Saint Mary's hosted Chicago-based artist Tim Lowly to discuss his new exhibit “La Mère | La Mer” on a panel which featured other artists from the exhibit Thursday. The exhibit — which features works from 20 participants — will be displayed in the Moreau Art Galleries from Sept. 5 to Sept. 30.
“I’ve never done a show like this,” Lowly said.
Lowly said the inspiration for the title of the exhibit came from a large painting of his mother he did following his father’s death.
“The installations oriented generally around the idea of ‘mother,’” he said. “On [the painting], I wrote ‘La Mère | La Mer,’ and that’s where the title of the show came from.”
The artists’ works vary in sources of inspiration and themes, cultivating in a diverse exhibit in terms of medias used and content displayed.
Artist Louise LeBourgeois’s work is featured in the exhibit and centralizes around her time spent swimming in Lake Michigan as a kid. She said she focused primarily on the horizon line.
“It keeps you perpetually intrigued because it’s something that you want and when you get what you want, you no longer want it,” she said. “When I first started, I meticulously tried drawing the shapes of the waves. It’s all muscle memory now.”
Featured artist Steven Carrelli said he put more emphasis on the fragile and broken things that are often out of place in his work.
“What I’m attracted to is this idea of fragility … creating an illusion of something that doesn’t quite make sense,” he said.
Artist Kelly Vanderbrug said she uses lots of texture and build up in her work, including shadowing.
“I’ve always liked taking things that existed in the world but then recreating them … changing their shape and scales” she said. “The shadow becomes a portal to another skyscape.”
Corrie Thompson is also featured in the exhibit for her piece,“The Lord Gives,” which is a handmade book.
“Doing this book was very therapeutic for me,” she said.“I was finding these different realms of myself that I’d never known before.”
Thompson said her two-year-old daughter plays a big part in her life.
“She draws on almost all of the pieces I make,” she said.
Featured artist Tim Erickson said he began to take an interest in rocks during his senior year of college, which inspired his art.
“I was really attentive to these little mundane things we walk on,” he said. “I paid attention to the color, texture [and] detail.”
Erickson said he moved around multiple times as a kid.
“The concept of home to me is very … fragile,” he said.
Deb Hendriksma-Anderson, another artist featured in the exhibit, compared painting to a puzzle and said that once she starts, she can’t stop until she is finished.
“Painting, for me, has been my favorite way to explore my surroundings and inner subconscious,” she said.
