Upcoming Exhibition at Rockford University

​​IMAGE: Erin Washington, After Zeus, 2013, Chalk and acrylic on panel, 9 x 12 inches

Ultra-Deep Field

Curated by Jason Judd

Opening Reception: October 24, 6-8 p.m.

Exhibition: October 20 – November 14, 2014

Artists: Daniel Baird, Sarah and Joseph Belknap, Katie Bell, Bill Conger, Laura Davis, Adam Farcus, Bob Jones, Holly Murkerson, Erin Washington

Curated by Jason Judd, Ultra-Deep Field is a group exhibition that considers the inadequacy of representing desire, time, and scale by way of hand. Though the artwork spans sculpture, photography, drawing, and video, the pieces posture themselves as self-evident, allowing the literal to be experienced as poetic. In the exhibition, Joseph Belknap lights Sarah Belknap’s cigarette using the sun, Bill Conger stencils an exact replica of a poem written by his 8 year old son, while Erin Washington’s 9 x 12 black acrylic panel documents the process of her hand healing by using her injured hand to draw itself. To this end, Ultra-Deep Field suggests possibilities of how to reorient one’s body with the everyday world that acts upon it.

As Sarah and Joseph Belknap find a way to harness a complex system to have a smoke, Erin Washington asks “why haven’t we seen a photograph of the whole earth yet? The Belknaps and Washington both materialize a new understanding of the cosmic and earthbound from a very local place, themselves. Bill Conger’s lyrical titles amplify a sense of longing and melancholy, which becomes increasingly haunting as more time is spent with each piece: A vintage lighting rod, a smashed wine bottle glued back together, and an exact replication of his young son’s poem. Adam Farcus’s wall poem, in five descending triangles, is a would-be potion that names materials that could be found in the Midwest. Like a materialization from Farcus’s potion, Bob Jones builds work out of humble materials local to him. Jones bounds sticks, rocks, dirt, studio debris with mud, paint, and glue in his studio with the aspiration to offer a link to the mythical through an alchemical change.Daniel Baird uses both found objects and structures he creates to subvert the experience between technological progress and the primitive. One piece includes a rapid prototype, a bird wing, an ejection seat handle, an emergency blanket, a meteorite, and marble dust to name only a few. Katie Bell’s paintings have no plan from the beginning. Though they hang on the wall, the process is about finding the painting within the hunk of plaster. Laura Davis plays with scale, using an image of a necklace to formally materialize a likeness that proves to be a void. On the other hand, Holly Murkerson’s photographic sculptures reminds the viewer that the photograph is a space they can never enter physically. A desire that you can stand in front of but never be in.

Rockford University Art Gallery

Clark Arts Center

5050 E. State Street

Rockford, IL 61108

Office: 815.226.4105