Tucked away on the third floor of the Overture Center, Tracks and Traces, Drawing from Experience"" is a small exhibit of mixed media works produced by local artists Sara Schneckloth and Teresa Getty. These works, while slightly hidden and out of the way of most campus-dwellers, are worth the trip.
""Tracks and Traces"" is an exhibit that shows influence from the abstract expressionism and action painting movement (think Jackson Pollock). It was a movement that experimented in nonrepresentational forms of expression, embracing an individual style that was generally free of a constrained technique.
Both artists, while working within the abstract expressionist style of art, employ their own individual approach in an attempt to answer numerous contemporary questions and express their thoughts and emotion. The artists each use a different technique and range of materials in order to ""access the language of kinetic mark making as a way to record experience,"" which is apparent upon entering the gallery space.
Schneckloth employs the use of color and the movement of line and shape to portray or focus on the essence of an emotion. Each work stays within the range of a certain color and contains a highly organic and fluid use of line or circular shapes to show a sense of movement. ""Invertigo"" is a strong piece that has a gray background with a red and orange gesture-like linear movement that comes jutting out of the left side of the work in full-force. As the object streams across the work horizontally, it eventually looses steam and becomes a single, bumpy line. Schneckloth's bold use of color and strong emphasis on fluid linear movement brings the viewer's focus to the emotion behind the color.
Getty's works on the other hand, display a radical difference from Schneckloth's images. While Schneckloth used intrepid colors to express her meaning, Getty employs a subtler approach within her work. In contrast to ""Invertigo,"" Getty's ""They All Sat Down to Drink at the Watering Hole"" uses a wide range of whites and grays to wash over her work, but a closer look reveals small detailed sketches and a minute use of brighter colors. Within the swirl of light colors, there are small sketches of ships at sea, water facets and syringes also containing small amounts of color.
Getty's small, detailed drawings are generally more sketch-like and sometimes evolve into realistic and mechanical-looking instruments or items that may attempt to lead the viewer to an answer or direction of the meaning behind the image.
While both these artists display different uses of technique and materials, they both achieve similar goals in portraying and expressing an emotion or ideal solely through the use of color and line movement. The absence of any representational objects or a coherent image allows the viewer to try to discover the meaning of the work and allows for the personalization of the work on the viewers behalf.
Even for nonbelievers of non-representational work, this exhibit could change your opinion and show how simple color and lines can express ideas and emotions. Also, viewing ""Tracks and Traces"" can be a great way for students to spend a Saturday afternoon.
