Molnar's 'Home' revisits personal spaces
Molnar, a studio art major with a concentration in painting, said she planned on studying studio art in college. Although she originally imagined pursuing other areas of study as well, Molnar said her focus on studio art increased with as she took more studio art classes at Dartmouth.
“Home” features four paintings that each represent a different place Molnar has lived and the experiences she has had there. Molnar began the series two years ago in a printmaking class at Dartmouth, and has worked on the collection up until last week. Molnar said the works in the series are “all places I’ve moved from and since returned to.” Her works aim to “construct abstract areas of depth and space,” she said.
Home I, the first in the Home series, depicts Budapest, where Molnar was born. Home II depicts Winston-Salem, N.C., where Molnar grew up and attended high school. Home III depicts Jersey City and New York City, places Molnar frequents when not at Dartmouth. Finally, Home IV depicts Hanover. Each piece is large in scale, the smallest 96 by 76 inches and the largest 100 by 88 inches. Molnar spent anywhere from two weeks to four and a half weeks on each painting.
Molnar said her works are “very emotionally driven,” and that she tried to capture certain feelings through her various color choices.
"The Home Series represents four discrete physical and mental places that I have repeatedly left and returned to," Molnar's said in her statement on the exhibit. "This process of revisitation generates complex relationships between memory, lived reality, and environment. By combining abstracted color fields and representational imagery, I aim to construct permanent spaces of depth within which memories of and associations with deeply personal locations can reside, as my own space remains in flux.”
In her final two terms at Dartmouth, Molnar will continue exploring studio art through her senior seminar and possibly an animation class. She plans to apply for an internship at the Visual Arts Center and later attend graduate school, she said.
The opening of the exhibit was celebrated with live music and refreshments in the Student Art Gallery space at the Visual Arts Center on Thursday.