Department of Art & Design to host two artist openings and accompanying artist talks

MURRAY, Ky. – The Murray State Department of Art & Design and University Galleries are pleased to announce two exhibit openings, each with an accompanying artist talk, beginning in October in the Clara M. Eagle Galleries on the sixth and seventh floors of the Price Doyle Fine Arts Center on Murray State’s campus.

First, Caroline Burton’s exhibit “The Back of the Moon: Caroline Burton” will be on exhibit from Oct. 1-29 in the Clara M. Eagle Gallery. Burton will also give an artist talk on Thursday, Oct. 3 at 5 p.m. in the Doyle Price Fine Arts Center Room 623 located inside the gallery.

“The Back of the Moon” is a solo-exhibition featuring recent work by Burton, who is based in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Burton’s studio practice is process-driven and draws on her Finnish heritage, architectural forms, land formations and the effects of accidents in life and art. Materials that Burton often uses in her work include paint, canvas, thread, hydrocal plaster and bronze. She has been collecting and using handmade afghans to create unique marks within her work and uses them as tools in her printing process and selects them based on being drawn to them, like selecting a specific paint brush for its craft, specific mark making abilities and beauty. Burton does not have a preconceived vision of her final product; the work evolves, and the meaning emerges over time. In her current method, she works on multiple pieces at a time on the floor with canvas and pigments, building forms and allowing the personal to merge with the formal. 

When asked about the origin of her process, Burton said, “I was 20 years old when my mother left my father. My world, where my parents would forever be a coupled support, was shattered. From that moment I have been trying to stitch the fragments back together, to embrace the discord, to make my life whole. The differences between my parents would become my impetus for art making. My father, an engineer, has moved through life with a strict set of rules. Thus, my use of grid as a structure to create order and protect me from feeling crazy. My mother, a creative feminist in a conservative Midwestern town where to be those things was almost criminal, gave me permission to make experimental, imperfect art. It’s the convergence of these opposing influences that inform my work.”

Burton, born in Detroit, Michigan, holds a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Art. She has exhibited extensively at many national and international venues including the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey, New Jersey State Museum, Garage Gallery in New York, Garrison Art Center in New York, 490 Atlantic Gallery in New York, Johnson State College in Vermont, Accola Griefen Fine Art Gallery in New York, PDX Contemporary Art in Oregon, Real Form Project Space in New York, Drawing Rooms in New Jersey and Cooper Gallery in New Jersey, among others.

Burton is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including those from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Golden Foundation, Virginia Center for Creative Arts and Vermont Studio Center. Selected collections include Montclair Art Museum, Morris Museum, Noyes Museum and Zimmerli Art Museum. Internationally, she is represented in Museo de Art Moderno, RD. Burton lives and works in Jersey City.

Second, “The Line UP,” curated by The Third Barn, will be on view in the Eagle Upper Gallery from Oct. 1-30. Pat Badt, a featured artist in the exhibition, will speak on Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 5 p.m. in the Price Doyle Fine Arts Center Room 623 located inside the gallery.

“The Line UP” exhibition brings together the works of five mid-career women abstract artists: Pat Badt, Emily Berger, Marianne Gagnier, Claire Seidl and Rella Stuart-Hunt. Their paintings offer an investigation of line — edge, mark-making and boundaries — each in their own way. This exhibition serves as a testament to the diversity and richness inherent in the abstract art made by these five artists. Through their diverse approaches to line, form and composition, Badt, Berger, Gagnier, Seidl and Stuart-Hunt offer a rich and multi-faceted visual journey into the discovery of line and color. Their artworks inspire the viewer to explore the intersection of personal experience, nature, geometry, color and narrative, inviting a deeper understanding of the world through the power of artistic expression. In navigating the intricacies of each line, the viewer is reminded of the enduring impact and significance of individual voices in the ever-evolving kaleidoscope of the art world.

The Third Barn is an experimental studio portal and curatorial project in an unspecified location. The Third Barn has curated projects and created collaborative works at its Third Barn site and at other locations including the Allentown Art Museum, Soft Machine Gallery, Frank Martin Gallery at Muhlenberg College, Susan Arnold Gallery at Lebanon Valley College, Center for Visual Research at Cedar Crest College and The Castle of Evoramonte in Portugal.

Badt is a painter working with straight parallel lines that build a matrix of color. She finds limitations cool and paints to create experiences of the everyday. Badt also paints landscapes of memory. Her work is a reflection of ongoing interests in the visual world and the interplay of light, color and texture. Badt was born in Santa Monica, California, attended high school in New York City, received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. She is professor emeritus at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She has exhibited widely, including exhibitions in Brussels, New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Her work is included in collections in the American Embassy in Riga, Latvia, the Ruth Hughes Collection of Artist Books at Oberlin College and Bryn Mawr College. She has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant for painting and has attended artist residencies in the U.S. and abroad, including in Portugal, Italy, Iceland and Malta.

The University Galleries visitor hours for fall 2024 are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission to the galleries is free and open to the public. For more information about the Department of Art & Design, visit murraystate.edu/art or follow them on Instagram @murraystateart.