Visual Treats for the Mind

Walking around the Wesleyan campus the other day, I chanced upon this poster and headed over to the Zilkha Gallery in the Center for the Arts. These 3 artists are all students in the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at Wesleyan and this exhibition celebrates their work.

It's tough to tell looking at this image of a row of trees in Italy just how powerful Ryan Lee's exhibition is. Titled "Slivers", Lee makes a statement about how man treats or, truly, mistreats the environment. 90% of each image is taken up by the sky, a bleached-out tableau and what one sees of the earth often looks desolate or defeated (one image juxtaposes a lonesome stand of trees with a subdivision of lily-white houses.) It's best to view Lee's work without people milling about because one really needs to take the time to take in what he or she is seeing. Ryan Lee graduated from the GLSP this past May and his exhibition was awarded the Rulewater Prize. You can view the works online at www.ryandlee.com.

William Murray's exhibition, "A Soul's Search for Meaning", is a series of monotypes and one painting that draws one in slowly (the way they were created.) The works are abstract but the careful viewer can intuit that the artist quest had a spiritual intent.

Philip Munroe's drawings definitely tell a story. The title of his work "Visualizing Melville's 'The Confidence Man': His Masquerade" and, while there is no text, the artist has imbued each character in his work with personality and emotions.

Both Munroe and Murray are working towards their degrees and these works serve as their final projects. There's not much time left to view the exhibition; Gallery hours are Friday June 27 4 p.m. - 8 p.m. and Saturday June 28 12 noon - 4 p.m. Go take a look.

(Poster photo by Olivia Barrett and image courtesy of Ryan Lee.)