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Valley Artists Featured in Rose-Hulman’s Spring Exhibition
March 24, 2011
Wabash Valley artists who have showcased the beauty of Japanese
calligraphy, geometry and abstract objects through a variety of
artistic forms are featured in Rose-Hulman Institute of
Technology's spring art exhibition.
More than 100 hundred artworks cover two hallways in the
college's Moench Hall. They're available for public viewing
on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through May 28. A special
artists' reception is planned on Thursday, March 31, from 4:30-7
p.m. This event is free and open to the public. Artists
will be available to discuss the inspiration behind their
artworks.
Paintings inspired by Japanese calligraphy and geometry art
prints by Terre Haute artist Mary Jo Maraldo are featured
throughout the first floor. Meanwhile, paintings, prints and
drawings by 14 regional and national artists from Terre Haute's
Gopalan Contemporary Art Gallery are on the second floor.
Maraldo returned to her hometown in 2008 after spending several
years in Florida and Japan. She studied Japanese language and
culture at Tokyo's Sophia University and then earned teaching
credentials in Ikenobo, the oldest school of the Japanese art of
floral arrangement. She began training in Japanese
calligraphy under Daiki Takemoto in Kyoto in 1987.
In her artwork, Maraldo merges the ancient art of writing
Sino-Japanese characters (kanji) with a deep understanding of the
language of abstraction in art. Often the lines of a
character are displaced to create new shapes, and masses of varying
ink intensity are used instead of line to create abstract
imagery.
"My own work strives to create spaces where writing and drawing
converge, and written characters oscillate between semantic meaning
and abstract form," states Maraldo. "Often I use brush
strokes that ordinarily form legible characters to convey a
powerful sense of motion in black and white."
The first-floor exhibit also includes Maraldo's latest creations
of colored geometric drawings that evoke three-dimensional
spaces. Based on 20-, 40-, and 60-degree angles, the drawings
seem to oscillate between different shapes and dimensions, and were
inspired by the artist's interest in showing that people can
overcome thinking in simple dualities like "we" and "they" and
instead consider three and more sides to any problem.
The wide array of unique works on display involves geometry,
exquisite brush work and unraveling language. In striving to
reveal the essential meaning of these beautiful images, Maraldo
brings a timeless form of art and writing into a contemporary realm
and perspective.
Gopalan Contemporary Art Gallery artists featured on the second
floor are Kimberly Arp, James Campbell, Robin Cole, Marek
Czarnoleski, Stephanie Doty, Susan Goldman, Larry Green, Anthony
Henderson, Cathie Laska, Mary Ann Michna, Bharat Modi, Tom Swopes,
Beth Tuttle and Rhonda Yochum.
For more information about these exhibits at Rose-Hulman,
contact Steve Letsinger, coordinator of arts programming and art
curator, at (812) 877-8452 or Steve.Letsinger@rose-hulman.edu.