Amber Graham
Chicago State University
Amber Graham
Professor Hawkins
ART 1100
October 7, 2014
Gallery Critique
I decided to attend the President’s Gallery located on our very own Chicago State University’s campus located on the second floor of the Cook Administration Building that was showing the extremely talented Abi Gonzales’s variety of welding artworks that were created by only her. The gallery depicted her artwork in a series of wall sculptures because she wanted to represent the four sacred directions, which is the structure and balance of the earth, the heavens, and the universe. According to Gonzales, she was trying to include the idea of the equilateral cross that is supposed to represent North, South, East and West. Her sculptures demonstrated the elements of air, fire and earth. Abi Gonzales has a Native American ancestry and was raised to be very aware of this culture, so she put it into her artwork for this gallery here at the university.
The venue itself was an interesting experience, but very enjoyable. The lighting of the gallery was actually very dim, but I felt that it added more of a wow factor to the art pieces that were presented. The venue was actually very small and I am surprised it was not located in a different area on campus. The President’s Gallery was pretty crowded and did not seem to accommodate the space that was needed for the amount of people that came to attend the opening as well as days after the opening. There was also food available at the venue, which is likely to bring more people so being in such a small room did not seem fit for a gallery of art. The handicap accessibility was there because of the elevators provided to get up to the top floor of the building to the President’s Gallery and the venue was located in a one level room so it was easy for handicap individuals to get from one part of the room to the other. Overall the venue was comfortable and had a nice feel to it in regards to the happiness and the good feeling of the people attending.
The physical environment of which the artwork was presented was actually very beautiful in my eyes. The majority of the larger pieces of artwork were hanging up on the white walls of the President’s Gallery and the smaller artworks were sitting on shorter pedestals that would come up to most people’s thigh or hip. Everything was relatively spread out and with about the same amount of space away from each other. I really enjoyed how everything was presented throughout the gallery because it made it simple and easy to view the all of the pieces of artwork. I felt like I was able to really view every individual artwork for itself and appreciate its beauty. The other beautiful thing about this venue was the fact that it was free. Free anything is always a beautiful thing and makes my wallet happy. With that being said I do think that my time was well spent by visiting the venue because I enjoyed looking at beautiful creations and I would definitely like to go again as well as recommending it to others if the opportunity presents itself. The work on display fit the theme of the venue although I would have liked the wall color to be darker to help bring out those darker hues of the sculptures presented, but I do believe this is why the light was dimmed to begin with. I think darker colored walls, such as burgundy, would have really made the artwork pop.
There were three interesting pieces of artwork that really stood out to me titled Protector, Grandmother and Grandfather Fire, and Grandfather’s Mirror. Although I thought all the pieces of her artwork were beautiful and meaningful, these particular three were the most beautiful to me in every way! I found myself looking at these three the most and admiring their creativity and detail. I also had a fun time trying to interpret the secret meaning behind each and every piece. It is interesting trying to figure out the meaning of something and yet another