Browse Exhibits (3 total)
Shaped by Water: Landscape Photographs by Carol and David Farmer
September 30 - November 17, 2005
This exhibition of large format black & white landscape photographs ranges from grand views in the American West to quiet, intimate scenes along streams in the Texas Hill Country, all of the images are of landscapes carved and scoured by water. They remind us that in the west water, our most critical natural resource, has profoundly shaped our environment for millions of years.
Carol studied photography with Charlie DeBus at SMU after retiring from a career in international consulting, while David turned to large format black & white images after retiring as director of DeGolyer Library at SMU and taking 35mm. photographs most of his life. The Farmers have also studied with John Sexton.
“Large format photography has opened a new way life for us, a life imbued with passion for a process that repeatedly leads us back to the real world we love,” the Farmers said. “We walk quietly into landscapes that inspire us to make photographs and allow us to experience the natural world more deeply and intensely than ever before. We wait for the gift of light, and when it comes, we make images. In sharing our work we hope to communicate the beauty of a land too often judged insufficiently ‘useful’ by those who champion its ‘development.”
Michael O'Keefe
June 17 - July 31, 2005
On view in the Mildred Hawn Gallery at Southern Methodist University were 29 individual works by sculptor Michael O’Keefe. These works included 22 small-scale drawings and seven sculptures, each about three feet in height. All were recent works, made within the previous six months. Having recently moved from Brooklyn N.Y., O’Keefe was working toward his MFA at SMU.
Within this exhibition O’Keefe worked exclusively with the figure- the isolated head and the full figure. These works revealed an interest in a historical tradition of drawing and sculpture, a decidedly non-mainstream aesthetic, and a seriousness of craft and content. This exhibition demanded more than casual perusal. The viewer was asked to draw connections between one drawing and another, between one sculpture and the next, and between the drawings and the sculpture as a whole. Some works echo artists of the past such as Rodin, Michelangelo, El Greco, and various modernist masters.
For the artist, this body of work is part of a larger exploration that began by asking the questions: Who is Abraham?, how does the figure of Abraham function for religious practitioners of today?, does Abraham have a face and what about those artists of the past who did personify Abraham?, and can a body or form be given to the figure of Abraham? According to O’Keefe this exploration (and the way he now views these works) opened back up onto larger, more general concerns of his regarding contemporary religious struggles, contemporary social and geo-political struggles, and the many other internal collisions within the individual psyche.
“Dis-Reality of the Southwest: Photographs by Jeffrey Junkin”
January 28 - April 28, 2005
January 28 through April 28, 2005 the Mildred Hawn Gallery exhibitied six photographic collages by Jeffrey Junkin, MFA candidate in photography.