Luke Ahern: "Fences and Courts"

Selected Works on Paper
Mixed media on handmade paper and Rives BFK
2016

Luke Ahern: Fences and Courts is currently on display at Illinois Wesleyan University in the Merwin & Wakeley Galleries in Bloomington Illinois. The exhibition will be on display until November 3rd, 2016. Luke Ahern is an artist and educator living in Marysville Ohio. Ahern has a bachelor of fine arts degree from Bowling Green State University, and also a master of fine arts degree in painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ahern works as an assistant professor of art at Ohio’s Denison University, along wth that he has shown his work in exhibitions across the country. Ahern is a father and husband in a mixed race family. The exhibition shows Ahern’s works that combine image making with his experience dealing with racial identity in today's society

Fenced in Pink and Hurt
Solid Marker, enamel, silicone, crayon, acrylic, inkjet collage on canvas
2016

Fenced in Rust and Dust
Acrylic, collage, oil, paper, inkjet print, dirt on canvas
2016

Luke Ahern's exhibition was extremely unique to be able to see up close. The pieces in this series were very eye catching and over exaggerated. The use of bright colors like hot pink to create the fence pattern and then the use of thick jet black layered acrylic to stand off the canvas are very fascinating. The collage technique within each piece never leave your gaze at a stand still but has your eyes constantly moving and seeing something new every time you look at it. The pieces give off a child like feel with the colors, material and layout but the deep meaning of the fence keeping you locked in pulls you back down to earth.

Morning, Noon and Night
Beeswax crayon, walnut ink, acrylic on Rives BFK
2016

My opinion on Luke Ahern's exhibition is very positive. I have just recently taken my first painting class and I could relate to his technique of layering acrylic to make the fence pattern stand off the page. I love how each of these pieces has something unique about them. Within one of the fence holes is a piles of rocks glued on and a few inches down has what looks like dryer lint. Now I do not know for sure what each unique little feature means but I love how he does what he feels. 









His "not so eye catching" works somewhat drew me away from the meaning of the exhibition. My eyes seemed to get lost in his smaller paintings and his The Force of Horse with Colors piece, therefore I couldn't understand  the idea of race and identity to these as well as  could feel the idea of his major fence pattern works.

Selected Untitled Small Works
Mixed media
2016

The Force of Horse with Colors
Gesso, metallic enamel, paper, flashe on un-stretched canvas
2016

I would recommend everyone to go see Luke Aherns exhibition. Ahern shows off his wide range of technique and material uses. He does an amazing job of presenting the emotions he  must go through being a father and husband in a mixed race family in a very unique way that I have never seen before.

Bethany Collins

"Don't You Think That's a Little Elitist?" 2010
48" x 72" x 2" - Chalk & Charcoal on Chalkboard

This month, Wednesday October 26, Bethany Collins, gave a lecture at University Galleries in Normal, Illinois. Collins began her lecture with a summary of her journey and uprising as a young biracial artist. Collins went to Georgia State University where she began her first attempt at language in 2010 with her piece "Don't You Think That's a Little Elitist?" in her white noise series. Collins described her situation in school as her being the only black graduate student. Collins described her work as art that represents racial issues and language structure and how those ingredients  compliment each other. Collins stated that most people have a solid outline around themselves and that she was one of a few that has a dotted line and she wanted to escape the outline. Collins explained that critiques were awkward because of her minority status in class. Collins work in school emulated colorism connected to black history and her desire to create beauty in all of the discrimination. Her White Noise series gained snarky and disrespectful remarks which she then used for the titles. 

Collins' Erased series is still in the works and has become a vigorous procedure because of the continuous writing and erasing which causes stress on her body and mind emotionally, and physically. It's amazing because Collins does all of this to support herself and answer the questions she has for herself and society. Collins explained during the lecture that she is obsessed with her work and how “language shifts as we do”. 

Collins discussed the term dual binary and how society and herself are "double-edged". Collins' technique of repeatedly drawing, writing and erasing enabled her to discover things about her general questions in life. Collin refers to Chicago as "home" but she is primitively from Montgomery, Alabama, she has also lived in New York but still finds Chicago home. Even though Collins represents herself as a Chicagoan, she accepts that her southern roots influence her work in a very significant way. Collins may be from the south but she does not accept the southern correlation  to define her as a person. She joked her time living in New York and constantly being asked what it was like to be a southerner in such a big city. Collins’s series, "Southern Review", was her closest related series to her Alabama home. Collins took  the Southern Review, an actual magazine started in 1935, and blacked out certain sections from each page to make the viewer only read in the order she wanted people to read. The one piece from her Southern Review series that stood out was her was "Southern Review, 1985 (special edition)" which exclusively used black authors and she joked about how it was a apology from the publishers for never having a black author featured in the magazine until then. What made this piece stand out was that she said herself that she couldn't follow her own rules from the series because it was such a monumental edition she felt as if she couldn't black any of it out. 

Southern Review 1985 (special edition)
57 1/2" x 104" - Charcoal on paper

Collins art revolves around her obsession with language, she said something that resonated with me, “language is a kind of form, language, and prism”.  What I took out of it is that just like society changes, language changes with it. Collins created the series she named Book Works in 2015 where she made two works known as "Colorblind" and "Black and Blue". The series was based around Collins erasing, with saliva, the word color in "Colorblind" and the words black and blue in in "Black and Blue". 

Colorblind Dictionary 2015
Webster Dictionary with all color terms erased
8 1/4" x 10" x 2 1/4"

The heart of Bethany Collins’s work is language. Collins shows that with the help of language she can show the connection between race and language. Collins' lecture was thoroughly enjoyable and I really enjoyed her work.