SoFA gallery exhibits IU alumni artwork

Students shuffled into the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts’ Grunwald Gallery of Art Friday night to study the professional work of nine IU alumni who graduated within the past 15 years.

‘SoFA Revisited,’ the first show of its kind for the gallery, was the grand opening exhibition of the spring semester and will be on display until Saturday, Feb. 8.

The nine featured artists participated in a two-hour panel at 4 p.m. before the exhibit officially opened at 6 p.m.

The show featured works from a variety of media including painting, textiles, photography, ceramics, digital art and sculpture.

One artist, Derek Parker, showed a different sculpture piece — one assembled just five days prior, using materials sourced from IU’s Surplus Store.

Parker said the opportunity to build on-site is one he welcomes as a challenge.

His piece, “The Institutional Memory,” is the second of a series of installations he developed around the idea of technology and its perceived fixed facility in daily life.

The installation featured corded telephones, computer monitors, file cabinets and projectors, all borrowed from the IU Surplus Store. Parker wasn’t allowed to damage any of the materials he used for the installation, as per his agreement with the local material supplier. Once the show comes to a close, Parker is to return each borrowed piece.

“I had five days,” Parker said. “I didn’t know what the materials were, didn’t know how much I would have. I came here with my tool bag and a bag of zip ties and that was it. It was made in five days from an idea, looking at materials and executing the whole piece. It’s a challenge, and that’s one of the things I like about it. It’s a risk that I’m used to.”

Jeremy Sweet, assistant director of the Grunwald Gallery, said the show was a chance to expose current fine-arts students to the professional life and work of SoFA graduates.

Parker said he agreed the show was important for students to see.

“It’s easy to forget that there’s a real tangible benefit to being in school,” he said. “It’s not this high in the sky thing. They get the chance to see artists who sat in the same seats they sat in and is making a living. That’s worth more than any lecture that you could give them or bringing in another artist that went to another school. Like, I went to the same classes they are going to.”

Parker graduated from IU in 2009 with a Master’s degree in fine arts in sculpture and expanded formats. His undergraduate degree in fine arts was completed at California State University of Fullerton.

Though his degrees are in fine arts, he said art wasn’t always his first choice for a career. When he selected a major in college, he began in engineering.

His father owned an auto body shop where Parker worked on cars in junior high and high school. Engineering seemed like the most suitable career path until he received the support of his parents and instructors to pursue art full time.

“Going into arts, I think I kind of came at that sideways,” he said. “I’d always been artistic, all the way through high school and junior high whenever there was an elective or something that wasn’t determined for you, I’d take art. I had always been doing art and it just never really dawned on me that it was something that could be pursued as a career.”

Now Parker lives and works in North Adams, Mass., at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, installing and fabricating pieces for other artists who are not able to transport already-assembled installations or sculptures.

This practice, Parker said, is becoming more popular in museums around the country because of budget constraints and the amount of time artists have to participate in the creative process on-site.

“At the end of the day, making art, there’s a business side to it as well,” he said. “Some of it is not as romantic as people think.”

Parker said he goes to the studio and works on his own projects like everyone else would go to a job. He loves what he does but realizes there are trade-offs in the art world, just like in every business.

Parker’s current project, aside from his museum work, is an installation piece for a show on June 8  at Salem Art Works in upstate New York. The show, “Fiber 2 Form,” will demonstrate the creative process from material selection to final sculptural formation.

Part of Parker’s enjoyment comes from the challenge of creating art on the spot, just like he did for SoFA Revisited this weekend, he said.

“This gets my heart beating again,” he said. “It really gets the creative muscles working because, yeah, you don’t know what you’re getting into and you have to respond quick.”