The Augustana Teaching Museum of Art (ATMA) is buzzing with conversation. Visitors wander through the Centennial Hall Galleries, lingering before certain pieces or returning to their favourites. There is no shortage of viewing material.
Audrey Brown’s oil landscapes line the walls like dozens of vibrant windows. John Vande Walle’s repurposed metal sculptures flank the room and hurricanes Charley, Emily and Maria have been depicted in charcoal, courtesy of Drew Starenko. Downstairs, bright three dimensional shapes by Mark Hansen are bursting off yupo paper, and through a door which viewers are instructed to close behind them, an installation of music, sculpture and video by Justin Carl Hurty has taken the experience of art beyond the visual.
The Augustana Teaching Museum of Art hosted the opening reception of its fall exhibition, titled “Five Alumni: Continuing to Create” on Friday, AUG. 24. The exhibition will continue until October 27; an artist round table will be held on October 1, and a performance by Justin Carl Hurty will take place on on October 2.
The exhibition was organized by the ATMA and members of the Augustana art department, along with numerous student and graduate assistants.
“For me personally, the greatest challenge and also the most engaging aspect of organizing this exhibition was bringing together the work of five artists who are all very strong and whose work is very different from each other,” Claire Kovacs, ATMA director, said. She also said she enjoyed “digging a little deeper” into the work of the graduates she had met.
Four of the five alumni artists were present at the reception; Audrey Brown (’92), Mark Hansen (’00), Drew Starenko (’83) and John Vande Walle (’06).
Audrey Brown spoke about her transition from pastels to oil as a medium, as well as the “Big Mill Sunset” series included among her many landscapes: each piece in the series features the same trout stream in Bellevue, IA, described by Brown as “close enough to get to easily” but “untamed and beautiful” nonetheless. Brown has worked in art restoration and describes herself as a romantic, an admirer of the old masters.
“I want to show people what’s around if you just stop and look at how much beauty is in this area” Brown said. She plans to stick with the same compact and detailed oil pieces which comprised her contributions to the exhibition, and aims to have her first solo show at Hudson River Gallery in Iowa City in January.
“I feel honored to have been invited, and thought it would be fun to come back and show again,” Mark Hansen said. His variegated work lined Centennial’s lower gallery. “I also like the idea that they’re rolling this into the round table discussion with the current art students.”
According to his artist’s statement Hansen’s work “is a response to the modes of constructing and deconstructing objects in the physical world.”The artist was joined by his family, among whom was his nephew Kyle Boardman, a junior at Augustana. Boardman alluded to the subjectivity of Hansen’s work, gesturing at cubic shapes in a nearby piece. “I call these ice cubes but another man called them corn dogs.”
Drew Starenko has a long history with Augustana. As well as being an alumnus, both his parents worked at the college and his son is now a student. “It was a pleasure to come back and show after so many years,” Starenko said.
The artist’s charcoal drawings of Hurricanes Maria, Charley and Emily are part of what will be a 37-piece series upon completion. Starenko, who described himself as a nerd, was fascinated early on by physics and the cosmos, which led him to experiment with the universal shape of the galaxy in his work and finally to satellite images of hurricanes.
“They’re powerful, beautiful and horrible,” Starenko said. He hopes his pieces will also make an environmental statement, drawing his audience’s attention to “the current administration’s lack of response to a pretty charged issue.” Once the series is is complete, Starenko hopes find a buyer for it and contribute the proceeds to relief funds destined for Puerto Rico.
“Art shouldn’t just be made for art’s sake,” John Vande Walle said, standing next to one of his pieces, a pair of wooden benches fitted with asymmetrical metal circles. “Sometimes people want a piece of art but they can’t justify spending that much money on it. So I make everyday objects that can also be art.”
Vande Walle has previously worked with wood; his current pieces have been a natural progression. Of his current materials, he said, “It all comes down to economics. Scrap metal is much more economical to work with, easier to transport and a good foundation to build on.”
He added, “Augie was a great place to be. I got just as much from my other classes as I did from art lessons. There was always a great forum.”
Justin Carl Hurty’s installation on the ATMA’s lower gallery spoke for itself even though the artist was not present at the reception. The walls were lined with projections of ocean waves and moving water; soaring choral music played across heavier modern beats; a recorded voice read rhythmic phrases such as “somewhere a river of happiness flows/we will sit on its banks while the warm breezes blow.” Aptly enough, another projection showed a video of individuals in silver shock blankets dancing by the Slough.
A section of Hurty’s artist statement read, “I construct environments that attempt to challenge the typically quiet spaces reserved for art, to set the tone of a given space and to offer a wide set of variables to a visual landscape that is often dominated by two-dimensional works and discrete objects.”
With upcoming events like the artist’s round table discussion, Kovacs hopes that “the artists can connect back to the students, who will have exposure to different ways of working that maybe they haven’t directly engaged with yet. We want to show students that they can balance life and art as they develop their careers,” she added. “We want them to see the breadth of artistic practice that comes out of Augustana.”
 
Photo at top: an oil landscape piece by Audrey Brown (’92). Photo courtesy of Kevin Carton of, Augustana manager of tours and arts promotion.