Housed in the multi-story, LEED Gold-Certified Carter Kelsey Building, AVA is a non-profit organization that offers upwards of 50 art classes, workshops and camps each season in addition to exhibiting artwork in its four galleries, according to AVA promotional materials. The four galleries, located on the ground floor of the Carter Kelsey Building, are interconnected. Each gallery is defined by strategically placed walls but not closed off completely from the other three spaces, allowing free movement between the galleries.
Traveling through the four galleries and examining AVA's new exhibitions, the viewer embarks on an artistic journey from the "intimate" to the "large-scale" and back to the "intimate," according to AVA executive director Bente Torjusen.
"It begins with the very intimate, ends with the very intimate, and in between it's the large-scale theatrical and dramatic and explorative," Torjusen said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Walking into AVA's gallery space, viewers first enter the Rebecca Lawrence Gallery, where they find the intimate and gracefully rendered "In Bloom" an exhibition of botanical illustrations by Hanover resident and South African native Anzell Jordaan.
"In Bloom" includes depictions of flowers from the Protea genus, which is indigenous to the Western Cape region in South Africa, as well as a series of orchid illustrations, Jordaan said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Jordaan instructs adult classes and workshops in botanical illustration at AVA, but she said the genre is not her primary artistic focus. Trained in graphic design at the University of Pretoria and in illustration at Stellenbosch University, Jordaan is an aspiring children's book illustrator, she said. Her playful and whimsical illustrations were recently selected to be exhibited at the prestigious Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy. As part of the fair, Jordaan's drawings have been shown in both Bologna and Rome, and will travel to four other venues in Korea and Japan, the artist said.
Jordaan noted the differences between her children's book illustrations and her botanical illustrations.
"My children's book illustrations are very imaginative and usually not very realistic and they're to a certain extent stylized. The botanical illustrations are usually very realistic representations," she explained.
Jordaan's botanical illustrations are indeed more traditional than those for children's books, but "In Bloom" proves to be an innovative exhibit nonetheless, toying with the notions of realism and abstraction and experimenting with artistic medium.
The artwork featured in "In Bloom" range from traditional botanical illustrations to more abstract images to painstakingly detailed, almost scientific sketches.
"Two of the bodies are more deconstructed and almost reveal the scaffolding behind the Protea," Jordaan noted. "Some of [the illustrations] are not representational and are not what you would associate with typical botanical illustrations."
According to Jordaan's artist statement, the scaffolding is meant "not only [to question] the representation of botanical art but also [to challenge] the nature of its interpretation."
Apart from her play with structure, Jordaan also experiments with medium in "In Bloom." Her pieces are rendered in either graphite or gouache which Jordaan described as a "watercolor paint" or both, and some are sketched on wood and others on paper.
"I liked the tactile quality of the wood for certain pieces, especially for the more abstract pieces," Jordaan said, explaining her choice of artistic implements.
The differences between the characteristics of Jordaan's wood pieces and her paper ones are quite apparent upon entering the Lawrence Gallery. The prominently displayed wood series titled "Suikerbos" (Sugar Bush), for example, utilizes loose brush strokes and a deep burnt orange gouache to create a graceful and more abstract image, in contrast to the more realistic illustrations on paper.
Torjusen described Jordaan's work as "quiet, subtle and exquisite," contrasting it with the "tall and rich and enigmatic" oil paintings featured in the adjacent Clifford B. West Gallery, where Michaela D'Angelo's exhibit, "ephemera," is housed.
In contrast to Jordaan's small-scale, carefully detailed portraiture, D'Angelo described her huge and vibrant pieces that depict large, almost abstract human figures as "sculpting with paint," according to the AVA website. Implementing thick, textured globs of oil paint in rich hues such as magenta, deep blue and olive green, layered over strategically placed leaves and branches, D'Angelo's pieces immediately command attention, dominating the spare white walls of the West Gallery. D'Angelo's creative titles, such as "they all went to heaven in a little rowboat" and "everything as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die," only add to the loud, vibrant character of her work.
The next exhibition, Vermont-based artist Rachel Gross' "Flip and Glow" in the E. N. Wennberg Gallery, is similarly colorful and commanding. Composed of woodblock and intaglio prints, Gross' exhibit includes pieces that display large geometric shapes, exploring the interplay between two and three dimensions, according to the AVA website.
Like Jordaan's "In Bloom," Gross' exhibit represents a departure from her traditional work, which is generally less abstract than "Flip and Glow," according to Torjusen. Torjusen praised the artists for breaking out of their traditional mediums, emphasizing that "art is not static."
"That's very much what AVA's about allowing the artists to experiment and draw and show their work and let it grow," Torjusen explained.
The AVA show concluded with a return to intimacy: German artist Henrieke Strecker's exhibit "Late Songs" in Gallery 3. Even smaller than Jordaan's works, Strecker's photographs and photogravures draw the viewer in, literally, by forcing him to lean in close and examine the pieces up close.
The AVA Gallery's four new solo exhibitions opened May 14 with a special reception and will be on display through June 12. Gross will deliver an artist's talk about her exhibition on May 18 at 7 p.m, and D'Angelo on May 20 at 7 p.m.
