One of the impediments inserting itself into more and more professions across modern American life is the frustration of simply getting your foot in the door, in order to earn your way into a career. Short circuiting that problem for aspiring fine artists is the driving force behind the Emerging Artist Exhibition at the Gutman Gallery, a show which aims to demonstrate the best of promising local talent across contemporary paintings, mixed media, sculpture and just about any other static art medium you can think of.
“Everything here is utterly fantabulous,” said Regina Gilger, an Ann Arborite decided to drop in just because she noticed the show was happening while she was walking on Fourth between Ann and Huron.
This show is sort of an after party to the Ann Arbor Art Fair, according to the gallery. The show is scheduled to run through August 30.
This yearly show has been happening annually for half a decade now, and this year just so happens to be painting and mixed media-heavy, medium-wise.
“This painting started when I started getting into using pallet knives to paint, instead of brushes. It was a 24 by 36 painting and then I was inspired by another artists in New York, who cuts up her work and sews it back together. So, I took the painting off the wooden frame, cut it up and sewed it back together. Then I found a baroque style frame, which we fitted and painted the piece into,” Lila Hudgins said of the first of her two paintings, “Mo Faces,” which was on display. Her other panting, “Ghosts,” was originally a photograph of her friends at a party in a U of M apartments. She decided to use smoke and other “add ins” to make this painting more impressionist than anything else because she wanted to “create a scenario where the viewer isn’t 100% sure if the scene is real, or a dream.”
Viewing the art is free, but, if there is a piece that you suddenly realize that you can’t live without, everything is for sale.
“I think it’s wonderful – very creative, very imaginative,” Lauren Manson, the mother of the artist who produced the digital art pieces Joined in Life, and creator, said.
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“I read a short story called the ‘Tattooed Man’ when I was in middle school,” Melinda Vukonich, a Royal Oak-based artist making her debut in the world of fine art exhibitions said. She explained that her painting, the “Illustrated Woman,” was inspired by a tale from a Ray Bradburry short story collection where a man’s tattoos come alive. Her painting is of a woman covered vibrantly in a wide album of tattoos, in a similar way.
“I had that in mind,” Vukonich said. “I really liked the visual of tattoos coming alive on somebody. I like to do stuff with a lot of line and dynamic movement, so I just took inspiration from that.”
Other artists up on display are T’onna Clemons, Branislava Dragovic, Yusuf Lateef, Ernest James Lozon (a.k.a. Rez), Emily Man, Dominic Palazzolo (a.k.a. Dominic the Insomniac), Elvira Stesikova, Miriam Vukich, Robert Wollenhaupt, and Emilie Yonker. Refreshments were provided by TeaHaus, which is located at the corner of Ann, almost adjacent to the gallery.
Two awards were given out at the gallery’s opening. Hudgins gave an audible shriek of delight when it was announced that she won the juried prize, selected by the Guild. The other prize was a people’s choice award, selected by the attendees who wrote down their choices on paper ballots throughout the evening. Courtney Crider said she was surprised that her two paintings – “Wishing,” and “Opening Up” – won, since she only started displaying her art in galleries and art fairs this year.
“I am really appreciative…. Disney was definitely a major inspiration for my style, while I was developing it,” Crider said. In describing her art, the purple haired character in her Opening Up piece is an astronaut wearing a protective space suit that will keep her safe, but she is choosing to open it up and thereby “opening up personality-wise,” to be confident in the world as she “let’s her hair down to b herself.” Crider explained that “Wishing,” was partially inspired by the Ruth B. song Dandelions, in that she has blown a wish on all but one dandelion. “This is her last one, so it is a hopeful, powerful moment.”
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Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
