The Ross Art Museum is displaying Ohio Wesleyan University’s biannual faculty fine art exhibition through March 30.
“It’s the work of professors who teach photography, printmaking, ceramics, painting, sculpture, and etc,” said Tammy Wallace, Ross Art Museum assistant director. “This is their work.”
The gallery is a display of the inspirational works of Kristina Bogdanov, David Bugay, Cynthia Cetlin, Frank Hobbs, James Krehbiel, Jeffery Nilan and Jonathon Quick.
Wallace said the exhibition gives art students a chance to view the art of their professors. She said most of the artists displayed live in Delaware with the exception of one or two, but they do live in the central Ohio area.
“The biannual exhibition of faculty is so art students get to see what the faculty do in terms of their own practice,” she said.
Wallace said the faculty chooses the pieces to display in the exhibit.
“They drop the work off and then leave,” she said. “They have to leave, then I figure out how to make it all hang together.”
Wallace said her job is to create a flow to the exhibitions she hangs. She said when she is picking out a show, she picks out artists that she knows will work together.
“You just don’t know what you’re going to get with the faculty, but I’m really happy with the way that it turned out this year,” she said. “I think it flows really well. There’s a lot of cool relationships between different artists.”
Wallace said the museum is a learning space and resource where art theory becomes practice for the students, faculty and community. She said the professors send students to study the work of not only the faculty, but the galleries of other artists on display.
“When you’re learning how to write about art, the art history instructors will assign pieces to write about,” she said. “It’s a teaching collection.”
The museum’s permanent collection includes the photographic works of Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Callahan, Edward Weston and Ralph Gibson; paintings of Terrence LaNoue and Randall Tiedman; sculptures by Jackie Ferrara and David Hays; fine jewelry creations by Robert Ebendorf; and the ceramics works of Pablo Picasso and Andrea Gill.
Wallace said the permanent collection totals between 2,500 to 3,000 pieces. She said the collection is mostly photographs and prints with only a few pieces of sculpture.
When the 1911 building was renovated to become the museum there wasn’t much space left for storage.
“It’s much easier to store photographs and prints than it is a bunch of sculptures,” Wallace said. “But we do have few.”
