Three new exhibits will be opening at Stetson’s Homer and Dolly Hand Art Center in August, ensuring that the university community, DeLand residents and visitors from all over will have plenty of artwork for inspiration, contemplation and enjoyment. All of these exhibits are free and open to the public.

“All of the works selected for exhibition are chosen for their ability to support faculty teaching, broaden and enhance student understanding of the arts and to appeal to our community,” said Tonya Curran, director of the Hand Art Center.

AQUIFERious: Margaret Ross Tolbert, Aug. 19-Oct. 22

Over the past 20 years, Margaret Ross Tolbert, an artist based in Gainesville, Fla., has executed a series of paintings, drawings and lithographs from studios in the United States, France and Turkey. Tolbert’s paintings communicate the experience of immersion in Florida’s freshwater springs.

“Immersion is a metaphor that partners with the activity and energy of painting and the creative force,” Tolbert said. In addition to creating paintings and installations that are exhibited internationally, Tolbert writes, dances and advocates for Florida’s waters. Her work helps document some of the many features and urgent need for the preservation of Florida’s freshwater springs and the Floridan Aquifer. The exhibit will be featured in the Gary R. Libby Gallery.

“The AQUIFERious exhibit was specifically selected to support the Stetson Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience,” said Curran, “and to appeal to faculty and students in the biological and environmental sciences. This exhibit is a great example of ‘art as activism,’ which simply means that I hope to provide a place to explore, analyze and strengthen connections between social activism and artistic practice here at the Hand Art Center.”

Vaselina Springs and the Arkie DeLeons: Gary Bolding, Aug. 19-Oct. 22

Gary Bolding, professor of art, typically combines meticulous craftsmanship with quirky and ironic subject matter. Vaselina Springs and the Arkie DeLeons is no exception. It is a do-it-yourself work of art built from an expanding number of different components. It has strong narrative inclinations and a tendency to get out of control. It is a comedy, but it’s no joke.

Bolding is the primary content provider and image-maker, but much of the work is made collaboratively. The audio portion of this exhibition is drawn from a collection of songs written and performed by Bolding that were arranged, recorded, engineered and produced by Ed Nicholson, who also functioned as multi-instrumentalist and bandleader. The collaborative nature and scope of the piece are continuing to expand rapidly.

“I made the painting and the installation work specifically for this show,” said Bolding. “The recordings were already in the pipeline but were completed for their premier at Stetson. The different works represent three of the components that make up the project.”

Since Vaselina Springs and the Arkie DeLeons is a serial, Bolding hopes that people leave wanting more. “We’ll see how it pans out,” he added.

This exhibition is the first attempt at making a cohesive presentation of the material. The show also includes a 9-foot oil painting and an installation piece. Both are related thematically to the recordings. Incidentally, Vaselina Springs (vay-sah-LEE-nah) is an oil town in south Arkansas with a population of 25,104. The Arkie DeLeons are a band fronted by two half-brothers who wrote a rock soap opera about growing up there.

“Our Faculty Focus exhibits started last year and are a wonderful way to see projects that our visual and digital artists are working on,” said Curran, “and to provide an exposure to students who may want to take those classes. We are very excited to host Gary Bolding for the fall.”

Bolding has taught painting and drawing at Stetson since 1989. His work has been in more than 25 solo exhibitions and 150 group shows internationally including New York City, Miami, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England and Mexico. His work has won numerous awards in national and regional juried exhibitions.

Oscar Bluemner: The Language of Architecture — Works from the Vera Bluemner Kouba Collection, Aug. 19-Dec. 9

This exhibition examines the significance of architecture in the work of American modernist Oscar Bluemner (1867-1938). Bluemner completed a degree in architecture in Berlin shortly before departing for the United States in 1892, and for his first two decades in America he pursued an architectural career with uneven success. By the beginning of the 20th century his attention turned increasingly to painting, and by 1911 he was determined to abandon architecture.

The exhibition, in the Vera Bluemner Kouba Gallery, explores the ways in which architectural practice informed his painting as well as his use of buildings as a key component of his personal pictorial language.

“Bluemner rarely included human figures in his landscapes,” said Roberta Smith Favis, Ph.D., curator of the Oscar Bluemner collection at Stetson. “Houses, barns and even factory buildings became stand-ins for the human subjects who lived and worked there.”

On Sept. 13, Favis will present on this exhibit at 7 p.m. at the Hand Art Center. Her lecture will elaborate on Bluemner’s architectural career, his mid-life decision to abandon architecture for painting, and his subsequent use of architectural motifs and methods in his paintings. This event is free and open to the public.

“Without a doubt, the Oscar Bluemner works from the Vera Bluemner Kouba Collection is one of the most prestigious parts of our permanent collection and we are proud to host this exhibit,” said Curran. “Curator Dr. Roberta Favis has done a spectacular job examining the significance of Mr. Bluemner’s architectural training and the influence it had throughout his artistic career and in his later works.”

Coming Soon

In September, Matt Roberts, Terri Witek and Michael Branton will launch their work “Dream Garden” with a brief onsite performance and demonstration in the Hand Art Center. In November, the Undergraduate Juried Arts Exhibition celebrates Stetson students with the 27^th Annual Juried Arts Exhibition.

By Janie Graziani