Artist Panels and Presentations Series: 2019 Faculty Exhibition

The UCF Art Gallery is proud to present a dynamic exhibition of artworks by the faculty of the UCF School of Visual Arts and Design. These professional artists have received both national and international recognition for their engaging and thought-provoking works. The exhibition showcases a wide range of traditional and contemporary media and processes including: ceramics, drawing, digital art, mixed media, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and textiles.

Artists include: Chuck Abraham, Jo Anne Adams, Jason Burrell, Brooks Dierdorff, Matt Dombrowski, Walter Gaudnek, Scott F. Hall, Kevin Haran, Amer Kobaslija, Keith Kovach, Shannon Lindsey, Theresa Lucey, Justin Nolan, Carla Poindexter, Robert Reedy, Robert Rivers, Steven Spencer, Debi Starr, Ashley Taylor, and M. Laine Wyatt

Join us for these special programs:


Monday, 9/9 11am-noon
Art History Presentation: Francisco Pacheco and the Art of Painting Polychrome Sculpture by Ilenia Colon Mendoza

Francisco Pacheco (1564-1644) writes “la escultura tiene el ser y la pintura el parecer…” (sculpture has existence, painting has appearance). This key phrase adds to the paragone (parangón in Spanish) debate and situates the medium of polychrome sculpture in a unique category as it is both sculpted and painted. In his treatise Arte de la Pintura (The Art of Painting, 1649) Pacheco describes in detail the best way of approaching the painting of sculpture arguing for a matte finish over the use of a glossy one for flesh tones. Juan de la Cruz and Teresa of Ávila also mention the illusionistic aspect of sculpture in their writings concluding that images that are most realistic allow the mind to move towards a deeper state of devotion and contemplation. Seventeenth century polychrome sculptures by artists such as Gregorio Fernández, Pedro de Mena, and Juan Martínez Montañés fool the eye and create illusions that can fool the mind. Because sculpture is a three-dimensional object that exists in our own space it already has, inherently, the additional element of presence. This element is often highlighted by the further addition of postizos (additions) that create hyperreal sculptures. Wood’s materiality further ties sculpture to devotion but most importantly the technical aspects of the encarnación (flesh painting) process contribute to the sculpture’s appearance. Pacheco’s theoretical writings and his collaborations with Martínez Montañés highlight polychromy’s importance. This essay discusses the creation, perception, and use of illusionistic polychrome sculpture in Baroque Spain.

Tuesday, 9/10 3:30-4:30pm
Artist Panel with Chuck Abraham, JoAnne Adams, and Jason Burrell

Join us for a lively discussion about the artist’s disciplines and backgrounds as they actively engage in research and professional practices as faculty of the University of Central Florida.

Wednesday, 9/11 11am – noon
Art History Presentation: Precarious Memory: Eudora Welty and the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum by Keri Watson

In 1940 Eudora Welty took a carefully composed photograph of the cupola and Doric Greek facade of the Mississippi State Insane Hospital. Peeking through a small opening in the verdant landscape of central Mississippi and dwarfed by Oaks and Long Leaf Pines, the distant building seems out of place, a relic of another time, but in the eighty years since its opening in 1855, the hospital housed over 35,000 patients, many of whom were buried in unmarked graves on the property. Welty’s photograph, aptly titled Abandoned Lunatic Asylum, was taken just five years after the property was shuttered and published in 1980 as part of a limited-edition portfolio. What prompted Welty to take this photograph in 1940 and publish it forty years later, and what stories does it conceal? Following Pierre Nora’s conception of les lieux des mémoire, which states that “the past is bound up with the sense that memory has been torn-but torn in such a way as to pose the problem of the embodiment of memory in certain sites,” this paper asks viewers to consider the trauma embedded in Welty’s photograph and to consider the tenuous relationship between memory and representation.

Thursday, 9/12 1:30-2:30pm
Artist Panel with Shannon Lindsey, Robert Reedy and Ashley Taylor

Join us for a lively discussion about the artist’s disciplines and backgrounds as they actively engage in research and professional practices as faculty of the University of Central Florida.

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