{"id":46375,"date":"2011-09-12T11:32:21","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T15:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=46375"},"modified":"2011-09-12T11:32:21","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T15:32:21","slug":"faculty-artists-showcased-at-benton-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/09\/faculty-artists-showcased-at-benton-exhibition\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Artists Showcased at Benton Exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Faculty<\/a>
The faculty art exhibition runs through Oct. 16. (Sheila Foran\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s featured artists are photographer Frank Noelker<\/a> and print maker Laurie Sloan<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

\"Frank<\/a>
Frank Noelker uses photography to capture his subjects. (Laurie Sloan\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about telling people what to think,\u201d Noelker says, \u201cit\u2019s about stimulating people so they want to think \u2013 about themselves, about the world around them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noelker is an associate professor of art who says that photography appeals to him because, even though photographs \u201ccan and do lie,\u201d there\u2019s 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\u2019s lens to capture the complex relationship between humans and both wild and domestic animals.<\/p>\n

His book, Captive Beauty<\/em><\/a>, 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<\/a> locations in Watkins Glenn, NY and Chico, Calif. The photographs in the Benton exhibit were taken at the New York location.<\/p>\n

Noelker\u2019s 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<\/a> in Ridgefield, Conn., the George Eastman House<\/a> in Rochester, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography<\/a> in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Noelker says he subscribes to the theory that you don\u2019t necessarily choose art. \u201cIt chooses you,\u201d he says, \u201cand you just have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Laurie<\/a>
Laurie Sloan's prints are a study in color and movement. (Frank Noelker\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

She says she is fascinated by an apparent need people have to safely categorize and compartmentalize everything: \u201cIt all seems to be an effort to find our own place in the world. But I\u2019m most interested in the idea that we can\u2019t really ever truly grasp reality. It seems to me that the more we discover, the more we realize how little we really know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sloan adds, \u201cMy work in printmaking parallels these ideas, in that there\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sloan\u2019s 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<\/a> outside of Boston, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art<\/a> in Santa Barbara, Calif.<\/p>\n

\"Benton<\/a>
Tom Bruhn, acting director of the Benton Museum, selects photographs to be mounted for the faculty exhibition. (Sheila Foran\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to the Benton\u2019s acting director Tom Bruhn, the diverse body of work in this year\u2019s 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, \u201cshow an impressive range of technique and individual interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, due to construction going on at the museum, we weren\u2019t able to have the faculty exhibit,\u201d he says, \u201cbut this year our galleries are open, our artists are back, and the Benton is delighted to be able to present their work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The William Benton Museum of Art is Connecticut\u2019s 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.<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year’s featured artists are photographer Frank Noelker and printmaker Laurie Sloan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":46270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[56],"class_list":["post-46375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 10:21:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46375"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46392,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46375\/revisions\/46392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/46270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46375"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=46375"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=46375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}