The current exhibit at Mercer’s art gallery on the West Windsor Campus is “Saturated Geometry,” curated by fine arts Professor Lucas Kelly. It is running through March 7.
The art showcased in the exhibit is by five well-known professional artists from New York: Robert Erickson, Ryan Sarah Murphy, Alex Paik, Richard Tinkler, and Andrew Zimmerman. All the art pieces on display carry all the artists’ individual takes on formal geometric abstraction and with some form of color saturation.
Thirty pieces are currently on display in total, of which 17 are from Richard Tinkler. According to Alice Thompson, the current art director at the Gallery, Tinkler’s oil paintings in the exhibit use only two types of paint brushes throughout.
Four of the pieces are from Ryan Sarah Murphy. Murphy uses unpainted cardboard, cut book covers and a foam core to construct the pieces. The pieces are architectural and imitate buildings and locations with geometric proportions. Murphy’s pieces, while few, are fascinating and stand apart from all the other artist’s work.
Andrew Zimmerman has five pieces on display. He uses cut pieces of wood in geometric shapes with each piece bound together. He also uses acrylic and automotive paints to color his pieces, which makes them stand out under the gallery lighting.
Alex Paik had just one piece which he titled ‘Partial Equilateral Triangle (Diamond)’. The piece uses gouache, colored pencil, paper and nails.
Paik came to campus to install his artwork in the gallery. It creates a slight illusion; the color is revealed in the white in-lay as you walked by it.
Brandon Velasquez a Graphic Design major at Mercer, who also works at the Gallery part-time says, “Alex Paik’s work is probably my favorite one just cause it has a lot of colors and is focusing more on lighting and shadows and the light bouncing off each of the colors and just the geometric-ness of it.”
Robert Erickson’s pieces take a different approach. His three pieces use a technique of ink being on polyester. He painted a color on a canvas and layered with polyester to give the color a faded effect.
Most of the art pieces in the “Saturated Geometry” exhibit at the Gallery are up for sale starting from $850 and going up to $7000 per piece.
Gallery director Alice Thompson says, “The Gallery is chiefly run by students. We rely on student volunteers very heavily in terms of their support for hanging a show and be able to keep the doors open. If it were not for student volunteers the gallery doors would be closed.”
But Thompson also notes that students are sometimes reluctant to visit saying, “The prevailing comment from students is that they have never been in a gallery…They are not sure if they are allowed to come in. There’s sort of discomfort initially, but we try to be very open and very welcoming.”
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Up next at the Gallery: March 25 – April 25 (reception March 27)
MCCC Visual Arts Student Exhibition
