![\"'Spore](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DONALD-MOFFETT1-e1442843062723.jpg\")
<\/a>Works by Donald Moffett, for example, are hybrid creations that protrude from the walls. His canvases are covered with thick paint and have highly tactile surfaces. His \u201cLot 010615 (Spore trap 5, ore green)\u201d is a wood panel with bored holes seen through flecks of green paint resembling an artificial evergreen tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cMusic Factory\u201d by Julia Dault presents some optical illusion with a lattice of leather covering a colorful painting that pops through from the canvas behind the cut leather design.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of reference to art history,\u201d Rosenberg says. \u201cFor the longest time, a lot of things have been figurative. I started to see in New York and other places something else happening. There\u2019s a new interest in abstraction from a younger generation, a lot of interest in modernism, and they\u2019re looking at minimalists. They are making references to art history. Abstraction, modernist design, minimalism, color field, op art. These were the things of the 1960s and 1970s and the early 20th century. They\u2019re knowledgeable about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says part of his inspiration for seeking out emerging trends is a quote from the 1955 William Gaddis novel, The Recognitions: \u201cMost paintings, the instant you see them, they become familiar and then it\u2019s too late,\u201d which he has on the door of his office.<\/p>\n In several instances, the artists use the materials of painting as part of the creation, as in the case of Cordy Ryman, who uses salvaged industrial and construction materials such as 2×2 pieces of wood in \u201cClackered,\u201d or Jason Middlebrook\u2019s \u201cCollecting Stones,\u201d a piece of walnut wood painted with layers of jagged lines reminiscent of late 1960s psychedelic posters. Guillermo Pfaff\u2019s \u201cInside-Out\u201d uses a transparent bleached linen stretched over a wooden frame so the viewer can see through the colored linen.<\/p>\n Rosenberg says the woven beaded glass creation \u201cixube (multi rose)\u201d by Liza Lou is an example of the title for the exhibition. The work is the Zulu word for random and was created by blending glass beads in large vats which were distributed to a collective of Lou\u2019s neighbors in South Africa and woven into long strips. The artist then edited and assembled the strips into a unified field that is stretched over steel bars.<\/p>\n \u201cThe edge meaning what\u2019s new. It\u2019s about painting, but not necessarily painted. There\u2019s the other edge, what\u2019s happening on the other edge, with sometimes paint on the other side,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s something happening here that\u2019s really interesting. I wanted to be quick to point it out. As a teaching university, it’s critical that our students be aware of emerging trends.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>