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2006 Faculty Exhibition

December 1, 2006 - January 5, 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, December 1, 2006, 5:00 - 7:30 p.m.

Louis Cicotello
White, 2001
resin coated paper collage with embedded object
4"x6"

This biennial exhibition highlights work by members of the UCCS Visual and Perfoming Arts (VaPA) faculty. From paintings and photographs to sculpture and digital media, the talents of Valerie Brodar, Louis Cicotello, Carol Dass, Lin Fife, Michael Gault, Mark Guilbeau, Carolyn Intemann, Sarah Jurewicz, Christopher Lynn, Lenore McKerlie, Heather Oeklaus, and Mariya Zvonkovich will be on display.

This year, the Visual and Performing Arts department will be saying farewell to two long-time faculty members as they ready for retirement: Louis Cicotello (3-D) and Lin Fife (Fiber). Please join us as we thank them and celebrate their years of service to UCCS.

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Floating Worlds

The Paintings of Virginia Maitland

September 22 - November 17, 2006
Opening Reception: Friday, September 22, 2006, 5:30 - 8:00 p.m.

Virginia Maitland
Beyond the Sunset (detail), 2006
acrylic on canvas

The Gallery of Contemporary Art is Pleased to present it’s first solo exhibit in over a decade entitled Floating Worlds. This exhibit features bold, abstract paintings by Virginia Maitland and opens September 22. Floating Worlds presents a glimpse into Virginia Maitland’s vibrant yet ethereal style. Virginia Maitland’s masterful marriage of color and form has been influenced by the enduring tradition of abstract expressionists and color field painters as well as the haunting yet bold beauty of Colorado and the West. Maitland’s powerful paintings evoke emotions ranging from chaotically violent to - a detached calm. Veiled spaces within the color fields craft the illusion of windows into an alternate reality. These other worlds float in her creations just out of reach. Recent works integrate photographs from her visit to New York City into expresive and more representational statements - about memory, time and place. This exhibition offers the juxtaposition of early and recent work to givethe viewer a sence of her evolving style. The liminal quality of Maitland’s paintings unites old and new styles and transports her work into the sublime.

Born and trained on the East coast, Maitland studied art at the distinguished Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.Shortly after graduation she took a trip to Boulder, fell in love with the mountains and light and settled there for good. Maitland has been painting since she was twelve and has never wavered from the life of full-time painter. Her career has included exhibitions in New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas, Santa Fe, Aspen, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Denver and Boulder. Maitland has also been very active in the arts and education scene. She has taught at Naropa University, the Collage Children’s Museum and at the Anderson Ranch in Aspen. She was one of the founding members of the Front Range Women in the Visual Arts group in the 1970s and - curated A Decade of Women’s Art at the boulder Center for the Visual Arts in the 1980s.

Hers is the first solo show at the Gallery in over a decade and ushers in a new era of programing. The exhibition includes 28 large format oil, acrylic, monotype, pastel and composite works all designed to stimulate the eye. For more information on Virginia Maitland, visit her website at www.virginiamaitland.com.

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Cuba Oriente

Contemporary Painting from Eastern Cuba

June 16 - August 4, 2006
Opening Reception: Friday, June 16, 2006, 5:00 - 7:30 p.m.

Ruben Manuel Beltrán Guerra
Untitled (detail)
oil on canvas

The Gallery of Contemporary Art is pleased to present an exhibit presented by the Meridian International Center of Wahington, D.C. in partnership with the Eastern Cuba Cultural Exchange, featuring work by artist from the Oriente (eastern) region of Cuba beginning on June 16. Entitled Cuba Oriente: Contemporary Painting from Eastern Cuba, the exhibition includes 60 exceptionally rich and vibrant works from what is often described as the heartland of Cuban culture. The area, located over 650 miles from Havana, is not well known by Americans in general due to the complex relationship between Cuba and the United States. Cuba Oriente brings to light the stunning art of this colorful region.

The Eastern Cuba Cultural Exchange was founded by Clyde Hensley, whose travels and lifelong interest in art brought him to Eastern Cuba in 1995. Here he met many artists, working under difficult conditions with few materials, and became passionate about helping them to emerge from their regional isolation. He has since made numerous trips to the area, working with artists, cultural centers, museums and art schools in Santiago and the surrounding provinces. He has helped to aquire and bring supplies and materials to them through the Global Tapestry Foundation and amassed a large and unique collection of art from the region. Also as a result of his work, artist exchanges have developed, supported by the Eastern Cuba Cultural Exchange. Several exhibitions have been brought to the United States, most recently to Oakland, California, where both the Oakland Museum of California and the Craft and Cultural Gallery displayed works from the collection. He has recently completed a documentary on the artists. The work from his collection is touring for the first time.

The fourteen participating artists span generations. Several of the artists are self-taught. Others include a former museum director, professors and graduates of the region’s art academies. The works on display in Cuba Oriente vary in subject and style. Classical and modern styles intertwine and rich hues abound. Included are breathtaking landscapes, genre scenes, abstract works, surrealistic themes and richly imagined comments on life in Cuba. Oil, acrylic and woodcut are the primary mediums.

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2006 Student Art Exhibit

April 7 - June 2, 2006
Opening Reception: Friday, April 7, 2006, 5:30 - 8:00 p.m.

The Gallery of Contemporary Art will host the opening of the 2006 Student Art Exhibition with a public reception on Friday, April 7, 2006 from 5:30 - 8:00 pm. The exhibitions include the juried 2006 Student Art Exhibition at the Gallery of Contemporary Art, a university art museum, and the Salon des Refuses at the University Center. Both shows will continue on view at these adjacent locations through June 2, 2006 durring regularly scheduled hours.

Submissions for these annual shows are open to any UCCS student presently enrolled, or enrolled durring the Fall 2005 semester. These exhibits are intriguing as they include a broad range of experimental work executed by UCCS students in virtually all art media. The museum show is often the first opportunity for emerging artists to exhibit work in a museum setting. These annual shows also provide a ready means for the art going public to spot potential talent and to aquire origional art inexpensively before an artist’s career is established.

Jurors for this year’s show include Jina Pierce, Curator of visual arts for the Sangre de Christo Art Center in Pueblo, Tim Davis a local artist, and Rian Kerrane proffesor of sculpture at the University of Colorado Denver. All three jurors are well known in the local art scene.

The Salon des Refuses consists of work submitted to the jurors, but not accepted into the museum show. Students may elect a rejected piece of work to be shown in this spin-off show. The Salon des Refuses is named after the show sanctioned by Napoleaon III in 1863, as a result of public outcry at the Impressionist’s exclusion from the annual French Academies Beaux Arts Salon. The Impressionists are now regarded as the most well known artists of all time. The historical implication of this particular show title is designed to take some of the stigma of rejection away from the artists, and ussually rivals the accepted work in the museum show in talent and artistry.

These exhibitions are the only annual shows the Gallery of Contemporary Art regularly schedules. They always take place at the end of Spring semester and are collaborative projects involving the museum’s Gallery Management students, the UCCS Student Art Club, and the University Center. Essentially the exhibitions are wholly student projects designed to benefit the Student Art Club directly through submission fees, as well as to provide venues and practical experience to students involved in exhibiting art and learning about installing and promoting art exhibitions.

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On the Wall

January 13 - March 17, 2006
Opening Reception: Friday, January 13, 2006, 5:00 - 7:30 p.m.

Eliza Brewster
How I Changed My Look (detail)

The Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) administrators approached the museum early last year about collaborating on an exhibition. It was decided that their members would be asked to submit images to a guest curator for adjudication. SAQA’s mission is to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development and documentation. This fits well with GCA’s mission of acting as a forum for contemporary art and artists.

A few of SAQA’s Colorado based members were given the task of coordinating with the museum in developing a prospectus, designing and printing a show catalog, collecting submitted slides for the show’s curator and informing the participating SAQA artists and the museum about the works selected. Susan Crouse-Kemp performed the bulk of this work with Deidre Adams compiling the selected slide images and converting them into digital images for the show’s publicity and publishing efforts. Judith Trager made the initial site visit with Susan to help get the ball rolling.

Dr. Alice Zrebiec, Consulting Curator of Textiles for the Denver Art Museum was commissioned to make selections from 238 works by 84 artists.She selected 67 works by the 52 artists that make up this stunning exhibition. Gallery workstudy Dan Brassart unpacked the works and checked them off the master list.He also helped prepare the walls and the layout and hang the show, along with Gallery Workstudy Jonathan Orr, Gallery Management Student Laura Ben-Amonts and Community Volunteer Deb Floersch. Gallery Workstudy Heather Greenlee typeset and proofed all the labels and didactic panels. Community volunteer Helen Kedzierski submitted the necessary official forms for the opening reception and custodial work. The UCCS sign shop provided the twoshow’s vinyl signage. The College of Letters Arts and Sciences helped pay for the catering for the combined opening and my official retirement party.

Support for the exhibitions was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Colorado General Assembly; the UCCS Student Government Association on behalf of the student body’s cultural awareness; and the museums loyal membership.

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Nancy Baldrica’s Watercolor Quilt Series

January 13 - March 17, 2006 Opening Reception: Friday, January 13, 2006, 5:00 - 7:30 p.m.

The body of work presented in this series represents and celebrates swatches of the artist’s life. The paintings in the Watercolor Quilt Series are narratives, with each one telling a story through images based on personal experience and historical data, or depicting a design from an actual quilt pattern. The transparent watercolor paintings create a lyrical story based on theme and symbolism enhanced by the interchange of patterns between sections and planes. The series portrays an evolution from mundane subjects like still life, landscapes, and figures, to complicated and innovative, usage of images, patterns, and borders in an allegorical, narrative, and/or symbolic mode.

More than just random paint on surface, these paintings are an endevor to create order from chaos. The chaotic arrangements of objects in the central area of the paintings are stabilized by the organized borders. Each painting features a woven-like integration of representational subject matter to abstract patterns and designs created within the borders. The presentation of each painting sustains the interaction between quilting and painting. Each painting is an intricate composition of a theme enhanced and supported by quilt patterns, related borders, and overlapping transparent washes of color, with each painting’s quilted frame completing the quilt motif.

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