Marymount University invites the public to a free opening reception for its upcoming exhibition, “In a Minute,” from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 7 at the Barry Gallery. The exhibit will feature the Senior Thesis Exhibition works from Grant Gallas, Emma Grzymkowski, and Jamie McDonnell.
The exhibition is a visualization of the potential that lives within each minute. Effects of the happenings of one, singular minute can remain local and personal or they can radiate worldwide. Each of the three artists uses their artwork to create a different sense of what can happen in a minute. For example, Gallas’ drawings depict a moment during a natural disaster. Grzymkowski’s paintings and drawings create images intended to be a temporary escape from reality. McDonnell’s prints use source material repetition as a method of calming anxiety.
Gallas is using this body of work to explore his own roots and the general patterns of continuation of life during and after natural disasters occur. This series is entitled “Sei to Shi” which means life and death in Japanese. Japan, which is part of Gallas’ background, is also grounds for many natural disasters. In drawing images from different Japanese natural disasters, Gallas intends to bring more attention to the dramatic, earthly, large-scale changes that occur so quickly.
Grzymkowski uses large-scale, non-objective paintings and small-scale, hyper-realistic drawings to create a place in which viewers can escape from daily mundanity. Today’s society is in such a rut of continuous stress that its people are in desperate need of quick and easy escape. The works are the visual synonym of the realization experience from listening to the waves crashing against the shore, the rustling of the leaves through the mountain-tops, or the crackling of a fire on a starry night. They are space to breathe where space is typically lacking.
McDonnell’s prints focus on finding relief from anxiety. For McDonnell, relief comes through the process of creating this work as well as through used subject matter. In using the human form and repeating the same image a number of times using different process methods, she visually mimics the breathing techniques most commonly used to calm anxiety attacks in an instant and makes the content behind the works relatable to all human viewers.
The Barry Gallery, located in the Reinsch Library at Marymount, 2807 North Glebe Road, is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Admission is free. (The Reinsch Library and Barry Gallery entrance is at 26th Street, just north of Yorktown Boulevard. Access for individuals with disabilities is available.)
For more information on the gallery, go to marymount.edu/barrygallery.
Written by Emma Grzymkowski
Images:
(1) Emma Grzymkowski, Atop the Mountains, Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
(2) Jamie McDonnell, Palliative VII, Relief print, 20 x 16 inches
(3) Grant Gallas, Crash, Charcoal on paper, 44 x 60 inches
