SoFA gallery provides experiences from classroom to Japan

Although Tina Newberry, associate professor in the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts, has been teaching at IU for three years, Friday was the first time she saw any of her students’ work displayed in the school’s gallery.

Those students are the 21 undergraduates enrolled in Newberry’s painting seminar this fall, and their paintings are hung in the SoFA’s center and west gallery for the BFA Painting Exhibition. The exhibition, as well as the School’s Overseas Study Exhibition, opened Tuesday and ended Saturday.

“It’s somewhat of a tradition,” Newberry said. “It’s almost a thesis show.”

The gallery was bustling with people eager to see the artwork of their sons, daughters, pupils and fellow students. The food provided by the school was gone well before the reception was done, with only crumbs left on the tablecloth. 

Paintings of various sizes and styles lined the center and west gallery walls, a testament to Newberry’s philosophy.

“There was no theme to the class,” Newberry said. “I want students to have their own individual voice, ideas and style.” 

One of six seniors enrolled in the course, Rosalind Tallmadge, is more familiar to the gallery space than her professor. The exhibition is Tallmadge’s fourth and last show at IU.

“This is certainly the most meaningful,” Tallmadge said. “I’ve really come into my own style.”

Tallmadge’s five paintings, she said, are together the best work she has done. Each represents sexual, violent and carnal situations, and to do this, she said, each figure was painted with an animal head.

Rachel Kremidas, another senior enrolled in the course, was able to use the exhibition as an opportunity to present both her paintings and art created through independent study. On the floor of the center gallery, Kremidas was given permission to put a ceramic sculpture of a human figured titled “Violence Manifested on the Body.”

The piece was hard to miss and garnered many questions and compliments.

“She really stands out because she’s here on the floor of a painting exhibition,” Kremidas said.

Kremidas said her paintings in the exhibition represent violence, pain and suffering and that her sculpture manifests those ideas.

The gallery reception also celebrated the Overseas Study Exhibition. Located in the east gallery, the exhibition features a variety of artwork, from paintings to videos, all created by students who studied abroad in either Italy or Japan.

“It was a blast,” said junior Steven Yim, who traveled to Japan. “I enjoyed seeing how people live life in Japan, It was really interesting.”

Yim was one of 12 students that spent a month in Japan over the summer to take video, photographs and more. Yim said the students went to museums and galleries and that the art they created was influenced by what they saw and learned.

“Going abroad changed my view on art,” Yim said. “It’s really taught me to think more conceptually and give my art more in-depth meaning.”

Students who went to Japan also created videos, documenting their time in the gallery. Two monitors can be found the east gallery, playing these projects on a continuous loop for gallery viewers.

Sophomore Josh Bruce, who attended the gallery reception to view his friend junior Derek Cutting’s work said the work from the three countries was a nice change of pace from the usual.

“Art from abroad brings us different flavors from different cities around the world to Bloomington,” Bruce said. “And it’s student work, which is even better.”