The Department of Art and Art History presents concurrent shows in Rowe Galleries featuring work by two new faculty members, Andrew Leventis and Alessandra Sulpy, through Friday, Jan. 27. Leventis, an assistant professor, is an oil painter who references imagery from film and television in his work. His exhibition “Re-Collections” appropriates televised imagery to reflect on society’s connection to mass-produced media images.
“With social media and Facebook advertising, the human being is represented ever more as commodity,” he said. “My painting traces the history of humans exhibiting possession and ownership of one another through things - necklaces, photos, souvenirs and other such still-life memorabilia. In this sense, my painting acknowledges the history of humans conceiving of one another as commodities. Yet, at the same time, it attempts to re-establish the human being as cherished, emotive, thinking, original and individual. It acknowledges the tendency to objectify the human yet attempts to represent the human as something besides demographic fragment, as a commodity."
Three interconnected series make up Sulpy’s “Store Façades and other stories.” This exhibit reimagines largely forgotten small-town American business districts, focusing on the dust, decay and dereliction found in the suburban rust-belt towns where Sulpy has often lived. “Bland Intruders” is a spinoff of “Store Facades” and focuses on the hidden "fern" or fake potted plant. “Beefcakes” explores the men’s clothing catalogs and “muscle” magazines of the 1960s and ’70s.
Sulpy, a lecturer in the Department of Art and Art History, is a figurative/surrealist painter who uses neon-bright colors. "With my paintings, I try to reintroduce vitality back into these places by introducing larger-than-life elements, such as collage, fluorescence and glowing signage. I allude to the superimposed elements of time through vintage ephemera, transient space and layered paint."