PANAMA CITY— An exhibit of prints, drawing and sculpture made by American artists working at the SkopArt Foundation on Skopelos, Greece, is the subject of the new exhibit hosted by Gulf Coast State College’s Visual & Performing Arts Division.
“Crossing Boundaries” opens Friday evening with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. The work will be on display in the Amelia Center Main Gallery (Room 112) until April 17.
Over the course of two weeks during the summer of 2013, seven American artists came together on a small island in the north Aegean. The resulting work is a response to the island, travel, history and each other.
“I had the feeling that nothing was real, everything was layered, and it was almost impossible to get to the bottom of it all; there was no true way to mark time, and the place was older than it would ever reveal,” said artist Magda Gluszek. “The swallows that swirled overhead and weaved their way through the studio daily were the same ones that I recognized from a Santorini fresco preserved from 1500 BCE. They felt like the exact same swallows, not just depictions of the same species.”
Although all of the artists shared the same time and space, each artist took something different from the experience — a fact clearly reflected in the diversity of the work. Some, like Gluszek, responded to the timeless nature of the island, others to the rich artistic tradition of Ancient Greece.
“Monsters, heroes, gods, stories — these are the things I was interested in already,” said Jill Foote-Hutton. “Instead of asking myself how the journey to Greece impacted my work, I should be asking why it took me so long to get there. What better match could there be? I like to say I’m a sentence sculptor. The lexicon of Attic Ware gave me a defined framework to push against, one that made sense for me to push against. And then I was able to begin stringing sentences together, defining larger stories for the monsters I created.”
Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, contact Gallery Director Pavel Amromin at pamromin@gulfcoast.edu.
‘Crossing Boundaries’
What: Exhibit of prints, drawing and sculpture
Where: Amelia Center Main Gallery, Gulf Coast State College, Panama City
Reception: 5-7 p.m. Friday; free and open to the public
Details: GulfCoast.edu; 769-1551, ext. 4874; or pamromin@gulfcoast.edu