2018 Fall – 2019 Spring Exhibit

Featuring Nancy Diessner

Silent Soliloquy of One's Own

It is with great pleasure we present the work of Nancy Diessner entitled, All I want is to be the river though I return again and again to the clouds.

Experiencing Diessner’s work is like entering her private world. There is a sense of quiet solitude, intensity, and melancholy. There are boat-forms hung on the walls. The sleek vertical shapes reflect a dynamism inherent in its form. The images which are fused to the boat-form are time stopped, held, as if in suspended animation. The boat-forms contain what appears to be liquid space, translucent, deep, and clear. This assembled and composited imagery reflects a sense of wonder, which is delicate, yet seemingly impenetrable.

The narrative character of the work is reflected in the combination of natural subject matter and human-made form. The human figure appears to represent memory, not unlike an apparition. Diessner’s work appears to be full of memory and potential loss. The atmospheric nature of the water imagery and the somber tones of the aquatic flora reinforce the melancholy. The parallel of the intensity and physicality of single scull rowing and the potency of living is clear. There is an impossibility of the too-thin boat-form and the prospects of buoyancy. Embrace the elegance of her fast boat, skimming the surface, nearly weightless, gliding over dark water, to see what Diessner feels.

Catalog Available

Featuring Jillian Anderson, Dyan Gulovsen, Alice Lambert, Timmary Leary, Darrell Matsumoto, Joseph Ray, Sumiyo Toribe, Jason Travers, David Wackell, and Michael Yefko

The Faculty, 2018

The Artist/Designer + Educator is a multi-headed beast of sorts. The Artist/Designer is essentially a maker/practitioner. As a maker, it is mostly a solitary endeavor, driven by personal interest, social concern, historicity, or mélange of all of the above. The concerns of the maker/practitioner will vary. A few motivations to consider: the human condition; subject matter; the self; built environment; knowledge, history; materiality; function; are the foundational underpinnings for the maker’s content. The Educator is teacher, mentor, the teller of knowledge. The coursework is defined by the substance of the subject. The skill of an educator requires a delicate dance between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Using varied approaches, the maker becomes a teller.

The diversity of art practice is represented in our faculty exhibition, Anna Maria College, Art & Design Faculty. The works range: abstract painting; realist painting and drawing; expressionistic drawing; graphic drawing; film and video; photography and other photo-based work; and mixed media sculpture. Fundamental to each artist or designer is process, practice, and the stimulus which motivates invention.

Catalog Available

Featuring Stephan Brigidi

Portrait: The Ideal Guise

It is with great pleasure we present Portrait: 45 Years of Photography by Stephan Brigidi (1973-2018).

The exhibition unfolds as a timeless collection of photographic portraits. Throughout its historicity, the portrait has been an iconic representation of the person, the moment, marking the activities of both the portrayed and the portrayer. The act of photography asks both subject and photographer to participate in a ‘dance’ of sorts. The result is a record of this dance. The photographic dance requires the partners to be aware and in mere moments, prepare, either consciously or subconsciously, to record the ideal visage. The sitter and portraitist are willing accomplices in the act of capturing this ideal guise.

Through his photography, Brigidi has contributed to the cultural zeitgeist. He has traveled widely, returning to beloved places and discovering fresh locales, to encounter the new. Unlike the imperious 19thcentury photographer, Brigidi intrepidly seeks to form a dialogue with people he encounters. He intends an honest exchange, both subject and photographer, collaborators in search of verity. Brigidi’s photographs reflect an intimacy, which expresses the individual’s character and responsiveness to the portrait session. He is a virtuoso who orchestrates the process, producing compelling, timeless portraits.

Catalog Available

Featuring Robin Baxter, Natalie Freida, Abigail Campbell, and Alicia Johnston

Featuring Hunter Hoag, Emma McGrath, Tiana Maldonado, and Amy Roberts