2016 Selected Art Faculty Exhibition
September 15–October 16, 2016
Artists’ Talk: Thursday, Sept 22, 2016, 5–6 p.m.
Reception: Friday, October 7, 2016, 5–7 p.m.
Talk by John Cunningham on using a 3-D printer: Wednesday, October 5, 3–4 p.m.
All events free and open to the public.
Evocative imagery and reflections on humans’ connection to nature fill the Schick Art Gallery as it presents the 2016 Selected Art Faculty Exhibition. New works in a variety of media are on view: sculpture made using a 3-D printer by John Cunningham (who retires in 2017 after fifty years at Skidmore), photographs by Deb Hall, figurative drawings and paintings by Deborah Morris, and mixed media photographs and videos by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison.
More about the artists and their work
Deb Hall’s altered landscapes are inspired by the disparity between the natural world and our fast -paced technological culture. Hall, whose connection to nature formed during her childhood in the Pacific Northwest, states: "As we spend less time in face-to-face communications and physical experiences, we spend more time communicating through memes, emoticons, symbols, and photographs....We appear to be at once communicating more and experiencing less."
Hall has exhibited widely in national juried exhibitions, and is the recipient of
a 2012 Fellowship at the Center for Photography in Woodstock. Hall has taught courses
in Communication Design at Skidmore since 1992, and also directed Skidmore College’s
Project VIS, a Visual Literacy Forum funded by the Mellon Foundation during 2014–15.
Photographers Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison are also concerned with man's relationship to the earth and technology. The artists
construct fantasies in the guise of environmental performances for the protagonists
of their images, creating elaborate sets within vast landscapes. Robert ParkeHarrison
has been teaching at Skidmore since 2011. Notable exhibitions of the ParkeHarrisons’
works include The Architect’s Brother, a 2011 museum exhibition that traveled throughout North America and Europe, and
These Days of Maiuma, currently on view at the Worcester Art Museum. Their works are in the collections
of many prominent institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New
York.
Deborah Morris admits to being preoccupied with reflections on gravity, magnetism, and memory, but
formal aspects drive her. Morris writes, "The (figurative) imagery in my work leads
one to think of a narrative, but I seldom begin with any idea other than a formal
structure …. am simply composing and organizing, creating a visual relatedness. These
connections and relations are of foremost importance."
Morris has taught Drawing and Painting at Skidmore College since 1986. Her recent
exhibitions include a solo show of drawings at the Fulton Street Gallery in Troy,
N.Y., and a three-person exhibit at the Southern Vermont Art Center.
John Cunningham’s sculpture is concerned with the interaction of physical materials and forces; his
works are often part aesthetic object and part engineering model. About his most recent
series, spider-like forms made using a 3-D printer, Cunningham states, "They are born
from ideas for engineered structures with strange and peculiar properties."
After receiving his MFA from Yale University in 1965, Cunningham worked for kinetic sculptor George Rickey; he began teaching at Skidmore College in 1967. He has shown work extensively at many venues, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and his sculpture is held in collection at many institutions, from the Schenectady Museum of Innovation and Science to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC.