By Laurence Pons

Amazing works by faculty members Barry Burns, Lynn Creighton, Larkin Higgins, Michael Pearce, Terry Spehar-Fahey, Brian Stethem, John Storojev, Christy Collell and Christine Sellin are currently on show and include Digital Art, Painting, Mixed media, Drawing, Sculpture, Photography and Printmaking.

Terry Spehar-Fahey took the time to talk to me about the paintings exhibited in this show.
“I am showing portraits in this exhibition, three oils paintings and two watercolors. Michael inspired me to paint oils again, going back to old masters techniques. I didn’t really do that in college.

Chica I by Terry Spehar-Fahey

The watercolors are two portraits of Carla, a student in the art department who has incredible red hair, and the other two are Ben, a former art student and Art who works at CLU. They were hanging around the painting studio in the summer and they made this black and white pair.

Portrait of a Young Man, Anniversary, and Boys of Summer by Terry Spehar-Fahey.

“What I am driving at in portrait work is always a sense of time, that particular moment, as well as the personality. The painting end up being this combination and this harmony between what the person looks like and what the artist sees in the person. For 20 years I had a recognizable style of landscape. Then I did the therapy work, which freed me of any constraints, now I do whatever I want.
The influences on my work are John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, Wolf Kohn, Van Gogh, Edward Munch and Marc Chagall, and many more.”

John Storojev is presenting two sculptures in this show. The first one a fifteen inches-high alabaster sculpture entitled Egyptian Pearl. “I named it Egyptian Pearl because if you look at it at a certain angle it resembles an Egyptian profile and if you turn around, a pearl within an oyster shell appears. It is a semi-abstract piece where the two are combined. Unlike a painting you really have to get around it to discover it.

The most beloved Russian story “ Tzar Ivanovitch and the Firebird” inspired John to sculpt The Russian Firebird and the Golden Apple, a copper and brass piece. “In that story it has to do a with supernatural events in old-time Russia. I enjoy exploring the familiarity of Russian culture.”

The Firebird and the Golden Apple and Egyptian Pearlby John Storojev

Michael Pearce is showing an oil painting entitled Neolithic Geomantic Man.
“It represents the solar geometry of Neolithic Britons. Neolithic men built many structures to watch the movement of the Sun, and this painting is loaded with Solar Symbolism. It is an effort to imagine the cosmogeny and it is based on the research I did into Neolithic art and architecture.

Neolithic Geomantic Man by Michael Pearce

“It was a new way of painting for me, an interesting experiment. It combines very early stuff I did in abstract art, my first paintings in the USA were abstract. Here I am combining abstract and figurative art. It is the first this painting is shown and it will be interesting to see how people are reacting.”

Four oils and acrylic paintings by Larkin Higgins are exhibited. They are the artist’s statement.

This Axis of Rotation by Larkin Higgins

The opening celebration is on January 26 at 3 pm and the show runs until Saturday, February 16,2008.