Larger-than-life charcoal drawings, colorful elements of graphic design, and high-definition video are among the wide range of media currently on display in the 45th annual faculty art exhibition at the William Benton Museum of Art. This diverse body of work highlights the interests and varied talents of 17 studio artists from the Department of Art and Art History in the School of Fine Arts, from the Storrs and regional campuses.
This year’s featured artists are photographer Frank Noelker and print maker Laurie Sloan. Both love the challenges of problem solving, and both are energized when people look at their images and walk away viewing the world just a little differently.
“It’s not about telling people what to think,” Noelker says, “it’s about stimulating people so they want to think – about themselves, about the world around them.”
Noelker is an associate professor of art who says that photography appeals to him because, even though photographs “can and do lie,” there’s still a kind of credibility suggested by the photographic process that can be very effective in creating documentary work. And for the past two decades, Noelker has done just that, as he has used his camera’s lens to capture the complex relationship between humans and both wild and domestic animals.
His book, Captive Beauty, examines the lives of zoo animals, and he has also turned his lens on chimpanzees living in sanctuaries following decades spent as research subjects, in the entertainment industry, or living as pets. Most recently he has been photographing farm animals rescued from abusive situations that now reside in two Farm Sanctuary locations in Watkins Glenn, NY and Chico, Calif. The photographs in the Benton exhibit were taken at the New York location.
Noelker’s work has been described as being both evocative and thought-provoking, and his photographs are included in permanent museum collections throughout the country, including the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Conn., the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.
Noelker says he subscribes to the theory that you don’t necessarily choose art. “It chooses you,” he says, “and you just have to do it.”
Sloan, also an associate professor of art, started her undergraduate academic career as a zoology major before finding her niche in the fine arts. Her love of the life sciences is reflected in her words as she describes the motivation behind her artwork.
She says she is fascinated by an apparent need people have to safely categorize and compartmentalize everything: “It all seems to be an effort to find our own place in the world. But I’m most interested in the idea that we can’t really ever truly grasp reality. It seems to me that the more we discover, the more we realize how little we really know.”
Sloan adds, “My work in printmaking parallels these ideas, in that there’s always a suggestion that at any moment the forms [I create] could independently mutate, graft, or create new hierarchies, altering the whole sense of their meaning.”
Sloan’s work is exhibited widely in the United States and abroad. Her prints are included in more than 20 public collections throughout the country, including the deCordova Museum outside of Boston, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, Calif.
According to the Benton’s acting director Tom Bruhn, the diverse body of work in this year’s faculty exhibition highlights the many different directions taken by contemporary artists. In addition to the photography and printmaking of Noelker and Sloan, media represented in the works on display, “show an impressive range of technique and individual interests.”
“Last year, due to construction going on at the museum, we weren’t able to have the faculty exhibit,” he says, “but this year our galleries are open, our artists are back, and the Benton is delighted to be able to present their work.”
The William Benton Museum of Art is Connecticut’s State Art Museum. Galleries are open Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and weekends from 1 to 4 p.m.
The faculty art exhibition will run through Oct. 16. A reception for the artists will be held on Sept. 22 from 5 to 9 p.m.
