RAM Talks Art: 2008 Rockford Midwestern features impressive array

By Elizabeth Dailing, Education Director, Rockford Art Museum            

One hundred pieces of artwork. One juror. Ninety artists. Seventy years. Eight states. What does this all mean? It means it is time for the “2008 Rockford Midwestern” at Rockford Art Museum (RAM).

Here's another chance for you to come and explore art. See what local and regional artists are doing, and start to see if you are an art friend or foe.

The “2008 Rockford Midwestern” is a regional juried art exhibition, which means RAM selects a juror (this year it was Bob McCauley, who just retired as Art Department chairman at Rockford College) who then juries the pieces that finally end up in the exhibition. This was an impressive array of submissions this year, resulting in a varied collection of work in the exhibition.

It's also an exhibition in which you might discover your neighbor is an artist and you never knew…

Take some of the locals, for example.

Mary Hakala, whose piece “Intent” was juried into the show, talks about her work as follows: “Portraits, however, are an entirely different matter. Once the crayon is in my hand, it moves almost on its own, intuitively, perhaps, with a referral to the referenced photograph occasionally; but somehow I am sensing the moods and soul of the subject. When the work is finished, I most often ask myself ‘How did I get from here…to there?' I don't really know.”

John Bell, a college student juried into the show, explains his process: “I select source photographs for my paintings which seem to most clearly express the mystery of war. They often display a full range of emotional extremes and contradictions within minute boundaries: ruthless brutality lives in close proximity to the deepest tenderness; animal-like aggression becomes confused with rational conceptions of moral responsibility. I enter into an uncomfortable discourse between the existing archival image and my own understanding of its content, trying to assimilate this formerly removed image of unmaking into my own handmade object and image. The resulting product is primarily an expression of my own attempt at understanding the foreign world and power of the source image, while it also retains some of the resonance of the original photograph.”

A sibling of the previous artist, Katie Bell, talks about size and subject matter of her work: “My work is extremely physical. Due to the size of the drawings, my body becomes completely involved within the space. I am often standing on top of a table or chair to reach the top of the drawing, so through most of the process, I am unable to see the entirety of the piece. I work with charcoal, pastels, acrylic and erasers to create many layers that eventually create the chaotic space. The eraser is a key component in the physical nature of the work. I use it to take away space and as a mark, which becomes a force that the objects possess.

“My interest with the interior home space has been ongoing, and it is becoming more and more defined as I progress. I have greatly invested myself in the cast of objects I have created; with each piece, the objects are becoming more concrete in their characteristics. The space that I have begun to create will hopefully continue to unfold and reinvent itself to reveal an unfamiliar, yet recognizable, world.”

There is no better exhibition to see a variety of work, a variety of artists and a huge variety of what regional artists are creating. From wood to paint, chalk to photography, the “2008 Rockford Midwestern” has it all. Take some time, take a look and, again, decide if you are an art friend or foe.

The “2008 Rockford Midwestern” is on display July 11-Oct. 5 at RAM. For more information, call (815) 968-2787.

Contact Rockford Art Museum Education Director Elizabeth Dailing at edailing@rockfordartmuseum.org.

from the July 9-15, 2008, issue

 

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