On June 22, 2016, 3 of the artists in UVA’s Temptation of the Mind and Body exhibition and Curator Kayla Spafford gave a public presentation at the Harvard Ed Portal Crossings Art Gallery for about 20 very interested visitors. Before and after the talks the visitors toured the exhibition. Refreshments were provided by the Harvard Ed Portal. The 3 artists – Alexandra Rozenman, Nohelia Vargas and Joan Mullen all delivered exciting talks.
Alexandra Rozenman talked about her early life in Moscow and how everything around her influenced her painting, which began at age 6. She also talked about the influences of the Modern Art masters, such as Monet, Hopper and Guston, that greatly influenced her style and body of work. Her bold use of colors and storytelling in her paintings is very now very apparent. See her full biography here.
Nohelia Vargas talked about her paintings and what she tries to convey. She feels that she and other artists see the world differently than most people but that “art should be for everyone.” She strives for her art to be inclusive. She talked how architects can’t walk into a room without observing all the architectural details and she feels that artists can’t go anywhere without seeing more than the average person. She pointed to bowl of strawberries as an example, in which she sees all the shapes and relationships among and between the individual strawberries. She sees the world differently than other people. She strives to create art in which people will spend time looking at. So, she created “art still lives” that almost require the viewer to take more than a quick view. See her full biography here.
Joan Mullen walked us through her creative process for making, casting, creating and painting her small sculptural molding artwork. She works with plaster, resin and wax. Oftentimes she’s have 5 different shapes. She uses patterns that are chosen based on the effect she’s trying to create. See her full biography here.
