New 808 Gallery Exhibition Showcases College, Alumni Artwork | BU Today

Haunting monochrome portraits, vivid summary artwork, and etchings of every kind line the partitions of the Boston University Art Galleries 808 Gallery as a part of its newest, exhibit, Hidden within the Layers. Although the printmaking methods are diversified, all of them have one side in widespread: the artists are BU school and alumni. 

Premiering in the course of the 2024 Venice Biennale—the world’s oldest arts and structure pageant—Hidden within the Layers celebrates school inside the College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts Print Media & Photography program, in addition to alumni artists engaged in printmaking. The Venice exhibition was one in all two BU-affiliated reveals; the opposite was a showcase of labor by 14 members in BU’s Study Abroad Venice Studio Arts program. 

“This is really the first show that I’ve [directly] curated at BU in the seven years that I’ve been here,” says Lissa Cramer, director of BU Art Galleries. “It was kind of an experiment for me to curate remotely in an international gallery—and then I liked the show so much that I just thought, why don’t we share it with our BU community here?”

Cramer says that whereas the work of all 5 artists is totally different, they’re related via the implementation of layers, whether or not a bodily layering of mediums or layers inside the which means of every piece. Harvey Young, dean of CFA and BU’s interim vice chairman for the humanities, initially spearheaded the exhibition’s theme and selected its artists, whereas Cramer and Stacy McKenna (MET’21), CFA affiliate director for strategic initiatives, co-curated the present.

The exhibition highlights a number of items from Lynne Allen, a CFA professor of artwork and Print Media & Photography chair; Deborah Cornell, a CFA professor of artwork and printmaking chair; Toni Pepe, a CFA affiliate professor of artwork and images chair; Joshua Brennan, a CFA lecturer in printmaking and technical affiliate in printmaking and images; and Charles Suggs (CFA’20).

The Print Media & Photography MFA program was launched in 2022 by Allen, Cornell, and Pepe and emphasizes exploration of assorted media, from lithography to images to woodcut and past. 

“It’s all very rare, and a treat, to show [work] as colleagues,” says Cornell, whose multimedia apply explores how large-scale environmental forces affect human life. “Each of us comes to the printmaking medium with a very different expectation and a really different intention.”

Suggs, a Boston-based multimedia artist, explores determine portraits utilizing oil printing and candle smoke in his Body Gaze collection. The artwork doesn’t depict any particular particular person, however the forward-facing portraits are meant to problem and confront the viewer. 

“I started that when I was in one of Deb’s [Cornell] classes,” he says. “Most of the pieces [in the exhibition] now are iterations of that work.”

Suggs, who had labored on the collection for greater than a 12 months, was on the exhibition’s premiere in Venice. . And this summer season he accomplished 4 new works.

“I’m with this group of printmakers who are really established and know their stuff,” he says of fellow exhibitors. “I feel really lucky and glad they asked me to be a part of it.”

Pepe’s work is primarily photography-based and steadily makes use of Twentieth-century newspaper clippings from the Boston Public Library archives. Her work within the exhibition is an element of a bigger collection known as Can I Hold You, which options ink-jet prints that she retraces with gouache, ink, and graphite.

“I like to spend a lot of time with my work,” Pepe says. “My hand becomes part of this larger chain of hands that have touched this photo and edited it.”

Allen has a group of wooden etchings and digital print reliefs on show, whereas Brennan is displaying items from his collection Abyssal Palimpsest—named to evoke a ruined vista.

It’s “part beautiful landscape, yet it withholds any fully recognizable forms,” Brennan informed BU Today in the course of the 2024 Biennale. “There’s a constant interplay between what is visible and what is obscured, inviting viewers to question the boundaries of the image.”

The colourful summary varieties, inkjet prints augmented with acrylic paint, recommend figures in a chaotic dance. They play towards Suggs’ stark monochromatic items, displaying the breadth of chance inside the printmaking medium. “I hope anybody coming to see the exhibition will just spend time really looking,” Pepe says. “This is an exhibition about layers: a layering of history, a layering of touch, a layering of presence. I hope people will give the time and space needed to just spend with the work.” 

Hidden within the Layers is on view via Saturday, November 22, on the 808 Gallery, 808 Commonwealth Ave. The gallery is open Tuesday via Saturday from 11 am to five pm. The exhibition is free and open to the general public. A reception shall be held on Wednesday, November 12, from 5:30 to eight pm, on the 808 Gallery.