While The University of Alabama may be known for its many traditions, this winter the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art is experimenting with a nontraditional exhibit.
Until Jan. 17, the gallery is showing a collection of prints from American Abstract Artists, celebrating the group’s 75th anniversary. The exhibit is on loan from the Ewing Gallery at the University of Tennessee.
“It’s something different, and it’s really unique to the individual artists,” Vicki Rial, exhibitions coordinator at the Sarah Moody Gallery, said.
The portfolio is comprised entirely of inkjet prints, a relatively new method of making an artistic print. Some of the artists started their pieces in a more traditional medium, like oil painting on canvas, and then took a photograph of their work to submit digitally. Others created their piece on a computer. The exhibit explores the differences in media and where printmaking may go in the future.
“It’s kinda like if you make a movie from a book,” said Power Boothe, one of the artists included in the exhibit and a current professor at the University of Hartford. His print is a photograph of a painting. “I kinda like the fact that you can’t tell what the original medium is.”
Other printmaking techniques, such as lithography or etching, have been around for centuries and have visible characteristics distinctive to their processes. For this collection, artists were given no instruction on how to create the image, only a digital file specification for the final product.
“There is a range of great work in this portfolio and each artist. Not all are printmakers. Most are painters, sculptors and mixed-media artists,” Michael Martin, registrar and exhibitions coordinator at the Ewing Gallery, said.
American Abstracts Artists, the group that compiled the show, is an organization based out of New York City focused on collecting abstract works by artists working in the United States.
“It never wanted to be more than a gathering of individuals that wanted to stay in touch,” Boothe said.
Members exhibit their work through the group in addition to gaining feedback from each other. The group provides a way for members to connect and work together for the betterment of their craft.
“The organization operating as a whole can realize projects greater than what one could accomplish individually,” Henry Brown, another artist in the show, said. “Projects like these go beyond an individual artist’s work and represent the whole group as an advocate of abstract and non-objective art.”
This exhibit, along with others throughout the year, is intended to help the Sarah Moody Gallery bring less prominent works and styles to Tuscaloosa.
“We try to make sure students have access to things they wouldn’t normally see here,” Rial said.
The Sarah Moody Gallery is open Monday-Friday and from 5-8 p.m. on Thursday evenings, and the exhibit will be showing until Jan. 17. The gallery will be closed over the break from Dec. 20-Jan. 2.
