The 2008 Art Faculty Exhibition features a diverse selection of recent work by 16 Eureka campus art professors. Sculpture professor Shannon Sullivan’s wall-mounted installation features rhythmically fluid ceramic forms imbedded in a ribbon-like matrix of resin. Imagine translucently luminous cellular structures—enormously magnified—spread across the wall and sparkling like stained glass. Cynthia Hooper’s paintings are inspired by the make-shift housing strategies of the fluidly and precariously expanding working class communities of Tijuana, Mexico. The paintings from this particular series explore the phenomenon of using recycled garage doors from tear-downs in San Diego to make sturdy, four-walled Mexican homes for Maquiladora workers.
Painting professor Emily Silver has created a suite of watercolors that map the terrain of Mojave Desert walks she has taken. They are elegant and diagrammatic—observing the desert from an aerial (and highly abstracted) point of view. Emily also affixes the richly-hued Mojave soil she’s collected right onto the surface of her paintings.
Digital art professor Michael Jenner’s photograph of an amusement park’s Tilt-a-Whirl is a thrilling swirl of elliptical motion—luminous, abstracted motion captured by her camera’s delayed exposure. Ceramic professor Mary Mallahan’s Mesolithic Intrusion is—upon initial inspection—a ceramic vase inspired by her interest in geology and the surface textures of rocks. With closer scrutiny, however, the form subtly references the fertility idols of our Paleolithic past. That little sculpture reflexively compels its viewers—with all its mysterious power—to reverently worship it. Don’t get to close, though—you might get pregnant!
