten tomes of home and garden catalogues in your mother’s basement.  For example, 1980s gym routines and First-Aid manuals; the US Army Survival Manual in Pattern for Survival;  historic NASA expeditions from the 1960’s in The Drift; and other pictures synonymous with the American ideals of success, health, and the ideal nuclear family are fused together to construct myths that shift between the official histories and the uncanny.  Simultaneously, Sears explores contemporary narratives of power, such as manifest destiny, occupation, and surveillance.

 

Alternately, in works such as Body Besieged and Applied Pressure, Sears manipulates her materials to focus on gender roles, power structures, and sexual misconduct.  Interestingly, Sears’ use of sourced material first seems comical, luring the viewer.  Slowly, her works reveal a more insidious commentary that can leave one haunted like the morning after an elusive nightmare. Repetitious frenetic gestures, ominous soundscapes, and compressed or altered timing at first seem arbitrary, only to evoke a sense of uncertainty, danger, or even violence. There is a subtlety to Sears’ oeuvre in that her films, even those dealing with a science fiction plot line, all seem to reflect the deceptive ethos of an America that is alarmingly familiar to us; an uncanny America, from which we often prefer to avert our eyes.

Sears’ filmography boasts pages of screenings all across the US and internationally.  Venues include the Portland Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles Museum County Museum of Art, The Hammer Museum, Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Film Festival, American Film Institute Film Festival, and Sundance Film Festival. She has been awarded residencies such as the Yaddo Artist Residency, The Core Program/Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Galveston Artist Residency. In 2000, Sears received a B.A. from Hampshire College and an M.F.A. from the University of California, San Diego in 2005. Sears currently teaches Film and Animation Production at the University of Colorado, Boulder. More information on Sears and her work can be found at www.kellysears.com, on Wikipedia, or Vimeo.

 

The Helen E. Copeland Gallery is located on the second floor of Haynes Hall, across from the Aashiem Gate off 11th Avenue on MSU Bozeman Campus.  The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 am – 5 pm whenever classes are in session. Please note that parking passes are required for parking during the business day (6 am – 6 pm) and extra parking can be found at the garage near the Student Union.  For more information on the gallery and upcoming programming, please visit www.hecgallery.com or call (406) 994-4501.

 

 

Sub Pop at the Copeland

The Montana State University School of Art will exhibit artifacts from the Seattle-based independent music label that was a pioneer of the grunge music movement Jan. 8-31 in the Helen E. Copeland Gallery.The collection, which represents 30 years of Sub Pop Records, will culminate with a lecture by award-winning creative director Jeff Kleinsmith and Sub Pop Records graphic designer Sasha Barr at 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 30, at Inspiration Hall in Norm Asbjornson Hall.

 

Kleinsmith and Barr will discuss the independent music label that grew from humble beginnings in 1988 to become a pioneer of the grunge music movement. The label became a force in independent music, producing more than 1,2000 releases, including music for Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, The Shins, Sleater-Kinney, Shabazz Palaces, The Postal Service, Beach House and more.

 

Jeffrey Conger, professor of graphic design in the School of Art in the College of Arts and Architecture, said the exhibit will appeal to anyone interested in the evolution of underground marketing as it relates to the shifting landscape of the independent music industry. The exhibit will feature iconic album covers, gold records, retro posters, mechanical paste ups, music magazines, skateboard decks, flannel shirts and concert photographs.

“Over its 30-year rocket ride, Sub Pop has established itself as an iconic brand in the Pacific,” Conger said. Conger and Kleinsmith curated the one time only exhibit, which is free and open to the public. The Copeland Gallery, which is located on the second floor of Haynes Hall across the street from the MSU Duck Pond, is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

 

Kleinsmith and Barr’s lecture on Jan. 30 is also free and open to the public. It will be followed by a closing reception of the Sub Pop Records exhibition from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Copeland Gallery.

All Sub Pop related events, including the exhibition and visiting designers’ lecture, are made possible by the support of Sub Pop Records, the MSU School of Art and SCS Unlimited.

The Helen E. Copeland Gallery is located on the second floor of Haynes Hall, across from the Aashiem Gate off 11^th Avenue on MSU Bozeman Campus.  The gallery is open Monday – Friday from 9 am – 5 pm whenever classes are in session. Please note that parking passes are required for parking during the business day (6 am – 6 pm).  For more information of the gallery and upcoming programming, please visit www.hecgallery.com or call (406) 994-4501.

 

2019 Fall BFA Thesis Exhibition Exhibition Dates: Wednesday, December 4th – Friday, December 13th Reception: Friday, December 13th , 6:00-8:00 PM

The School of Art at Montana State University is pleased to announce the opening of the Fall 2019 BFA Thesis Exhibition at the Helen E. Copeland Gallery located on the second floor of the School of Art in Haynes Hall, Bozeman, MT. The show will be on exhibit Wednesday, December 4th through Friday, December 13th, 2019. A reception will be held on Friday, December 13th from 6-8 p.m. and will be free and open to the public. Hors d’oeuvres will be served.

 

On view will be the thesis works of eight emerging artists graduating with their Bachelors degrees in Fine Art.  The following disciplines and concentrations will be represented: Painting, Ceramics, Sculpture, and Metals. The following artists will be presenting their thesis work: Robin Anderson, Karl Arnold, Colter Curey, Constance Emick, Simon Ljunggren, Janie Sorenson, Hailey Walsh, and Becs Wells. 

 

For BFA graduates, the thesis exhibition represents an important transition period from student to working, professional artist. It marks an end to academically assigned work, and the beginning of their individual research and artistic maturity. The exhibited works represent the growth of each artist over their years spent at MSU.

 

The exhibition will discuss a wide range of topics and interests. Well’s forged steel homage, A Rose for Every Pound, discusses her personal experience as a female hunter and challenges preconceived assumptions about traditional hunting culture. Curey’s passion for the process of wood fired ceramics is illustrated through his appreciation for the craft, and the value he projects into the object’s functionality. Emick’s installation of stripped and fused recycled plastic bottles “confronts the social, political, and environmental crises created by humans and conveys the resulting plight of non-human animals.”  Ljunggren taps into the simplistic humor and nostalgia of everyday life with his comic book, Name of Insanity, Issue 1.  Anderson’s meticulous use of roll-printed copper with liver-of-sulfur patina in Vessels for the Willow Family becomes a metaphor for the family she has risen under the shade of a treasured tree. These works demonstrate some of the best work that the MSU School of Art has to offer and we are personally excited to witness their future endeavors.

 

The Fall 2019 BFA Thesis Exhibition will be on view from Wednesday, December 4th through Friday, December 13th, 2019 in the Helen E. Copeland Gallery. The HECG is located on the second floor of Haynes Hall, across from the Aasheim Gate off of 11th, with the Ski Swing out front. Please note that the parking passes are required for parking during the business day (6AM – 6PM). Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 9AM – 5PM/Closed on weekends.
For more information on this exhibition, The Fall 2019 BFA Thesis Exhibition or on the Helen E. Copeland gallery in general, please visit www.hecgallery.com or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/msuhecg.

Crossroads of Discovery at the HECG

Crossroads of Discovery: Research in the College of Arts and Architecture
Reception: Thursday, November 7, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Panel at 5:00 pm in Cheever 215
Exhibition:  Saturday, October 26 – Friday, November 22, 2019
Helen E. Copeland Gallery (HECG)
213 Haynes Hall, Bozeman, MT 59717

The School of Art at Montana State University is pleased to announce the Crossroads of Discovery: Research in the College of Arts and Architecture at the Helen E. Copeland Gallery located in the School of Art in Haynes Hall, Bozeman, MT. On view will be the research and work from students across the College of Arts and Architecture, representing the following disciplines and concentrations: Architecture, Music, Photography, Art Education, Art History, Studio Art, Graphic Design, and Film.

Bella Reber, Photography

To kick off the exhibit, the School of Art is pleased to be a part of a larger Crossroads of Discovery Open House across the MSU University on October 26 from 1 – 4 pm.  Community members are welcome to come check out this art exhibit, as well as other events and presentations across the university.  As a whole, the Crossroads of Discovery Open House hopes to provide the Gallatin Valley community a chance to see what happens and what is produced on campus.  For more information on the Open House event, please visit http://www.montana.edu/your/xroads/ or click here for the press release.

Kiln Building in Brazil, Studio Art

After the Open House is over, the show will continue to be on exhibit through Wednesday November 22. A panel and reception will be held on Thursday, November 7 from 5 – 8 P.M. The panel “From Ideas to Action in Undergraduate Research” will begin at 5 pm in Cheever 215.  Moderated By Dean Royce Smith, panelists Vaughan Judge (Director of the School of Art), Dr. Lucia Ricciardelli (Film Associate Professor of Documentary Studies), Jason Bolte (Associate Professor in Music and Coordinator of Music Technology), Alexis Pike (Associate Professor of Film & Photography), and Andrew Vernooy (Professor of Architecture) will discuss what constitutes “research” in art, as well as methods for teaching undergraduate art courses.  The reception will follow in the gallery from 6 – 8 pm. Hors d’oeuvres will be served.  All events are free and open to the public.

 

Jessica Bone, Architecture

In the exhibition itself, viewers will get to see the final product and discussions or elements of the research that went into that product.  Alongside the exhibits will be an audio tour: short interviews with the artists about their work and process.  The interviews on individual artist pages can be accessed through the website www.hecgallery.com or QR codes, so be sure to bring your smart phones and headsets!

 

Thomas Callahan, Film

The following students will be in the exhibition: Jessica Bone, Thomas Callahan, Mo Easterly, Anna Pirkey, Bella Reber, Carlos Palmer, Ian Baldwin, Matt Biasotti, Ned Bardsley, and Spencer Potter.  The subjects will range widely including architectural design with an emphasis on communal living and sustainability; kiln-building in Brazil; eco-friendly design; research into the Founder of the School of Art, female botanical artist F.E. Marshall; experimental underwater analogue photography; ambient music and funeral doom metal; papermaking; and more.

 

 

 Anna Pirkey, Art History

Crossroads of Discovery is part of the Year of Undergraduate Research (YoUR). MSU will be hosting the National Conference of Undergraduate Research March 26 – 28 when students from across the country will present work in all fields closing classes for two days. YoUR is the local celebration that focuses just on MSU with lectures, presentations, exhibits and events throughout the academic year. Keep posted to the MSU website for more information all year long.

 

Mo Easterly, Graphic Design

The Copeland Gallery is located on the second floor of Haynes Hall, across from the Aasheim Gate off of 11^th Ave, with the Ski Swing out front. Please note that the parking passes are required for parking during the business day (6AM – 6PM). Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 9 am – 5 pm/Closed on weekends.  For more information on the Crossroads of Discovery Exhibition or on the Helen E. Copeland gallery in general, please visit www.hecgallery.com or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/msuhecg.

 

 

 

 

Here We Are Now: Work by Anne Appleby

The School of Art at Montana State University is pleased to present Here We Are Now:  Works by Anne Appleby at Helen E. Copeland Gallery located on the second floor of Haynes Hall, Bozeman, MT.  Here We Are will be on display from Monday, August 19^th to Friday, October 18^th, 2019.  On Thursday, October 17^th, there will be a gallery talk with the artist at 5 pm, followed by a reception in the gallery until 8 pm.  The gallery talk and reception are free and open to the public. Hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Here We Are Now showcases prints and paintings of indigenous Montana flora and trees by Anne Appleby.  However, this is no traditional botanical exhibition.  In the late 1970’s and 1980’s, Appleby held a 15-year apprenticeship with a Chippewa elder, learning to deeply observe nature.  It is clear in Appleby’s work that during this apprenticeship, she not only grasped nature, but in some ways, became that nature, and transposed the quintessence and marrow of it to the canvas for her attentive viewers.

Mountain Honeysuckle, 2015
Oil and wax on panel
45 x 45 inches

Appleby, regarded as a minimalist painter, creates color field compositions that consist of at least 30 layers of wax and oil paint washes.  Thus, Appleby creates luminous surfaces that capture not just the various hues of landscape or object, but the overall sentiment of a specific time and place.  In works like Mountain Honeysuckle, the viewer is reminded of a honeysuckle plant they have personally seen, but also the moment, place, and atmosphere in which that honeysuckle existed for that person.  When looking at Winter Aspen, the untouched snow, the stringent nip of the cold, the clean aroma of the winter landscape, once again take breath.  Appleby’s works retain a freshness that allows the viewer to see nature anew.  As stated by artist and art writer, Diane Armitage, “Walking into the gallery during the artist’s show and taking a quick look around gave local viewers the impression that they had stepped into an ecosystem that they knew very well yet were also seeing for the first time.”

Winter Aspen, 2000
color aquatint with burnishing
Image size: 13 ¾ x 21”; paper size: 25 ½ x 32”
Edition of 35, Artist Proof

In her translations of cottonwoods, Oregon grapes, aspens, mints, and honeysuckles, Appleby employs hue and light in an Impressionistic manner to evoke the temperament of a location– or a lasting subtlety of a specific occasion– that the viewer may not be aware they absorbed like hypotonic osmosis.  According to Appleby, “My paintings are not about the other world.  They’re about our place in this world. What nourishes the soul is the experience of being in the body.”

Mother E, 2009
Oil and wax on panel
72 x 70 inches

If every wonderful interaction with nature in Montana seems to be fleeting; if you ever questioned whether you enjoyed that experience enough, were mindful enough, or were present enough, the work in Here We Are Now will reassure you that you did take that wilderness with you—and Appleby’s paintings will provide the proof.

 

Anne Appleby was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1954.  She received her BFA in Painting from the University of Montana in 1977 and her MFA in Painting from San Francisco Art Institute in 1989.  She has shown nationally and internationally including Danese in New York City; the Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma, WA; PDX Contemporary Art in Portland, OR; the Mayor Gallery in London, England; the Museum Ritter in Waldenbuch, Germany; and the Villa e Collezione Panza in Varese, Italy.  Her work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Daimier Art Collection in Berlin, the Boise Art Museum, as well as in the collections of the General Mills Corporation, the Hewlett-Packard Corporation, and the Microsoft Corporation.

Winter Honeysuckle, 2012
Oil and wax on panel
49 x 32 inches

She currently resides and works in Jefferson City and will have a solo exhibition, A Hymn for the Mother at the Missoula Art Museum in 2020.

For more information on Anne Appleby and her work, please visit www.applebystudios.com.

The Helen E. Copeland Gallery is located on the second floor of Haynes Hall, across from the Aashiem Gate off 11^th Avenue on MSU Bozeman Campus.  The gallery is open Monday – Friday from 9 am – 5 pm whenever classes are in session. Please note that parking passes are required for parking during the business day (6 am – 6 pm).  For more information of the gallery and upcoming programming, please visit us on Facebook or call (406) 994-4501.

 

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Branching Existence: New Work by Jessica Mongeon

The School of Art at Montana State University is pleased to announce the opening of Branching Existence: Jessica Mongeon, at Helen E. Copeland Gallery located on the second floor of Haynes Hall, Bozeman MT.  Branching Existence will be on view all summer beginning on Friday, May 17th  and running through Wednesday, August 7th. The gallery and reception are free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 and closed on holidays. There will be a public reception, attended by the artist on Thursday, July 25th, 6:00 – 8:00 pm which is free and open to the public.  Hors d’oeuvres will be served. 

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In Branching Existence, new work by MSU alum Jessica Mongeon discusses the relationship between humans and nature; highlighting the similarities between human brain neurons, natural organisms, and geographical features. Mongeon’s atmospheric, eerily whimsical landscapes are painted with acrylic on tree-free eco-friendly paper. They are inspired by walks in the damp forests of Wisconsin and Arkansas, which contrast with the vast landscapes of the Great Plains where she lived for over 25 years. By using unexpected and sometimes jarring color combinations, she creates a visceral or intuitive response, similar to how humans experience the environment.

 

By juxtapositioning human neuron paths and entities like lichen and fractals, while also experimenting with the scale of these microscopic formations, Mongeon’s work has a harmonizing analysis of human interplay with the environment. According to Mongeon, “Neurons symbolize consciousness, an awareness of one’s surroundings. They show a connection between humans and nature because of their tree-like branching quality […] Neurons must connect and communicate to keep the mind and body alive. Similarly, lichen is made of a fungus, an alga and sometimes a yeast that work in symbiosis. By acknowledging our embodiment of nature, perhaps we can care for the ecosystems that sustain us as much as we care for our own bodies.”

 

However, negative human impacts on nature inform her work as well, adding to the slightly uncanny feeling in her prismatic compositions. “The nobler qualities of humanity are explored, as well as destructive tendencies. For example, I depict the destruction at Joshua Tree National Park that took place during the government shutdown,” states Mongeon. There is a palpable Brother’s Grimm feel to the work– an unsettling playfulness that is both haunting and alluring as her pieces seem to grow from a black ground: a possible indictment of humans environmental violations, or an entrancing symbiotic relationship, depending on what the viewer brings to the work.

 

Jessica Mongeon was born in Rolette, North Dakota and now resides in Arkansas, where she is an Assistant Professor of Art at Arkansas Tech University.  Mongeon has exhibited nationally and internationally, including juried group exhibitions at the Painting Center in New York City and 203 Art Gallery in Shanghai, China. She received a MFA in Painting from Montana State University, and a BFA from the University of North Dakota.

For more information on Jessica Mongeon and her work, please visit

www.jessicamongeon.com

Spring 2019 BFA Thesis Exhibition

 

2019 Spring BFA Thesis Exhibition
Reception:  May 3rd , 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Exhibition:  Wednesday, April 17th – Friday, May 3rd
Helen E. Copeland Gallery (HECG)
213 Haynes Hall, Bozeman, MT 59717

The School of Art at Montana State University is pleased to announce the opening of the Spring 2019 BFA Thesis Exhibition at the Helen E. Copeland located on the second floor of the School of Art in Haynes Hall, Bozeman, MT. The show will be on exhibit Wednesday, April 17th through Friday, May 3rd, 2019. A reception will be held on Friday, May 3rd from 6:00-8:00 p.m. and will be free and open to the public. Hors d’oeuvres will be served.

On view will be the thesis works of 12 emerging artists graduating with their Bachelors Degrees in Fine Art.  The following disciplines and concentrations will be represented: painting, ceramics, printmaking, sculpture, and metalsmithing.

 

For BFA graduates, the thesis exhibition represents an important transition period from student to working artist. It marks an end to academically assigned work, and the beginning of their individual research and artistic maturity. The exhibited works synthesis the growth of each artist over their years spent at MSU.

 

The following students will be in the exhibition: Ben Blackwood, Christy Burgard, Josh Eder, Ashley Gangle, Jenna Hawthorne, Jane Herzog, Jessica Jones, Hans Foster Million, Elsa Nordberg, Holden Roberts, Jack Schwarze, and Ally Sweet.

 

As always, the issues and topics covered in this work range.  To name a few, Blackwood, Schwarze, and Gangle students pledge allegiance to the raw qualities of their materials, while Sweet and Pratt discuss their experiences with conditions such as synesthesia, ADD, and depression.  While Herzog looks into the merging or technology and craft, Million investigates nomadic transient cultures through metalsmithing. Jones finds she follows in her mother’s footsteps as Hawthorne questions the fleeting nature of experience. Through the use of bombastic color, Burgard illustrates Greek mythology, Eder is influenced by pop culture and graffiti, and Norberg facilitates the use of space with the juxtaposition of fabrics and welded steel.  Roberts, who recently won a grant to install work in the new Norm Asbjornson Hall, will have a reception celebrating his installation prior to the BFA reception in Haynes Hall. Please check the Helen E. Copeland website for developing details on this event.

 

In combination, these students have received grants, completed residencies around the country, and have had their own solo shows or participated in group shows during their time at Montana State University. This cohort exemplifies some of the best work that the MSU School of Art has to offer and we are personally excited to witness their future endeavors.

 

The Spring 2019 BFA Thesis Exhibition will be on view from Wednesday, April 17th – Friday, May 3rd, 2019 in the Helen E. Copeland Gallery. The HECG is located on the second floor of Haynes Hall, across from the Aasheim Gate off of 11th, with the Ski Swing out front. Please note that the parking passes are required for parking during the business day (6AM – 6PM). Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 9AM – 5PM/Closed on weekends.
For more information on this exhibition the 2019 Spring BFA Thesis Exhibition or on the Helen E. Copeland gallery in general, please visit www.hecgallery.com or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/msuhecg.

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Jon Bashioum: Beyond the White Cube

The Helen E. Copeland Gallery and the School of Art at Montana State University are excited to announce Beyond the White Cube, the Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition of Jon Bashioum. The exhibition will take place in Helen E. Copeland Gallery in Haynes Hall on the Montana State University campus in Bozeman, Montana, April 8^th – April 12^th, 2019. An additional exhibition will take place April 10^th from 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm in the Beyond Gallery, Bashioum’s mobile gallery, which is being hosted by Bunkhouse Brewery located at 1216 West Lincoln street Bozeman, Montana.

 

Public receptions will be held April 10^th 2019 from 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm at both the Helen E. Copeland Gallery and Bunkhouse Brewery.  Bunkhouse Brewery is only a short 0.4 mile walk due South of Haynes Hall. Bashioum’s mugs will be available for purchase at Bunkhouse with proceeds going to S.L.A.M. (Support Local Artists and Musicians).

 

Beyond the White Cube will feature functional and sculptural ceramic vessels that explore the place of art in the gallery and in our everyday lives. Works shown in both the Helen E. Copeland Gallery and the Beyond Gallery explore the juxtaposition of standard white-cube gallery practices versus alternative display strategies.  Bashioum’s thesis  questions the appropriateness of the white cube as the standard by which we experience art and propose that, at times, alternative spaces may be a more effective way to exhibit and discuss art.

 

Bashioum is a wood fire potter that was born in North Carolina and moved away shortly after. Having never seen the place where he was born, he took to rambling around the country and has adopted Montana as his home. After earning his bachelor’s degree in music from Bethany College in West Virginia, and narrowly missing an art degree due to a clerical error, Jon pursued a variety of global experiences in ceramics. The idea of an area being “home” interests him due to his perennial lack of a location designated as home. His explorations of utilitarian wares represent a curiosity in the regional lifestyles that can only exist from long-term inhabitation, but are best appreciated by the traveler. With his eyes ever on the road, Bashioum intends to take the Beyond Gallery on the road for exhibitions and workshops to promote local artists while maintaining an active studio practice.

The Helen E. Copeland Gallery is located on the second floor of Haynes Hall, across from the Aasheim Gate off 11th, with the Ski Swing out front. Please note that the parking passes are required for parking during the business day (6AM – 6PM). Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 9AM – 5PM/Closed on weekends.

For more information on this exhibition or on the Helen E. Copeland gallery in general, please us www.hecgallery.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/msuhecg and Instagram @helen.e.copeland. More information about SLAM and Bunkhouse Brewery can be found at www.slamfestivals.org and www.bunkhousebrewery.com. Online information about Bashioum and the Beyond Gallery can be found online at www.jonbashioum.com, www.thebeyondgallery.net, and on his neglected Instagram @jon_bashioum and @the_beyond_gallery.

 

 

Second Skin: Tori Burchill

The Helen E. Copeland Gallery and the School of Art at Montana State University are pleased to announce Second Skin, a thesis exhibition by Master of Fine Arts candidate, Victoria Burchill. The exhibition will take place at the Helen E. Copeland Gallery in Haynes Hall on the Montana State University campus in Bozeman, Montana from Monday, April 1^st – Friday, April 5^th, 2019. Burchill’s verbal defense will take place Monday, April 1^st at 11 am in the Helen E. Copeland Gallery and is open to the public. There will be a reception for Second Skin on Thursday, April 4^th from 6:00 – 8:00 pm. All events are free and open to the public.

Second Skin refers to the body’s exterior adornments that contribute to an individual’s identity. Genetics are no longer a deciding factor in beauty, rather the second skin can revolutionize one’s appearance. Each individual has full control over their second skin, and therefore, appearance can impede people’s ability to connect with each other because differences are made visible.

Burchill uses the form of a rope in her sculptures as a symbol of the human attitude toward another person. When a rope is between two people, each has a choice: to either pull on the rope and determine the peer is a competitor, therefore engaging them in a battle of tug of war; or use the rope as a connecting force, an opportunity to pull one in and collaborate with them as an ally. Burchill recognizes that visual identity plays a large role in the initial reaction: to compete or to collaborate. The exhibition Second Skin eludes to how visual identity can alter social interactions.

Victoria Burchill is a Montana based artist working in various materials including makeup, hair, and non-ferrous metal. She received a BS in Art Education from Nazareth College of Rochester in 2016. She has exhibited nationally, as well as internationally. In May, she will be exhibiting work at the 2019 SNAG conference in Chicago in the Exhibition in Motion.

Following Second Skin will be Jon Bashioum’s thesis exhibition, Beyond the White Cube, from Monday, April 8 – Thursday, April 11, 2019.

 

Perceptual Interference

The Helen E. Copeland Gallery and the School of Art at Montana State University are pleased to announce the Master of Fine Art’s thesis exhibition of Alyssa Riann Willard, Perceptual Interference. The exhibition will take place at the Helen E. Copeland Gallery in Haynes Hall on the Montana State University campus in Bozeman, Montana, Monday, March 25th- Friday, March 29th, 2019 from 9:00 am- 5:00 pm. Willard’s thesis defense will take place March 25th at 11am – 12pm in the gallery. There will be a reception for Perceptual Interference on Thursday March 28th, 2019 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm. All events are open to the public.

Willard’s work serves as an outlet for her questions about the origins of matter and life, the unknown future, and the interactions between matter and energy. While collaborating with Montana State Universities Physics Department, she created various works that were a response to research being done on the sun and works that examine the interlocking pieces of the fundamental interactions of reality – that is: Electromagnetism, gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces. “I am fascinated by the sun’s interactions with our magnetic field, as well as the magnetic field lines that are made visible by solar flares. Although the sun gives us vision, we cannot look at the sun with the naked eye. Similarly, fundamental forces are not visible. Because of this, a visual depiction of these inherently incorporates surreal and transcendent qualities, things I enjoy incorporating into my work. Through my art I explore ways to depict the invisible forces that shape our world and investigate interactions and connections between different forms of energy and between energy and ourselves; attempting to evoke something beyond ourselves and beyond our perceptions.”

Alyssa Willard received her B.F.A. from Central Washington University in 2015 and has exhibited regionally and nationally during the last decade. She recently engaged in the first collaborative creative project on MSU campus between the Physics Department and the School of Art, which resulted in her winning first prize and the offer in fall 2018 to be the first ever Artist in Residence in Physics. The painting that won her the residency will be on public display in Montana State University’s Barnard Hall for three years. Her yearlong residency will conclude with an exhibition of work in Barnard Hall, run concurrently with Perceptual Interference.