Picture the subject of a typical landscape painting - you probably see green rolling fields or a city skyline, but "Marking the Landscape," an exhibit now showing at the Lederer Gallery, challenges such conventional notions.
The exhibit features the collections of five diverse artists whose works show different perspective on landscapes.
Acclaimed artist Celia Reisman's work focuses on suburban settings; her paintings on display in the gallery focus particularly on paintings of houses. She plays with perspective by changing the scale of objects in her frame of view. Reisman adjusts the colors in each of her paintings to elicit a different emotional response from the viewer.
Adjacent to Reisman's pieces hangs Georgia Trimper's collection, "Mapped Facets." She conveys landscapes through maps, straying from paint on canvas to work with pieces of cloth as her medium. In her statement, Trimper states that her work "focuses on using maps as a metaphor for life experiences."
The third artist's work displayed in the gallery is that of Tonya Clay. Clay's collection, "Mindscapes in a Multiplied Moment," incorporates an abstract view of landscapes, complete with vibrant colors and multiple layers of paint, ink and paper.
Clay's concept of a landscape incorporates people as well as nature, whereas many of the other artists merely focused on the natural world. Director of Galleries Cynthia Hawkins described Clay's pieces as "lush."
One of the more conceptual collections in the exhibition belonged to artist Pat Badt. Her displayed collection consisted of twelve pieces, each representing a month of the year. Each work conveys the feeling of its specific month by incorporating a strong sense of color and texture.
Badt, in her statement said, "Noticing color and texture is an activity worth paying attention to." Hawkins said she was especially impressed with the seventh and 10th pieces, representing July and October, respectively, because of their "Cezanne-esque" quality.
Fiona Ross' work is also featured in the exhibit. Although her pieces are the smallest, they are some of the most awe-inspiring. She uses black ink on white paper to create abstract visions of the world.
Junior Katy Festa said she enjoyed Ross's artwork the best out of the whole show due to its unique, intense detail.
The exhibition has an effective way of showing how differently people can interpret the world and how a piece of artwork can have a much more profound meaning than first imagined. "Marking the Landscape" will be in Lederer Gallery until Dec. 7.