Through December 10, 2016
Moss Arts Center
190 Alumni Mall (0916)
Blacksburg, VA 24061
The Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech presents four interrelated one-person exhibitions by female artists that deal inventively with identity and the female persona. Across a range of media including painting, photography, works on paper, digital and internet based works, the art in these exhibitions tells intriguing stories, tales imbued with fantasy–at times disarming and seductive, sometimes witty and humorous, at times incisive. They explore alter egos, ambiguous imaginary persona and situations as a vehicle to probe the impact of political and personal histories on the female self.
Lynn Hershman Leeson
Internationally acclaimed for her pioneering use of media and new technologies in her art, Lynn Hershman Leeson has consistently examined the relationship between humanity and technology, with a focus on the construction of identity, interactivity, artificial intelligence, voyeurism, surveillance, and the relationship of the real to the virtual. This exhibition presents a succinct selection of the artist’s signature works throughout her career, including those that revolve around invented female persona, alter egos, or avatars as a means to probe female identity. More recent works that address challenges and complexities of human life in an increasingly bio- and genetically engineered world are also included. A related exhibition of Hershman Leeson’s work titled Body Collage, is on view at Virginia Tech’s School of Visual Arts’ Armory Gallery.
Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle
In works on paper and wood panel Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle explores what she describes as the “historical present,” which speaks to the residue of history and how it affects our world perspectives. She focuses on the Black female body and how perceptions of it have been distorted within the visual cultures of the past and present. With fluid and imaginative renderings in ink and acrylic Hinkle presents a critique of colonialism, the scourge of racism and its impact of female identity and its consequences in the world in which we live.
Amy Cutler
Informed by Persian miniatures, medieval art, and Japanese ukiyo-e prints among other sources, Amy Cutler’s exquisitely detailed drawings, prints, and gouache on paper works portray a wildly imaginative and enigmatic world in which women, seemingly from an imaginary or bygone era, are engaged in the most surreal and unlikely tasks. Intriguing and baffling, yet delivered with wit and humor, her works delineate the many absurdities and challenges that often characterize women’s lives. The exhibition features 15 paintings on paper, including a selection of the artist’s most exemplary large-scale works from some of this country’s most renowned private collections.
Susan Jamison
Susan Jamison’s exquisite egg tempera paintings on canvas draw from a rich trove of sources—personal narratives, myths, folk tales, Renaissance portraiture, scientific illustration, ornamental sewing, and tattoo traditions. They portray dream-like visions of the female archetype as mythical, alluring, and powerful, yet vulnerable. Featured in the exhibition were 14 paintings from 2008 to 2016 on view through October 8, 2016.
Exhibitions at the Moss Arts Center are curated by or organized under the direction of Margo Ann Crutchfield, curator at large.
About the Moss Arts Center
Virginia Tech’s Moss Arts Center presents renowned artists from around the globe and from close to home, with a special focus on experiences that expand cultural awareness and deepen understanding. Uniquely partnered with the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, the Moss Arts Center houses the Street and Davis Performance Hall and its Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre, visual art galleries, the experimental venue the Cube, and research studios.
Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the commonwealth’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution, Virginia Tech offers 240 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 31,000 students and manages a research portfolio of 513 million USD. The university fulfills its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through technological leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia.
