Sunday afternoons are an ideal time to enjoy perusing art spaces in the Phoenix area. I find this to be the most relaxed day to carefully observe all the exhibits without crowds or feeling rushed. It had been many years since last paying a visit here, so it was time to explore the gallery again. Sundays are also an ideal time to enjoy some vigorous walking around ASU campus for refreshing exercise before the summer heat wave hits!
The Nelson gallery was built in 1989 at the main Tempe campus to honor the president of Arizona State University at that time, J. Russell Nelson and his wife Bonita. Much like the Phoenix Art Museum which I profiled recently, the Nelson Gallery has wide, open spaces to fully appreciate the exhibits. As much as I love to visit galleries and museums, some places are too crowded and claustrophobic to fully appreciate what Iām examining. At least there were no worries about that here.
The sculptures on display were especially interesting, and the creations I liked best here was by Irene Vonck, from The Netherlands. This piece simply called āVaseā (pictured below) made of ceramic is rather intricate and reminds me of some deep sea creature or plant that might be found near a coral reef and has pleasant associations for me. I looked online into more of Vonckās work as I was unaware of her prior to this visit to the gallery. Learning about something or someone new everyday is my motto ā and finding out about artists of all types I was unaware of before is particularly high on my list of things to do!
On her website Vonck states that: āThe immediate, tactile, and responsive qualities of clay form the inspiration for my ceramics.ā To see more of her creativity visit: http://irenevonckceramics.com/home For anyone who appreciates abstract ceramics, this sight is well worth checking into. Moving through the gallery, I next focused on works by Flavianna Rodriguez who is also a social justice activist. Her work āElegieā (shown below) pictures violinists within a framework of flowers and appears to memorialize a talented artist who died too young. I have yet to find more detail about this one, and will continue to investigate it.
Another one that caught my eye is āWizard Of Aztlanā a silkscreen by Marisol Torres from 2004. I found out that āAztlanā is also a play much like a Hispanic version of āThe Wizard Of Ozā and has been performed periodically since the late 1990s throughout the Los Angeles area. Maybe at some point it travel to other cities and gain a wider audience and I would definitely like to see it! Well, in any case, I hope that anyone who reads my āMuseumsā and āArtscapesā posts has enjoyed this brief sampling of the ASU gallery.
For further reading, check out the following websites:
http://tours.asu.edu (ASU Nelson Fine Arts Gallery)
http://favianna.com (Favianna Rodriguez)
http://latinxshakesspeares.org (Wizard Of Aztlan)
