Painter is Next Guest at USU'S Art Department Visiting Artist Program

New York painter Alexis Rockman travels to Logan and is featured in a number of activities at Utah State University as part of the Department of Art’s Visiting Artist Program.

Rockman will be on campus Nov. 11-12, and the artist will present a public lecture Tuesday, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m. in the Performance Hall (approximately 1090 E. 675 North, Logan).  The lecture is free and open to all.

 

USU art department programs are a part of the Caine School of the Arts, based in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

 

Rockman is a contemporary artist known for his large-scale paintings that often depict the relationship between man and the environment. He earned a bachelor’s of fine arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York and has exhibited his work in galleries and institutions worldwide.

 

The Smithsonian American Art Museum will open a solo exhibition of his work in October 2010.

 

Rockman has been making paintings about natural history, global warming and the impact humans have made on the environment since beginning his career.

 

“My position is one of ambivalence as the horse is already out of the barn so to speak; it is not biotechnology that is the problem but corporate America or globalism or colonialism,” he said. “The implications of using this technology are far more devastating because of the unknowable effects. This is something that is very disturbing and visually compelling to me.

 

“I am of a generation whose relationship with the government and big business comes out of a post-Watergate skepticism. How could my work not have a political effect? I feel like I am in such a privileged position I would find it unconscionable if I didn't take advantage of that as someone who cares about these issues.”

 

USU art department faculty member Woody Shepherd described Rockman’s work and his place in the art world.

 

“Rockman is based in New York City, and has established an international reputation through his exhibitions in the most renowned art galleries and museums in the world,” Shepherd said. “His mural-sized paintings are often as large as 24 feet in dimension. His most recent paintings convey his interest with the environment, climate and weather through complex and multi-layered representations of the interaction of culture and the natural environment. He paints with a big arm and also a jeweler’s hand. Rockman is able to create a spectacle in his paintings through his combination of painting styles, use of grand scale and obsessive attention to detail.”

 

The Visiting Artist Program presents visits by nationally known artists, art critics/writers and art historians. Lectures, workshops, group discussions and exhibitions by the artists are free and open to the public. The guests are selected for their national and international reputations, the ways in which their art reflects diversity with respect to the media used and their varied backgrounds.

 

The Visiting Artist Program is funded by a grant from the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Utah Humanities Council, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Utah Arts Council, with funding from the State of Utah, and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

 

Future guests in this year’s Visiting Artist Program include photographer Steve Smith from Rhode Island (March 23), potter Chris Gustin from Massachusetts (April 1) and graphic designer Golan Levin from Pennsylvania (April 8).

 

For more information about the Visiting Artist Program at USU, contact program director Marilyn Krannich, 435-797-7373.

 

College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences  

 

Contact: Marilyn Krannich, 435-797-7373
Source: Art Department