Exhibition Schedule 2001-2002:

Born in Port-au-Prince Haiti, Brooklyn-based Paul Gardere's mixed media paintings reflect many layers of meaning. Among these layers are the historical effects of colonialism and the contradictory contexts of Western and non-Western painting. The multiple realities of Haiti reflected in Gardere's works include Vodou mythology, repressive politics, and the sensuality and despair of the Caribbean. Gardere's paintings are charged with paradox. He subverts the formal with a rigorous, formless, Third World sense of sight. Evident in many of his compositions is an earthy, impolite sexuality combined with ironic comment on the structures of power and representation.

Sculptor and printmaker, Isabel Farnsworth, an assistant professor of art at Kent State, employs disparate media, forms and materials including video and performance. Exploring alternating moments of movement and stasis in many of her pieces, Farnsworth addresses issues of femininity and the passage of time. Combining humor and a more somber attitude, she mines the dichotomies of biology and technology, self and other, and repulsion and desire. As a sculptor, Farnsworth works fluidly with materials, moving from cast aluminum to urethane, often referencing body parts or more indirectly suggesting biological forms.

This historical exhibition showcases fine examples of children's book illustration and graphic production between 1850 and 1890, an era that witnessed dramatic growth in the pictorial development of fairy lore and fantasy and the introduction of the modern children's picture book. Accompanied by explanatory text and a printed brochure, Once Upon a Time features over fifty beautifully illustrated volumes.

With publication centered largely in Great Britain, significant innovations in the latter half of the nineteenth century in illustration, wood engraving, color block printing and book design gave new visual form to the folk-based literary traditions of the fairy tale, influenced chiefly by the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Andersen. Other genres of juvenile literature explored in this exhibition include the nursery rhyme, poetry and the alphabet book. Once Upon a Time also examines the influence of the Aesthetic Movement and Japanese art on children's books produced in the 1880s.

Once Upon a Time features illustrated editions of popular verse such as Mother Goose, Little Boy Blue, Sing a Song for Sixpence and Five Little Pigs. Other important books on exhibit include: Andrew Lang, In Fairyland (1875); Paul de Musset, Mr. Wind and Madame Rain (1864); Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark (1876); John Ruskin, The King of the Golden River (1860); Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song (1872); William Makepeace Thackeray, The Rose and the Ring (1855); and Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses (1895). Prominent illustrators of the period include: Arthur Hughes, George Cruikshank, Richard Doyle, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, Eleanor Vere Boyle and Charles Robinson, among many others.

Abelardo Morell, a photographer and faculty member at the Massachusetts College of Art, is known for his long time exposures of rooms converted into camera obscuras. These rooms, at home and elsewhere, evidence the ghostly upside-down images of outside scenery projected against the walls. Morell also explores, with an elegant formal simplicity, ordinary objects found around the home such as a paper bag and newspaper, and the book as a sculptural object and still life.

For completion of the Kenyon College Studio Art degree, senior art majors must prepare and curate a week-long exhibition of their work in Olin Art Gallery. The exhibition derives from work completed during the students' senior year.

March 25-30
Kevin O'Rourke; Carrie Simon, The Purpose Forgotten; Sarah Woelkers, Collected; and Eleanna Anagnos, Underneath. Opening reception March 25 at 7:00 pm in the Gallery.

April 1-6
Meredith Wilson; Karen Orr; Molly McCammon; and Michael Glancy. Opening reception April 1 at 7:00 pm in the Gallery.

April 8-13
Laura Dillon, Substantial Shadows; Chad Nason, Fabricated Comforts; James Monsees, Rational Landscapes; and Ben Regier, Myth and Fire. Opening reception April 8 at 7:00 pm in the Gallery.

Participating faculty include: Read Baldwin, Claudia Esslinger, Barry Gunderson, Marcella Hackbardt, Karen Snouffer, and Shari Wasson.