A variety of talent from the art department faculty is being showcased in the Cyrus M. Running Gallery until Feb. 17. The faculty shows off their own work every year, according to director Susan Lee, for students and the community.
Faculty participants are David Boggs, Heidi Goldberg, Ross Hilgers, Eric A. Johnson, Jeff Knight, Mike Marth, Duane Mickelson, Mark Sorgaard and Dwight Williams. They used many different types of media, including clay, graphic design, oil, photography, printmaking processes and watercolor.
The Faculty Art Exhibit is one of the six exhibits that is held annually. This number also includes the symposium showcase, three student showcases, the Senior Art Exhibition, the Juried Student Art Exhibition and a show exhibiting the photographic work of students who attended seminars (for example, this year showcased work from the trip to the Greek island Santorini). This spring, there will be a solo show featuring art by Professor Ross Hilgers, according to Lee.
Hilgers says that his clay sculptures can be seen as a metaphor for conflict. They consist of different shapes merging together to make one, physically conflicting with each other.
“I have a love of simplicity in something even though there is no representation,” Hilgers said. “It is basic but complex.”
His largest piece that will be shown in the gallery took one year to complete, he said.
Moving through the current exhibit, Professor Jeff Knight’s t-shirts are hard to pass by. The shirts serve as a representation of the Fargo-Moorhead lifestyle, sporting sayings such as, “Endless winter in search of warmer weather” and “My dad feeds your dad.”
There are many things this exhibit hopes to offer to students.
“The gallery has three general goals: to offer the Concordia community a rich artistic experience by exhibiting thoughtful and relevant art,” Lee said, “to showcase the artwork produced by our art students and art faculty (and) to serve as a learning laboratory for our museum studies students.”
Lee also mentioned that students interested in museum studies are provided with the opportunity to design and curate some of the exhibits.
According to Hilgers, it is crucial that students learn to tap into creativity.
“(An artist must) be tenacious and have endurance,” he said. “You can’t teach passion.”
