Feature Articles


July Issue 2001

Weatherspoon Art Gallery in Greensboro, NC, Offers Four New Exhibitions

This summer, the Weatherspoon Art Gallery at UNC-Greensboro, in Greensboro, NC, presents a selection of contemporary drawings that are a recent gift from Werner and Sarah-Ann Kramarsky, whose own collection of drawings is one of the finest in the country. Finely Drawn: A Recent Gift of Contemporary Drawings provides another opportunity for visitors to witness the recognition that the Weatherspoon's collection has garnered throughout the art world in recent years. The exhibition will be on view from July 15 through Sept. 23, 2001.

The Kramarskys' collection has a dual focus: work by major artists with a particular bent toward minimalism, such as Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt, and work by younger, sometimes emerging artists. The latter group includes Robert Bordo, Sharon Louden, Theresa Chong, Jacob El Hanani, Bill Komoski, and Mary Hambleton, among others. Amidst a wide range of subjects and approaches, the works evidence a shared sensitivity to materials and reinforce the act of drawing as a mode in and of itself.

Two other drawings from the Kramarskys' gift, Elisa D'Arrigo's Budding #5 and Sol LeWitt's Pyramid #3, are included in, Cool and Collected Recent Contemporary Acquisitions, currently on view in Weatherspoon's Gallery 7, through Sept. 2, 2001.

An installation of figurative wood scuptures by NC artist Bob Trotman is also on view in Weatherspoon's Falk Gallery through Aug. 5.

Trotman's nearly life sized wooden figures seem ageless. Trotman sees wood as the ultimate material for modeling human life because wood, too, has a life of its own - it is the flesh of the tree. More fragile than marble or bronze, wood is humble and vulnerable,
qualities with which we can all relate.

A resident of Casar, NC, Trotman exhibits regularly at Franklin Parrasch Gallery in New York and Hodges Taylor Gallery in Charlotte, NC. He is a recipient of several NEA and NC Arts Council fellowships. In conjunction with the exhibition, Trotman will lead a slide talk and discussion of his work followed by a demonstration on July 11 at 6 pm at the
Weatherspoon. Refreshments will be served.

The fourth exhibition offered for the Summer at Weatherspoon includes a selection of fifteen large-scale color photographs by Shellburne Thurber, a Boston artist who in recent years has spent time photographing the interiors of abandoned and dilapidated houses throughout rural North Carolina. The exhibition will be on view in Weatherspoon's Tannenbaum Gallery through Aug. 5, 2001.

Though devoid of human presence, the photographs have strong emotional tones, as though the houses' former inhabitants still lingered in their shadows. The images also suggest that not only does nature endure man's temporal impositions but eventually reclaims what was originally its own.

A gallery talk entitled Vacant Homes will be presented by Lee Zacharias of the UNC-G English Department, on July 25 at 6 pm at the Weatherspoon. The gallery talk will focus on the photography of Shellburne Thurber and the ideas behind images of abandoned and decaying buildings. The event is free and open to the public. Zacharias is the author of a novel, Lessons, and a book of short stories, Helping Muriel Make It Through the Night. She has published numerous short stories, essays and photographs and is the recipient of fellowships from the NEA and the NC Arts Council.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call the Weatherspoon at 336/334-5770 or on the web at (http://www.uncg.edu/wag).

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