Lyco Curatorial Practice: Lingers - by Jonathan Rummel and Nam Do

LINGERS

A curated show by Jonathan Rummel and Nam Do

October 19th - 21st, 2016

At Lycoming College Campus Gallery

Gallery talk on October 19, 2016, at 2:15pm

Curatorial Statement

There are instances when we experience fleeting images of inconsistency or anomaly in the surroundings. In more unfortunate cases, such illusions might deceive our minds and skew our perceptions to the point where we could no longer get a grip on reality. In essence, these all are mere fabrications of our imagination, which ultimately derive from the experiences of our past.

Addressing this idea, Lingers explores the use of transient imagery and ethereal twists in visual arts as a means of narrative, or clues as to the ingrained and sometimes hidden layers of meaning. In reading these incorporeal elements, the viewer shall gain a deeper insight on how they are shaped by personal experiences, visions, and emotions.

Featured Artwork

Artist and photographer Ralph Wilson drew his inspiration from The Yellow Wallpaper, an 1892 novel by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in creating an extraordinary series of artwork with the same name. Wilson’s series consists of five black and white photographs that narrate the story of a woman who underwent a therapy called “rest cure,” which essentially employed under-stimulation. The yellow wall-paper depicts the woman imagining people behind the wallpaper and how her mental problem escalated as time went by.

From left to right:

A great many women - digital print on paper, 14 ¾” x 13 ½”

It was moonlight - digital print on paper, 15 ¼” x 12 ¾”

I suppose - digital print on paper, 14 ¾” x 10 ¾”

Out at last - digital print on paper, 13 ¼” x 13 ¼”

Right across my path - digital print on paper, 13 ¾” x 13 ½”

In 2010, Aaron Morgan Brown created the painting Armistice Day, in which a young girl was holding a doll with both arms, while on the window glass behind her were the reflection images of bombs suspended in mid-air. The paradoxical stillness in Armistice Day, as in many others of Brown’s work, reminds us of the nature of an armistice – a temporary suspension – and that under such circumstances, peace can be shattered at any moment.

Armistice Day - oil on panel, 12” x 8”

Tulu Bayar, a Turkish born American artist, chose to address the theme of identity in her series of mixed-media work, Invisible (2011). Featured in Lingers is the video taken directly from this series. It presents the Turkish marbling techniques and occasionally the revolving figure of a person, the two seemingly disjointed yet deeply interwoven. Combining traditional elements with a contemporary examination, Bayar opens up a dialogue on exoticism, Orientalism, and the western perceptions of the Islamic identity.

Invisible - High definition video, duration 3:38

The exhibition also features artwork by Emily Wickizer, a senior at Lycoming College. Her Underwater City (2015) deals with the idea of individual perspectives and how they are shaped by the surrounding environment, each person’s upbringing and past experiences. Another work by Wickizer, Two Ghosts (2014) examines identity, capturing the vaporous figures that represent two facets of a personality: the perception of the self, and the projection of the self.