Essays on Artists & Acquisitions (page 7)
Samella Lewis
The face in I See You is backed by solid black and defined in white. If one observes the image from a short distance, a stark black/white dichotomy is evident (look, for example, at the whites of the figure’s eyes), but when one looks from farther away, the lines blur, and the face appears to be in grayscale. Considered in light of Dr. Lewis’s trailblazing work as a Black artist, this phenomenon might be interpreted as a commentary on race relations in the 21st century.
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Nancy Macko
Nancy Macko’s interest in the science of bee societies led to a curiosity in mathematics, which in turn resulted in her exploration of the intersection of math and art. In her recent work, Macko has explored prime numbers and the phenomenon of prime deserts.
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Carrie Mae Weems
As Andrea Kirsh writes in “Carrie Mae Weems: Issues in Black, White and Color,” by the age of 27, Weems “had professional experience in modern dance; a progression of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs on farms and in restaurants, factories and offices; and extensive grass-roots political experience in socialist and feminist organizations.”
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Anonymous
A small porcelain bowl was given in December 2007 to Scripps College by Anthony Elias and Patricia Lords Ghosn and the Worldbridge Foundation. Although modest in size, it reveals much about Japanese history, Oriental ceramics, and modern collecting.
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Faith Ringgold
Ringgold is widely known as the author and illustrator of the Caldecott Honor Book, Tar Beach, which tells the story of young Cassie Louise Lightfoot, a character modeled after Ringgold herself, whose family spends the hot summer nights on the rooftop of its Harlem apartment building. Cassie dreams of flying over the city to be free of the hardships her family faces as African Americans in the 1930s. The story is ultimately one of hope and endless possibility as Cassie states: “anyone can fly. All you need is somewhere to go that you can’t get to any other way. The next thing you know, you’re flying among the stars.”
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Joyce Campbell
In 2005, Joyce Campbell, an interdisciplinary artist coming out of sculpture and most recognized for her photography, taught as a guest professor at Scripps College in 2005 and participated in the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery’s tri-annual Faculty Exhibition. Campbell, a native of New Zealand, received her Bachelor in Fine Arts in 1992 from Canterbury University and her Masters in Fine Arts with honors in 1999 from the University of Auckland, where she is currently a professor of fine arts.
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Elizabeth Turk
Elizabethan ruffs, the intricate patterns of lace, as well as natural and corporal imagery, from spider webs to the human skeletal system, were the inspiration for the delicately carved and intricately designed collars, each sculpted from a 400-pound block of Sivec or Carrara marble. These scientific yet natural studies serve as representations of articles of clothing and hold symbolic meaning.
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Alison Saar
In 2000, Saar’s work was shown alongside that of her sister, Lezley, at the Williamson Gallery. Her work continues to be exhibited at institutions across the county: she is represented by the Phyllis Kind Gallery in New York and Jan Baum Gallery in Los Angeles, and her work is included in the permanent collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others.
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Tsukioka Kogyo
Kogyo is best known for his prints of Noh actors, and did a series called Nohgaku Hyakuban (One Hundred Noh Plays). This subject of this print is a monster that terrorized the imperial palace at night.
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